Page 76 of Devour
“No—no!” I wave my hands in front of me awkwardly. “Of course not.”
“Then why the look of disgust?”
I don’t want to admit I find the butt plug, and all the other equipment in this room—completely awful. I can’t imagine any sane person using these things.
“It’s nothing… Mistress Tilly,” I mutter. She narrows her eyes and holds up a strange metal contraption.
“Then you can describe how this works at our next session.”
It’s a nipple clamp—two small clamps connected by a thin chain, with rubber-tipped ends that look like they were made to hurt. She had mentioned it earlier, but now she wants me to wear it. I stare at it, not wanting it anywhere near my nipples. Someone nudges me. I turn—it’s Lucia.
“Take it,” she whispers urgently.
I realize I’ve kept Mistress Tilly waiting too long, her hand still outstretched. She’s clearly pissed. I snatch the clamp from her hand, already regretting it. I think I just made an enemy on my first day.
A snicker echoes through the room. I don’t need to look to know it’s Livia. “Bitch,” I mutter under my breath. Mistress Tilly gives me a long once-over, her gaze sharp and full of warning. Great. Just what I needed—attention.
All I wanted was to stay invisible, keep my head down, and maybe, just maybe, find a way to avoid the auction. She returns to explaining the rest of the equipment, but her words become a blur in my ears. I can’t focus. I barely manage to keep my expression neutral until the session ends and we’re finally sent back to the dorm.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Luca
Vito’s head hangs low, slumped against his chest. Blood mixed with spit drips from his busted lip. One of his eyes is swollen shut.
He’s unconscious—I know that much, but I’m not letting up. Not until I get what I came for. Not until he tells me where my wife is. We’ve been at this since yesterday. The bastard is resilient.
I haven’t even started on Finn yet. If I tried to torture him, I’d probably kill him too quickly, but I have other ways. Cowards like him don’t need blades to break. They need fear. I plan to twist his mind until he begs to talk. He’s been watching this entire time, forced to see what I did to Vito. That’s step one.
“Shall we begin?” I say calmly, when what I am feeling is short of calmness, then douse him with a bucket of ice-cold water. The shock hits hard—he throws his head back with a gasp, sputtering as he comes to. I drag a chair over and sit across from him.
“Where were we?” His hand is already strapped to the table. Five blades are embedded beneath the fingernails of one hand, lined up like grotesque pins.
Now, I reach for the blade embedded in his middle finger and twist—slowly. He lets out a strangled scream as the nail begins to lift, but I barely hear him through the boiling rage in my chest.
“Where is she?”
“Fuck you,” he barks through gritted teeth.
I twist the blade deeper. Blood oozes from the nail bed. With a sharp tug, it tears free, hanging by a thread before I rip it off completely. He exhales in a broken gasp, but I’m just getting started. Two more nails come out before I stop.
“Are you tired already?” he pants.
“No. I’m just warming up.”
“Why don’t you kill me, then?”
He’s baiting me. He knows I can’t kill him. Not yet—not until I know where my wife is.
“You can’t,” he sneers. “You’re weak. Just like your father.”
“Don’t fucking talk about my father,” I growl, grabbing him by the collar.
“He was a cu—”
My fist crashes into his jaw. I don’t stop. I keep hitting until his head drops back, limp. With my fist still raised, he lets out a bloody, toothy laugh.
“That’s why he’s dead.”
