Page 88 of Taking

“Yes,” I heard myself whisper. About Gideon hating me. About giving me the world.

Gideon peeled another stripe off his father’s chest, and I didn’t grimace. Didn’t move as his hoarse screams filled the woodshed.

“Ask him if he killed your mother, princess.” Gideon’s voice held no hint of feeling, but the hair on my arms raised from the energy radiating off him, the bloodlust racing through his veins.

My breath came quickly, need of a different sort racing through me. For the first time, I didn’t consider our emotions or our desires sick.

I studied Lloyd’s knifed-apart body, unmoved by the fear in his eyes. I wanted to snuff it out. “Did you kill her?”

“S-she wasn’t right in the head.” He swallowed hard, shuddering. “I-I’d f-fallen so in love with you. I ached to be with you, for us to be h-happy together again.”

He’d stolen my innocence—and stolen her life.

Heat exploded in my gut. Rage flooded. Consumed like I expected it did Gideon. My body shivered as I soaked that feeling up, but I stepped forward.

“You never made me happy,” I hissed, shoulders curling inward, hands clenching at my sides. “You always took without asking. You raped me!” I screamed at him. “A sixteen-year-old girl. You forced me!”

“You w-wanted it.”

“Give me that knife, Gideon.” I held out my hand—steady as fuck—while keeping my focus on Lloyd’s face.

Missing a front tooth. Bloody. Haggard. Eyes wide and raging with fear.

The pommel slid along my palm without a word from its owner.

“You thought you could accuse me of disloyalty to him,” I whispered at my rapist through clenched teeth, my insides starting to tremble with the need to release my revenge. “The one man who desired to protect me. Well.”

I grabbed hold of the shriveled length that had made me bleed more times than I could count.

“W-what are you—”

One slice sheared it clear from his body, and Lloyd shrieked as I lifted the dangling flesh in front of his face.

“I’m taking revenge for both of us, you sick fuck.” I jammed his dick into his mouth—shoved my fist along behind it, same as he’d done to my young body. “Choke on your own dick, you worthless piece of shit.”

I rammed the thing down his throat.

Held his jaw in my hand, the knife at my side.

His dark eyes bugged. He tried to cough—

I dropped the knife and clamped his jaw shut tight, my hand grasping at his hair to keep his mouth closed. “Swallow that shit,” I hissed at his face, my pulse thrumming. Insides quivering. “Swallow it down like a good little girl,” I sneered, not recognizing my own voice.

He thrashed, but Gideon’s ropes held him tight. Seconds dragged…and still I stared into his eyes. Wishing I could bathe in every bit of panic and the haze coming over him.

Stilling.

Twitching.

No more attempts to cough…no more gurgling.

Not a goddamn noise.

Dark eyes dulled beneath a smoothing brow. Face went lax. His head became a dead weight in my hands.

“Princess.”

I blinked. Released my hold on Lloyd and jerked back—right into a hard body.

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