Page 100 of Servitude to Serpents

My heart wrenches as I face my girl. Those sad wide eyes are back, and fuck, if my vision doesn’t mist for it. “I want to,” she pleads, as if I would—as if Icoulddeny her this.

My hands dance along her flesh, leaving goosebumps in their wake as I position the rifle in her hands. My lips are unable to refrain from tasting her neck as she shudders. “How do you know I won’t use it on you?”

“No, no, no, no, you fucking whore! Don’t you fucking dare!” Julissa screeches.

I smile, but it’s a wrenched, painful thing as I place another kiss to her throat. “Kill your masters, baby. Do whatever you need to do, but know if you don’t put a fucking bullet in my skull, you’re never leaving my sight again.”

The three pops she puts in Julissa’s head rise above the others, and when the face of Rodney Sampson appears from behind a table, my pup sees it the same time I do, and God, the stunning creature doesn’t hesitate as she turns the gun on him. I watch as he panics, crawling away as she sprays bullets in his direction, missing.

Until she doesn’t.

She discards the gun behind her. I only barely manage to snag it as she walks toward him as he gurgles on the floor. My eyes scan the room, the rifle on a swivel. She doesn’t flinch as I drop two more men, ones who made the unfortunate move to point their guns in her direction.

Her slender back is exposed as her head peeks around the table where she’d been hunkered. I don’t know what she grabs until I watch her high heel press against his chin, forcing him to open wide. My eyebrows rise as she forces the long rod into his mouth, gagging the half-dead man.

It’s only when I hear her set the cattle prod off that I realize what it is. The scream that leaves her is primal, guttural, and so filled with pain, I know I’m in part responsible for it. When I reach out, pulling her away from the corpse, she’s sobbing. Not even her tears dim the fire in her eyes as she turns on me, slapping, hitting, and scratching. She screams all her betrayal, her pain, and I take it. I deserve far worse. Her beautiful eyes are on mine until she has spent herself, shoving off me and heading for the exit. I follow her, because I willalwaysfollow her.

I made that mistake once, but never again.

It took me too long to realize she owned me every bit as much as I did her, from the very start.

I lift my watch, ordering them to open the doors as she reaches them. I follow her into the night where a car waits, one I didn’t plan to be alive to use just moments ago. I snag her by the arm as she pivots, storming in the opposite direction. “Where are you going?”

Her blonde hair whips wildly in the wind as she steels herself in front of me. “Away from here! Away fromyou,anywhere fucking else!” She wrenches her arm,trying to get free, but I don’t let go.

I slam her to me instead, caging her to my chest as I jerk open the rear passenger door. “You’re not safe here. Get in the car.”

“I’m not safe! I’m not fucking safe? Now you care for my safety? You sold me! And when they came for me, you weren’t there!” She jabs my chest, and it might as well have been a blade. The guilt I feel is all-consuming. I want to let her vent, to take it all out on me, but there’s no time for it, not yet, not here.

She yelps as my hands capture the sides of her face. “You’re right! It’s my fault, and I don’t deserve you, much less your forgiveness. You were supposed to besafethere. I never knew. I am so sorry I didn’t protect you the way I should’ve. I am so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I sent you away. It was hell. It was fuckinghell,and I know I deserved every second.”

“They came for me,” she sobs.

I nod, pressing my forehead against hers. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“I missed you. I missed you so much, and I can’t fucking stand the sight of you.”

“Anything you want, demand it of me. Tell me how to begin to fix this.” The gravel in my voice takes us both back, but I mean it. Every word. God, I love her.

It stills her sobbing, her breath returning in hiccups, the moonlight on her tear-stained face breathtaking. “Kneel.”

I release her slowly; the eyes of my men bore into me as the gravel hits my knees, palms up, my head lowered. Forher.

I watch as her eyes widen, her chest heaving. “And if I wanted to go home? If I wanted to leave?”

Anger scathes my chest, rising in me, but I keep my tone even, if not a bit throaty. Damn that fucking lump. “I would ready the jet for you, take you anywhere you want. There are already enough funds in your account to keep you in luxury for the rest of your life.”

“I—"

I cut her off, my eyes leaving my upturned palms, and I let her see it: the warning in them, reminding her why she should’ve put a bullet in my skull when Igave her the chance, two more than anyone else has got. “But know, little pet, that I will be there, watching. If not beside you, then behind, in the dark, until I’m worthy to be at your side again.”

Her lips, part flush, creeping up her round cheeks.

“I'm asking, beggingfor you. I want you tochooseme. Not because you feel you must, but because it’s what youwant. Because it’s what you need. Because you’re what I need, desperately.”

“Y-you’re giving me a choice,” she whispers. “But I never wanted one, not from you.”

I nod, something indescribably warm filling my chest. “Get in the car, Chloe.”

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