I sat against the wall, staring blankly into nothing. Not thinking. Not feeling. Not existing. There was a grating gnashing sound which filled my ears, and it took me a while to realize it was me. My jaw ached from the violence of the shudders, cold clung tight. Even under Caleb’s thin shirt I was frozen…except for my throat. No, that burned, like I’d swallowed shards of molten glass.
But it wasn’t glass, that felt like fire. It was…it was…knowing Tobias was dead…and it was all my fault.
All my fault. The words resounded and I couldn’t stop them.
All my fault.
All my fault.
I closed my eyes.
All my—
“Ryth,” Caleb pleaded, his voice just as husky and raw as mine. “Say something.”
He rubbed his hands along my arms, trying his best to draw me back. But I couldn’t come back. I was trapped here, locked in Hell, where I wanted to scream and keep screaming and until I could kill the men who’d taken Tobias from me.
Your stepbrother is dead.
Your stepbrother…is dead.
Your stepbrother—
The snap of a lock came before Caleb’s hand clenched around mine. But I didn’t care. They could bring in anyone they wanted. It didn’t matter what they did to me. They couldn’t hurt me anymore than they already had.
“Out.” The sharp bark came.
Caleb rose in front of me. His raw words pushed into the ache. “Where are you taking us?”
He tried to protect me, tried to comfort me. It should be me comforting him. After all, it was his brother.
Little mouse…
Tobias’s voice filled me. I inhaled, reveling in the ache that followed.
Fight.
I flinched with the word and shook my head. I couldn’t fight. I was done with fighting. Why bother? I only ended up here anyway. In the place my mom had sent me.
“Now,” the guard demanded.
“Ryth,” Caleb croaked as his fingers brushed my cheek. “We have to go.” I opened my eyes, finding that tortured stare. “We have to go, princess.”
I slowly shook my head. “I can’t…you go. Just go, Caleb.”
Anger sliced through the pain. “Like hell I will.”
He leaned forward, grabbed me under the arms and heaved me from the floor, pulling me against his bare chest and lifted. I wound my arms around his shoulders and buried my face in his neck, sinking into the heat of his body. His muscles corded. His breath was a rush as he held me tight.
Your stepbrother is dead…
Your stepbrother is…dead.
I closed my eyes under the glare of the hallway lights and wound my legs tightly around him as he carried me from that room. The heavy thud of boots echoed before the click and thud of the automatic doors. Locked away. Just like I was before, only this time I didn’t have Vivienne.
I thought about her as we turned a corner and headed deeper into this pit of vipers. Did they find her? Did they drag her back to this place? Or was she free?
Free…free of what? There were more versions of this Hell out there. I was sure of that.
“Stop,” the guard growled.
I opened my eyes and glanced along the hallway to the other closed doors. But this wing didn’t look familiar. I tried to think, but my thoughts were slow and murky, hidden somewhere under the heavy throb at the base of my skull. The guard opened the door and stepped aside, motioning for us to enter a room.
Caleb stepped inside, scanning the room without so much as a snarl of anger. His hold tightened under my ass, drawing me harder against him. I hadn’t forgotten that he was living on borrowed time, that any moment he’d be taken from me, just like Tobias.
Right now, we had a better chance at surviving if we complied. The door closed with a bang behind us. We both flinched and I lowered my feet to the floor.
“There’s warm clothes here.” Caleb pulled away, leaving me with that chattering sound in my ears. He crossed the room, sinking into the gloom, and returned. The red light blinked from the corner of the ceiling. I knew without a doubt they were watching our every move.
“I’ll take care of you.” Caleb reassured as he came back to me. He reached up, grasped his shirt and pushed it off my shoulders. I caught the wince as he stared at the red negligee. The one Killion had ripped from me before he…before he…
My teeth gnashed harder.
“Easy now,” Caleb urged, moving to stand in front of me.
His dark eyes bored into mine. He knew what he was doing, shielding me with his body as he reached up and slipped the straps of my negligee down. “You shouldn’t have to wear this. None of you should have to wear this.”
He knew…
He knew.
