Page 84 of Twice as Twisted

“She ran, didn’t she?” he asks.

I shrug. “We went to the store. I wanted her to feel at home here, with all her favorite things.”

“You don’t have to protect her from me,” he says. “I’ll never go too far with Mabel. I have more self-control than that.”

“And with Jane?” I ask.

“There is no Jane,” he says simply, setting his gun on the table. “There never was.”

Mabel emerges then, fresh-faced and red-cheeked from the shower, a towel clutched around her. Her wet hair is pulled up into a tight bun, severe as the nuns’ at our private school in Manhattan, or at Thorncrown. I glance at Baron, wondering what he thought when I told him that. Why shouldn’t I fuck a nun, though? It’s something different, and he knows I need that.The girls all run together, and after a while it gets boring. It wasn’t even fun anymore. I got to a point where I was doing it for other guys, to say I did it and add another tally mark, more than for the girl.

That thought only fucks with my head more. If I said something like that to Baron, he’d take it the wrong way. Hell, probably anyone would. It sounds wrong even to me, and if I tried to explain, I’d just fuck it up worse.

Baron draws me down to reality with a single word, and my gaze snaps to the girl standing in the kitchen doorway.

She turns to run, but Baron leaps at her, grabbing her shoulder and dragging her back into the room. She shrieks, but his hand clamps around the front of her throat, and he crushes her back against him.

“You ran.” He grins over her shoulder at me before leaning in and whispering in her ear. “You knew there would be consequences.”

“I didn’t run,” she gasps out.

“Don’t lie,” he purrs. “I have your location. I know where you were. I always know where you are, Mabel Darling.”

When he releases her, she jumps forward, arching away from him like she used to when someone touched her. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m standing in the doorway, blocking her from the hall. My demon is crowding me out, writhing with happiness at the prospect of taking over. I feel him creeping in like the flames, eating up the frayed endings of my nerves, the blurred edges of my mind.

Mabel glances over her shoulder at Baron and then back to me. I grin at her, and she knows. She knows that once he’s in control, there’s no help for her in my arms. I don’t have the strength to wrestle them both, and I’ve been fighting him since I left Jane, trying to ignore his whispers, his urges.

It’s time to give in.

“There’s nowhere to hide,” I taunt. “Nowhere to run.”

Her eyes widen, and she casts her gaze around the small kitchen, searching for a way out. But she’d have to go by Baron to reach the front door, and she won’t do that. My cock stiffens in my jeans at the thought of touching her again, feeling her body squirming inside my grip, her heart hammering out its terrified rhythm against mine, her lips stretched wide while she screams.

Baron strolls over, unhurried, unconcerned. “Hold her still.”

I step forward and grab her. She shrieks and tries to break free, but I spin her around and hook my arms under hers, pinning her back to my chest so she’s facing Baron. My demon revels when Baron stops in front of her. He gives her towel one sharp tug, and it falls away, baring her scarred, trembling body. She looks even smaller and more fragile now, naked and cowering with fear while we stand over her, each of us fully clothed and fully capable of single-handedly overpowering her. Like a cornered animal just realizing it will never be anything but prey, she shrinks down, keening and helpless.

My demon wants it all, the screams and chaos, the blood and cum, the tears. He wants to see it all unfold, to see this polished stone of a girl fall apart, to witness her in all her glorious disarray. He wants her punishment as much as she does.

She must, or she wouldn’t have run, knowing the consequences as well as she does.

Baron stands before her, holding her gaze while he unbuckles his belt.

Her breath hitches, and she presses back into me, as if she can merge with me, disappear inside me. But my demon is already inhabiting my body, billowing up like smoke to cover my other senses, and he savors every moment of her trembling terror.

“No,” Mabel cries, starting to twist and shake harder in my grip. “Please, Baron, don’t. I’m not—I can’t—”

Before she can finish, he grips her thighs and lifts them around his hips, barreling into her without preamble. She screams, that ear-piercing wail of pure, raw agony, the one that feeds Baron’s soul.

My demon laughs.

“You can,” he growls. “And you will.”

When he drives deeper into her, she writhes in pain, her head falling back against my shoulder in a desperate attempt to rise off him, to spare herself the torture of taking his size. She claws frantically at him, at me, ugly sobs choking out of her.

In one bright flash, I see myself lifting her, turning her away, shielding her from his violence with my body. But as quickly as the thought “I can’t do this,” appears, it’s gone, replaced with the side of me that knows I can, and I will, just like Mabel. Just like I did the first time Dad brought me a girl, and the first time he brought me to Thorncrown, and the first time Baron told me what we’d do to break the girl in my arms. I’ll hate myself for it later, but I’ll do it, and I’ll love it. I just have to let myself.

The demon promises me that, his whispers as seductive as Mabel’s cries. So I slide down inside, let him rise like he’s wanted to for so long, take me over, show me the thrill in this. And he does, his relief washing over me, his wild hunger and manic joy filling the dead spaces that lay fallow for months. He’s making up for lost time now, glutting himself. But it’s not just his relief—it’s mine. Maybe Colt was right. The demon isn’t separate from me. In stifling him, I’ve fractured myself. He’s half of me, just like Baron. Mabel always understood that, accepted it, just as she accepted that my brother and I are a package deal.

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