Page 22 of Cruel God

I looked at her, a storm raging within the amber hues of her eyes. And there was only one thing that would calm the hurricane threatening to break her from the inside out…and that was to be reassured by me. She needed to know that she had done right by me. That she had given me what I wanted by proving that I was her everything. But what she didn’t know—and probably never would—was that she had done so much more than that. She chased away the demons for a few moments, and that made me realize she held more power over me than I’d ever care to admit. No man in my position should ever allow anyone to have such a close hold around his throat. Yet there was a faint voice inside my head telling me to let her have it—to give her that power as it’s all I would ever be able to give her.

I pushed back from the window frame and straightened. “Turn around, Butterfly.”

Moving her bare feet, she slowly turned around. A soft gasp rolled over her lips, and I knew it was because of what she saw. And my chest fucking ached over the fact that seeing something as simple as the moon had the power to render her breathless. It was times like these that I hated what this life was doing to her. How the depravity of the Cain men had corrupted her mind and stole her soul. I was such a goddamn hypocrite because once I had my cock buried in her sweet cunt again, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck about her broken mind and only care about her belonging to me, and me alone.

I moved her long hair over her shoulder and leaned down, peppering kisses softly below her neck, nestling my cheek against her ear. “You may stay here as long as you like,” I whispered before turning around and walking away.

No one had access to this floor except me. There was no way she’d find a way out or anyone else finding a way in, which was why I allowed her this freedom without worry.

With every step, I felt the weight of this life pushing me into the goddamn ground. Everything I had done, everything I still had to do—it all jackhammered me straight to fucking Hell.

“Thank you, master.”

I froze, staring at my bedroom door as the sincerity in those three words slammed through my fucking heart. It had me sucking in a breath because my heart squeezed against my lungs, my chest breaking in half.

Hope’s fingerprints on my soul were such a contradiction. It had me feeling things I thought impossible for a man like me, yet it had me willing to become the monster who would slit a thousand throats for her.

Without replying, I walked into my room and closed the door behind me. I rested my back against the door, feeling exhausted and completely drained. What happened tonight was just more proof that losing this woman would destroy me…which was why I could never let it happen. Ever.

A shower at dawn did nothing to rid my mind from the thoughts or memories of what happened just a few hours ago outside my bedroom in that goddamn hallway.

I didn’t sleep at all, tossing and turning for hours, trying to get her fucking face out of my head. The moonlight shining on her already toxic beauty was a picture so powerful, I couldn’t shake it. The way it felt while she sucked my cock—fuck, I couldn’t explain it, or make sense of it. It wasn’t the first time I had shoved my dick down her throat, but this time was different. It felt like the closer I came to the end game—to finally ensure that no one could ever take Hope from me, the more intense my obsession with her became.

As I stood in front of the mirror straightening my tie, I didn’t recognize the face that stared back at me. I couldn’t remember the last time I recognized the boy my father created a monster from.

Leaning closer toward the mirror I examined the tiny mark just above my eyebrow. I would never forget the day I got that scar. It was a Tuesday night just after my seventeenth birthday. I was exhausted from thegiftsmy father had brought to my room the night before—birthday gifts that walked, talked, and breathed. Gifts that had a fucking pulse. But as my father had put it, those girls lived solely to please men. They had been marked by the number on their wrists to show the rest of the world what they were. Nothing. They had no identity. No will. No family. No life. They were nothing but empty vessels who existed for us—the men who ruled the goddamn world.

Chapter 8

Past

Iwas lying on my bed when my father came storming in, dragging a woman by her hair, and throwing her to the floor on her knees in front of me.

“I heard this bitch talking to one of the others, telling them how fucked up and twisted we are. How she wouldn’t think twice about stabbing us both in the heart if she was given a chance.”

I looked at the crying woman, her red hair a bunch of knots around her face, and her trembling lips already bleeding. Her entire body shuddered, tears and snot covering her face.

My father stepped closer. “I need you to deal with this one, son.”

“How do you want me to deal with her?” I got up from my bed, eyes never leaving the crying woman.

“She needs to be taught a lesson.”

“Judging by her bleeding lip and bruised arms, I’d say you already taught her that lesson.”

Victor’s glare shot up to me. “She threatened to kill us both. Do you honestly want to tell me that you think a simple beating is punishment enough for her?”

Just the look in my father’s eyes told me that the question was rhetorical.

I swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”

My father looked down at the girl, a wicked grin curling up in the corners of his mouth. “I want you to wrap your hands around her throat and slowly choke the fucking life out of her.”

My heart stopped just as it tried to leap up my throat. The chill that wracked through me was bone-deep, my legs weak and arms numb. Panic and fear made the perfect cocktail for nausea that churned inside my stomach as I stared at the evil that burned in his eyes. An ice-cold sweat instantly spread down my neck and back as the threat and command hung like smog around us. It suffocated me, filling my lungs with its poison.

“Father, you know I can’t-”

“Think, boy,” he warned. “Think long and hard before you finish that sentence.”

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