Page 39 of Whispers of Ruin

“In no fucking world do you get to talk about my father! You know nothing about him—you know nothing about my life!”

I hear him chuckle, low and amused, like my outrage is nothing more than entertainment.

“Oh, but I do, Mira. I know everything about you. I know the exact order you eat your breakfast. I know what movies you watch when you’re sad, which oat ice cream flavor you reach for when you’re happy. I know you secretly dream of living in the world ofHarry PotterorStar Wars, that you have felt misunderstood since the moment you could form a thought, and that the second alcohol touches your lips, you transform into fuckingCéline Dion. Nothing slips past me. Least of all,you.”

Tears slip down my face effortlessly. Sorrow? No, not quite. Sadness? His comment about my father cut deep, but I was not exactly kind either. Fear? No. I have come to understand that fear excites me, that Ineedit to feel truly alive.

It’s something else entirely.

Then it hits me—it’sjoy.

Joy that someone sees me,trulysees me. That someone knows me in ways I did not even know I wanted to be known. That someone pays attention to the smallest, most insignificant details of my existence. Joy in the way he makes me feel free—paradoxically—even as I am bound to his will. In the way he drags me into experiences I never imagined possible, into a world where I feelmore.

“Xan… Hit me again.”

His body goes rigid behind me, every muscle tensing in an instant. He clearly did not expect that. Hell,Idid not expect that. Though for once, I silence the voice in my head that tries to analyze, to control every outcome. Instead, I listen to a force deeper, primal which tells me to trust him. To trust that he will know exactly how far to take me—not too much, not too little, just perfectly enough.

A shiver rolls through my chest, spreading like wildfire, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Sparks crackle beneath my skin, a dizzying rush of electricity coursing through my veins, between my legs and it is exhilarating. Addictive. I wantmore.

I want him toruinme. I want to be shattered, undone, left trembling beneath the supremacy of his touch and the power of his control.

“Are you going to hit me, or should I wait for the corpse to do it for you?”

The first strike lands before I have even finished my sentence. Then another. And another. Each one sharper, each one searing through the flesh like fire licking at bare nerves. My breath hitches, stolen by the vigor of it, by the brutal poetry of pain unraveling across my body.

“Show me,” I whisper, trembling but certain. “Show me how wicked I’ve been. Show me how much you want me to regret walking away from you.”

The punishment continues, relentless, merciless. My curves hums with the sensation—sharp, stinging, alive. It takes me a moment to realize that the warmth trickling down my skin is mine, that the crimson staining my body is not his nor from the dead man beside me.

It is me.

My shell breaking beneath the weight of his fury. Even so, I make no move to leave. I want more. I want to be stripped bare under his hands and remade by the violence of his need.

His heartbeat crashes against mine, thundering in the silence, like an impending cyclone ready to destroy everything in its path. Every muscle straining with desire, as if he is teetering on the brink of insanity. His voice, barely more than a rasp, drips with frustration and hunger.

“Be careful what you wish for, Mira,” he murmurs, the words coated in dark warning. “You will regret this, just like you regret your actions right now.”

I don’t care. I feel it now—this deep, burning need that surges through me like a tidal wave. I am lost to it. I need him, I want him, and I know there is no turning back. The ache inside me only intensifies, drowning me, pulling me deeper into a whirlpool of raw, uncontrollable passion.

I hear the sharp sound of his zipper tearing open, his cock finally released, exposed.

“Fuck, you know you’re leaving me with no other choice, little fox. If you were not so damn beautiful, so irresistibly hot, and so fucking stubborn, I wouldn’t be pushed to do all of this to you.”

“Do what needs to be done. Even if it destroys me. I’ve already made peace with the pain.”

I turn to him, desperate to see his face, his reaction. Again, the mask stands between us, an impenetrable wall. That damn mask. The one I had momentarily forgotten in the mayhem of this night. My eyes search for his, though all I can find isdarkness. I want to believe he is looking back at me, that he sees me, really sees me.

“Maybe I’m overstepping,” I whisper. “But this… whatever this is between us… it cannot truly exist if you keep that barrier forever…”

A silence so dense it threatens to crush the air from my lungs hangs.

“I know.”

The heaviness of it crushes me. Not just the words, but the way he says them. Like a man bound by chains he cannot break, no matter how much they cut right into his bones. Maybe he does not want to break them. Maybe he believes he can’t. But I feel it. The sorrow just beneath the surface, the war raging inside his heart, the torment of a man who has been trapped for too long. A man who doesn’t know what it is like to be free.

I wish I could lift this burden from his shoulders, strip away the weight he carries so relentlessly—but I know he is not ready. And I respect that. What I know, with absolute certainty, is thatIam ready. Ready to take the last part of my punishment.

I arch my back, pressing myself against his dick, dragging my ass over the hardness that I know is meant for me. An offering. A challenge. A plea. I cannot endure the wait any longer. I am so overwhelmed with desire that merely imagining what he might do to me pushes me to the verge of delirium.

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