Page 70 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

Deathwish.

From his collection of brands, Eros had chosen to mar Allister’s flesh with his own name.

The dark prince stepped up to his prisoner and punched him in the gut so hard, my own bones rattled from the force of the blow. The chain rattled and the vampire’s head lolled back on his shoulders, black blood spewing from his mouth as he wheezed and coughed.

“Don’t fucking speak to her unless she asks you a question, Boston Coven trash,” Eros snarled, his command laced with a warning that sat heavy in the air; a brutal promise for what was to come.

Composing himself, Eros twisted to face me. A fresh splatter of Al coated his tattooed torso, the grim reaper’s blade coated with dark blood as if it had drawn it itself.

His skin was slick with sweat and gleamed in the glow of the firelight. He was so perversely beautiful, it hurt to look at him. But something I was learning about myself was that I was a bit of a masochist because I couldn’t look away.

His lips twisted in a grin, his snake bites twitching with the movement. Then he dug into the pocket of his camo pants and extracted his phone, glancing at the screen before placing it on his workbench. “The sun is going to come up in about five minutes, doll. That means you have a choice.”

“A… choice?” My palms began to sweat with nerves.

“The basement door is on an automatic timer. When the sun rises, it locks. It won’t open again until sundown. You can leave now, and come back at night. But there won’t be anything left of our friend Al here. He’s not surviving the day.”

My heart began to pick up pace again, as I was beginning to see where this was going.

Eros stepped closer to me, his scent of metal and cloves wrapped around me tight like a vice. Heat radiated from his body and when his thumb came up to stroke the edge of my jaw it was all I could do to keep myself from melting.

“Or you can stay. Take out your retribution, Ruby. He deserves to feel your wrath. Make him scream and beg for forgiveness for daring to lay his unworthy hands on the princess.”

My gaze went to the torturer’s bench and my mind went wild with all the ways I could make Allister pay for trying to rape me. I knew I wouldn’t get the same enjoyment for dealing out pain on the same level as Eros, but fuck, did I want to make this asshole hurt. I’d killed his coven mate so quickly, it left a pit of regret in my stomach. They both deserved to suffer for touching me like they did. If my vampire abilities hadn’t come to my own rescue with Corry swiftly following suit, they would have raped and fed on me. Then they probably would have brought me to this Dagon Knight person.

Who knows what he had planned for me.

Making Allister suffer, with the added bonus of potentially getting him to spill what he knew about our mole, was worth spending the day locked in with Eros.

I reached to grab a dagger from the bench, my fingers closing in on the leather hilt but Eros grabbed my wrist and held it in front of us, with the knife glinting between us.

“Wait. Think harder about your decision.”

“I want to stay,” I gulped. His fingers cinched tighter around my wrist, squeezing a small moan-laced wince from me.

His brows twitched with thinly-veiled surprise and his lips curved into a devilish smirk. He jerked me against him, my body flush against his hard, muscular mass. His mouth grazed the shell of my ear, making me shiver against him as he whispered, “Maybe you can survive my world. You have the scent of a virgin but your pussy weeps with an even stronger scent. It’s practically begging for me. No woman has ever been in here, seen the real me, and then looked at me with desire.”

“I want to stay,” I repeated on a shaky exhale. “I have seen the real you and I’m not afraid.”

No, I wasn’t afraid. I wasenthralled.

I felt Eros’ chest rumble against mine with a guttural purr that seemed to call to something deep inside me. “Understand that if you stay with me, I’m not going to want to sleep, little doll. I’m going to want to show you every bit of my world.”

“But I’ve seen your world,” I blinked, pulling back to meet his hunger-banked gaze. I had already seen him literally torture a person. What more was there to see?

“You’ve seen the worst of it. I want to show you the best of it,” he said on a purr-like growl. With the knife still held between us, he guided my hand so the blade was pressed against my cheek. My breath caught in my throat as I felt the cold metal cut into my flesh. “Stay, and I’ll make you bleed. I’ll make you cry, and writhe, all while you beg me for more.”

He dragged the blade down my cheek, a shallow cut slicing across my skin. The scent of my blood tinged the air and Eros’ pupils dilated. He leaned forward, his lips pressing a kiss to where he’d cut me. His tongue, hot and wet, slid over my flesh, and he let out the most deliciously erotic growl when my flavor hit his taste buds.

Then I felt it. The wound was lacing up on its own.

He pulled back, held the dagger up, and licked the blade clean of my ruby-red blood, uncaring that he drew some of his own in the process.

His eyes fluttered closed and his chest rose with a great inhale like he was trying to center himself. “Bleeding fucking hell, you taste so damn good.”

“Run little girl,” Allister taunted from across the room. “He’s gonna carve your pussy up! He’ll drain you dry! Leave the torture to the real fucking vampires.”

He was trying to scare me off. But his words had the opposite effect. In any case, I’d already made up my mind.

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