Page 30 of Deviant Illusions

“Koukla.”

Thrust.

“Mou.”

There’s no space for air as he roughly drags my head forward. His thighs are rigid under my hands. The smaller pieces of wax melt and slowly trickle over my ass to my thighs as Kane comes. His fingers remain on my nose, and my vision blurs at the edges. My arms fall limp, and my head sways as he curls his fingers under my jaw. A line of spit keeps us connected as he pulls out of my mouth and spits down against my stinging lips.

“You always liked fire,” he says, letting me go.

My body is so focused on air that I don’t brace for impact as the chains clang against the floor and he calmly tucks his dick away. The smell hits me before anything else. Burning.

You always liked fire.

My lungs ache as the only air I’m able to get is tainted. The thick, gray plumes float over my body, only broken up by thebottom of his boot brushing my elbow as he steps over me. Kane doesn’t turn around. Turning onto my back, I watch him, and the small fire burning on the rug is in my periphery.

He’ll get something to put it out. It’s not big enough to cause damage yet, and he’ll come back.

But he doesn’t. He continues walking, and I flinch as the crackling turns to a roar. The flames dance, licking the edges of the walls, the floor, anything that it can reach. It slowly travels across the floor, eating up the vinyl and sending up black smoke as I scream, “KANE!”

The chains rattle as I force myself up and look for anything to get them off me or to stop the spread of the fire.

“KANE! COME BACK!”

My foot slips against something wet as I run to the other side of the room. The floor peels away, melting under the heat, and I drop to my knees as I attempt to pull the chains free from the leg of the bed. The frame is heavier than it used to be, and I pull the mattress to the edge to see a block of cement covering the base of the bed. Where there should be slats, there’s just gray fucking cement.

“KANE!”

My shoulder aches as I push my entire weight into the side of the bed to get it to move. It doesn’t fucking budge as the chain jolts around it. The wood is dented from the metal, and I sit on my ass, then plant my feet against the side panel, and pull on the chain like it will pull through the leg.

“Kane, please,” I sob as the flames get higher. Soot sticks to the walls and dirties the magnolia paint. “Please, come back.”

14

KANE

Ikeep checking the news outlets for any information on Delilah’s death. The fire has been reported and, from the information provided to the insurance, it hadn’t swept through the building. But there’s nothing about a charred body. I already removed any trace of Jeremy Fitch and he’s locked in the space below my parents, happily rotting away in the family crypt that I’ve found myself in.

Delilah couldn’t have gotten herself free. I spent my time slowly filling her bed with weights while she drooled my cum in her drugged stupor.

Fuck it, the demon will be alive.

Something settles in my chest at the thought of her escaping. It’s the best death she could have had, and it would have freed her from herself, yet I can’t stop the hope blooming of her still being here. Still existing and being my outlet.

The door to the crypt clangs against the stone pillar, and I don’t turn as the leaves rustle across the marble floor. I don’t know who’s meeting me today—Lennox or Rowan. Not until he stops beside me and pulls his collar to the side to show that there’s no burn mark.

“Little shadow,” Lennox rasps, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

I’ve felt a greater kinship with the uncle my mother acknowledged than anyone else in my family. The side of his lips lift a fraction, yet they don’t rise into a smile as he takes a deep, steady breath. “You’ve met him.”

It’s not a question but I nod, lowering my voice as though the evil entity that is Rowan Kobalt can appear.

“Yeah, he came when I was supposed to be meeting you. He wants me to work with him.”

Lennox nods once and gently traces my mother’s name etched into the gold plaque. “Isadora Kobalt.” He looks at me fully without removing his fingers from the Xandros portion of my mother’s name. “That’s what it should say, not Dora Xandros.”

My family history isn’t something that I know enough of where my mother is concerned. My father’s side of the family is simpler—an orphaned only child. A dream that most people aren’t aware they possess. As far as I knew, she wasn’t Greek. She also wasn’t forthcoming about her family inheritance including human trafficking, so who fucking knows what other secrets they have? The only person who has given me portions of the truth is standing beside me, but he acts more like a lovesick, grieving partner than a brother. Again, who knows, when I’d piss on Asher’s grave.

He leans forward to press his lips to my mother’s plaque. Then he offers his cheek as though she can do it back. Soft whispering fogs the front of the gold rectangle, and I realize that he’s talking to her. The weird fuck.

---