Page 97 of Seized to Sacrifice
‘Do you want to be the Beast again?’ she asked.
‘A part of me always will, but that’s because mindless killing is easier than being the man you need me to be.’ He frowned at her.
‘Why are you down here, Elle?’ he asked suddenly.
The change in his demeanor made her step back and he grabbed her arm so that she couldn't flee.
‘I've been a cunt to you,’ he said, ‘and yet here you are trying to make me feel better. Is it an apology you want or were you inclined to givemeone?’
She stood up straighter. ‘Neither, and, if you want me to apologize for what Gaila did, you’ll be waiting a fucking eternity. She did what she did because it was the only way to save you. She made a hard choice and perhaps it was the wrong one, but what's done is done. We can either move past it … or we can’t.’
‘Can you?’ he asked. ‘You don't know whose babe it is you carry in your belly. What if there’s someone else out there who you love better than you ever loved us?’
He saw her flinch and knew she'd been thinking along the same lines herself.
‘That would be impossible,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper.
‘Why?’
‘I could never love anyone else because my heart is not my own. I gave it to you three long ago. Nothing will ever change that; not enemies, nor time, nor even death.’
He pulled her hard against him.
‘Don't say things you can't take back,’ he said softly.
‘Never.’
He kissed her desperately, and Elle met his passion with her own, her tongue hesitantly gaining entrance to his mouth, making him growl with need.
‘I would have you here in this dungeon on piles of bones in the ruins of where I killed so many,’ he muttered. ‘It would be fitting, wouldn't it?’
If a part of him had thought that might deter her, he was wrong.
She moaned against his mouth, and he put his hand under the gown she now wore, cupping her between her legs and practically lifting her off her feet as he ground the heel of his palm into her mound.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, female?’ he asked. ‘To be taken by the Beast here in the darkness? Have him put his face between your legs and eat your cunt, your cries echoing through these caverns, the only pleasure this place has probably ever seen?’
‘Not the Beast,’ Elle whispered breathlessly. ‘You.’
She broke away from him and looked into the shadows behind her, her brow furrowing.
‘I thought you weren’t afraid,’ he mocked.
‘Not when you're with me,’ she whispered.
Grinning playfully, she skittered away into the gloom, and he set off after her, feeling an exuberance he’d not experienced in a good, long while.
He glanced at the torch in his hand, and, with a chuckle, he snuffed it out in the sand beneath his feet, plunging the entire place into obscurity.
He heard her gasp.
‘Afraid now?’ he asked, his voice carrying through the pitch black.
She didn’t answer, but he heard her all the same, and smiled at his unfair advantage because the Beast’s eyes could see well down here.
He saw movement to his left and made a grab for her, but she was already gone.
Thorne heard her giggle once more, but he kept silent, swallowing the laugh he wanted to let out because she was so very close.
