Page 38 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

I laid stiff against him, wondering what he was going to do.

“You first,” he murmured. I couldn’t keep back the shiver as his breath danced across my neck.

I'm not sure why I said my next words. Maybe it was the darkness that surrounded us, or the way I felt with his arms around me. For the first time in a while, I felt safe, like it wasn't really Paxton behind me, but someone I could spill secrets to. Maybe it was temporary insanity, but despite my best efforts, sometimes my weaknesses slipped from my lips.

"The rumors… Some of them were true," I began. Paxton's arms tightened around me. But he didn't say anything. And maybe that was why I kept going.

"The Demon wanted me..." I paused, trying to look back at that time in my life and be honest about it, for maybe the first time. "The Demon wanted me to be some sort of protégé. When I would refuse to participate, he'd force me to stand in the room and watch. Somehow he thought that if I watched, I’d develop the same cravings for blood and pain that he did."

Paxton was perfectly still against me.

"I saw unimaginable things. Things so dark they’d never be in a book. They’d never be in the scary movies that everyone seems to love so much. They’re unfathomable, because to commit those crimes, you would've had to lose every part of yourself. And no one wants to think about that. What it would really be like if we all were just empty, dark voids set on lighting the world around us on fire."

Paxton's fingers were stroking the skin where my shirt had ridden up. The act was soothing, not sexual in nature at all… just soothing. Which was what I needed right then.

"Sometimes, when he’d taken me out to where there weren't any people, the desire to destroy, or whatever it was that was inside him, would start to surface. And there wouldn't be anyone around us. There would just be me. So, sometimes I dream about that too," I said quietly.

He was quiet for a long time. "Did you always refuse to participate?" he finally asked in a gruff voice. Of course, that question brought out all the demons in my head, the imaginary ones my father had created in me.

"You said a truth for a truth," I told him quietly, unable to give that answer to him.

He pulled me closer and tangled his legs with mine, until it was hard to tell where I began and he ended.

"That's fine, little devil. You don't have to tell me all your secrets tonight." There was another long silence, so long that I thought he wasn't going to tell me anything. But just when I was getting up the nerve to kick him out of my bed, he spoke.

"My nightmares are about my mother. Of seeing her dragged to the floor in front of me and raped before she was shot in the head."

My breaths came out in shocked gasps. I'd seen flashes of pain in his gaze, but I never would have guessed that it was from something like that. I had a lot of questions. But no words came out.

"Seems like every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that room, listening to her screams. Listening to the grunts of the man that took her. I’d do anything to be able to cut those memories from my mind." His strokes across my skin quickened, like he needed the touch to center himself. "But it sounds like you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?"

I didn't answer, but I didn't need to. It felt…nice, to talk to someone else with trauma...as bad as that sounded. Everyone around me had always seemed to flit about their lives, escaping the darkness that had followed me since that fateful day as a child. You couldn't take comfort from someone made of sunshine when you had always been in the storm.

Behind me, Paxton's breaths lengthened, until I knew that he had fallen asleep. And I know I should've pushed him out of the bed, but I couldn't bring myself to.

Just for tonight, I whispered to myself.Just for tonight.

I found myself slipping into sleep despite my best efforts, wrapped in the warmth of his embrace.

And this time, I didn't dream.

10

Aurora

The next day, I woke up in an empty bed. I wondered if I’d dreamed my night with Paxton.

I showered, dressed, then sat around doing homework, nervous to leave my room until I had to get to class. What kind of misbegotten orgy might I wander into this time?

A servant knocked on the door to offer me breakfast. When she told me to follow her, I did, and she led me to a smaller dining room with a fireplace and a view of the campus. It was blessedly empty. I sank into one of the mahogany-and-crushed-velvet dining chairs and set up my laptop on the table. “Thank you so much. What’s your name?”

“What would you like to eat?” the woman asked, ignoring my question.

Operation Make Friendsin this house might take a while.

“What are my options?”

“We can make anything you like.”

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