Page 32 of Cruel Games

“Shut up, dog,” I growled back, letting electricity spark at the tip of the taser. “I’ll get to you soon enough.”

Zap!I brought the taser’s metal prongs down on Dingo’sabdomen, grinning from ear to ear as he tensed up like someone had—well, like he’d been electrocuted. Because he had. His teeth clenched, his muscles taut, his eyes wide, until I pulled the taser away and let him breathe. Before he had enough time to relax, I brought it down again, this time on his bicep, grinning wickedly at his obvious discomfort.

“How do you like it?” I whispered, bent over his body, my hair tickling the side of his face as I spoke the words in his ear. “It has a bit of a kick, doesn’t it?”

He groaned as I brought it down a third time on his thigh, dangerously close to his balls. “Fuck,” he hissed out from between gritted teeth, his eyes fluttering closed. “Fuck.”

“So eloquent,” I sang, tossing the taser back on the table as the battery flashed red. “Too bad I didn’t have time to charge that up. I could have had some real fun with your buddy here, Jackal.”

“Eat shit and die, bitch,” Jackal spat, rage growing in his voice. “Choke on fucking air.”

“Oh, if it were only that easy, Jackal,” I retorted, my bloodsingingwith the possibilities running through my head. I had so many options, and there was all the time in the world. “Actually, go ahead and open that mouth of yours. I have something to put in it.”

All of a sudden, those jaws snapped shut, and his eyes narrowed.

That was no fun.

I wanted to hear him scream. Beg. Plead for his life, and theirs.

“You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden, dog. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

I picked up the blade on the table and dragged it across his chest, tearing the fabric of his shirt, but no more, as he swore under his breath.

“No, this won’t do. I don’t think you’ve suffered enough to start on you yet.”

I turned to Dingo again, contemplating what to do next, when the idea struck me.

He’d looked to Coyote first. Clearly, he had a soft spot for that one. So, naturally, I turned to Coyote, too, and let a slow smile spread across my lips.

“Ah, Coyote, was it? How about you and I get acquainted?”

Coyote didn’t even look at me, his eyes trained on the floor like a dog who’d been caught in the garbage can. Jackal, on the other hand, began to struggle anew in his chains, the sound scraping across my brain like nails on a chalkboard.

Bingo.

I walked over to the man with the scraggly, longer hair that acted like a curtain, shielding him from the rest of the world, and straddled his lap, our breath mingling as I leaned in and gripped his chin with my free hand.

If he wouldn’t look at me, I’d fuckingforcehim to.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, dammit.”

His eyes slowly crawled up my throat, traveling over every inch of me so slowly, it felt likeIwas the one being scrutinized, inspected, measured. The knife in my hand felt worthless as he met my gaze, and I caught a glimpse of the beast lurking in the depths of his soul.

Whoever he was, there was a darkness there, and something familiar about the way he seemed to meet his fate with a kind of serene understanding. He wasn’t happy about the situation, but he didn’t let his emotions wreak havoc on his face.

Who are you? What are you?

Why do you stir things inside me?

Questions that would never be uttered from my lips, but that I wished to answer nonetheless.

I caressed the side of his face almost lovingly with the dull side of the blade, letting my eyes, and his, follow the path it took to the edge of his jaw. “You’re far too pretty to slice up. Maybe I’ll just poke a few holes in you instead.”

For emphasis, I jammed the blade in my hand into the flesh of his shoulder, only deep enough to draw a decent amount of blood, but not so deep he would lose the ability to move it. I wanted his muscles to twitch in pain every time he took a breath, but I wasn’t ready for him to die.

I just wanted them to suffer first. Was that too much to ask?

He lashed out and fought against the rope binding him to the chair, nearly unseating me as I threw my head back and cackled in his face. The snarls and snorts that left him sounded positively feral, and I felt a strange and unfamiliar—yet not—feeling pool low in my stomach.

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