Page 83 of Captive Souls

“That’s a little toxic,” she replied finally.

I shrugged in response. What did I give a fuck about toxicity? Me merely breathing, touching her, fucking her was toxic to her.

“And also incredibly romantic,” she added.

“This is not a fucking romance, Petal” I scowled.

My tone was brutal, mimicking my reaction to her words, violent and angry.

She didn’t even flinch.

She fucking smiled, crossing the distance between us to smoothly take the bag from my grasp. The brushing of her fingers against mine sent shockwaves to my dick, even though I’d touched and licked and tasted every inch of her. She was different now. Had new sweat covering her body, more life. I needed that.

“I beg to differ,” she said quietly. “Hold out your hand.”

Though I stiffened at the order—no one ordered me around—I replied on instinct.

She tipped the contents of the bag out, then I stared at what lay in my palm.

Cigarette butts, a bullet, a Tarot card depicting The Devil.

I’d already looked at what was inside the bag. I’d inspected each of the butts, understood that she’d collected and kept them from what I’d smoked, the bullet. This was the bullet her sister shot me with. The one she dug from my skin.

And The Devil.

Kept with things that were mine. It boasted what she thought of me.

That I was evil.

And she wasn’t wrong.

Piper

It didn’t bother me like it should’ve when he revealed he’d gone through my things. That he didn’t think it was wrong because he considered me his. And that I had no privacy with him.

Things that should have inherently unsettled and angered me about him and warned of the dynamics of a relationship that was already doomed.

Yet like any and all other behavior that should’ve and would’ve served as a red flag with anyone else, it only served to wrap me tighter in a feeling of safety.

“The Devil is a misunderstood card,” I told him, taking the card and looking at the illustration. My gaze went upward to where Knox was watching me with an iron jaw.

“It signifies feelings of obsession,” I whispered. “Also entrapment.” My fingers trailed along the edges of the card. “In the entire deck, The Devil is one of the few cards with two people on it.” My fingers ran along the figures on the card. “I believe it means those people are energetically linked. For better or for worse. It’s up to us. And if you want to get astrological, which I’m sure you’re going to turn your nose up at, The Devil is connected to Capricorn. Which I’m betting you are.”

Knox’s face remained impassive, neither agreeing nor denying. He probably didn’t even know his sign.

I’d ask for his birthday at a later date.

“Capricorns are perfectionists. Can be cold. Can give off a … daddy energy, for lack of a better term.”

My cheeks warmed as I said that, not entirely intending on it. But I wasn’t wrong, was I? Knox was ultimate daddy energy.

Knox’s brow lifted just a hair, and I swore I saw his mouth twitch.

“I may have daddy issues,” I blurted. “A lot of them. But I don’t mean it in that sense. I mean it in the sexual sense. I’m just going to stop talking now.”

I hadn’t intended on rambling for so long about a subject that many people rolled their eyes at and dismissed. Someone so rooted in logic and control didn’t likely take stock in Tarot.

“It’s silly—"

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