I stared into that dark abyss and saw the truth. Of course he knew. How many? I wanted to ask the question. How many women wearing white, black, and red had he seen?
But I couldn’t hear the truth. The blow of that would be too brutal.
So I let him slide the straps down and move close, covering me with his body instead as he slipped my hands into the fleece sweatshirt and pulled it down.
I found that blinking red light again as he sank to his knees, pushing the negligee low. Cold moved between my thighs as satin and lace fell around my feet until Caleb dropped his head forward, resting it on my stomach. His breath hitched as desperation flowed out of him. The sound of that was more wounding than anything they’d ever done to me. I lifted my hand and ran my fingers through his hair.
The touch so tender…
And more powerful than a bullet.
His hands slid along the backs of my thighs to grip my ass. The kiss was tender on my stomach, then a brush of his lips on my abdomen…electricity coursed through me as he looked down.
“Christ, you feel good,” he murmured, lowering his head to kiss the top of my mound, then he stopped. His brow furrowed before he pulled away. I winced at the brush of his hand on my hip. “Does this hurt?” He lifted his gaze.
The muscles of his jaw flexed as I nodded.
He swallowed and turned back, sliding his hand over my thigh. As though he marked me by his touch alone. Mine…it said. Mine.
He’d beat that message into Killion by his fists alone. The image of that rose as he found every bruise and every scrape. He leaned in and brushed his lips against my tender flesh. I closed my eyes as he whispered. “Just let me take care of you.” And brushed the inside of my thigh.
“Caleb,” I whispered, my throat blazing to life.
“Just give me this, princess.” He gripped the backs of my knees and pulled me against him. I buckled, but he caught my fall, lowering me to the floor.
He cupped the back of my head and kissed me. I closed my eyes, engulfed by the warmth of his mouth. He was hungry. So goddamn hungry, and I was an empty well he could fill by his mouth alone. My ass hit the cold, hard floor before he pushed me back.
That’s how it was with Caleb. Dark. Desperate. Consuming, until there was nothing else but him.
He broke the kiss, sliding his hands over the warm fleece of the gray sweatshirt until he pushed underneath the fabric. “I’ll take care of you,” he whispered. “Just let me…give you what you need.”
He lowered his head, pressing his face against my breasts. I melted at the brush of his fingers over my nipples, my body taking over from my mind. Yes…I closed my eyes as his hands travelled down, skimming over my thighs until he stroked my core.
“Watch me, princess. Watch us. The way I sink into you. The way I work your body.”
He pulled me back from the emptiness, making me look down. In the gloom, my focus sharpened, finding his fingers as he slid them over my clit.
“I’ll take you away from here…” he promised. “The only way I know how.”
I trembled with the intensity of his words, watching as he slowly sank his fingers inside me.
“Jesus,” he panted, biting his lower lip. “Christ, you’re a good girl. Look at how good you are.”
Everything melted away with the touch of his hand. There was no room, no blinking red light. There was just this. Just us. I lifted my hips as he slowly thrust, stoking that spark to life. His fingers thrust, glistening in the faint light before he pulled them free, lifted his fingers to his mouth, and sucked.
“That’s the way, little sister,” he panted, sliding his fingers back inside me. “Give me this.”
I clutched hold of his shoulders and rode his touch as Caleb slid his finger along my slit and lowered his head, kissing me.
“I want to eat you out,” he murmured. “Will you let me, princess?”
“Yes,” I panted. “Yes…”
He held my stare and lowered his mouth to my core, licking, probing. Making me feel things I shouldn’t feel, not with the weight in my chest. Tobias’s face rose as my desire grew. It was that same hard stare I saw in Caleb’s. That savage, ravenous need. The same one that made him hate me…until we were consumed by his rage.
I moaned and dropped my hand to the back of Caleb’s head, opening my thighs wider.
“That’s it.” Caleb sucked my pussy, making me writhe. “That’s my good fucking girl.”
I bloomed with the praise and the hunger swept me away. All I cared about in that moment was his mouth, his fingers, his cock…I wanted to be empty, to be used. I wanted to be used by him. “Caleb…”
“Let yourself go, Ryth.” He gripped my ass and sucked before adding his fingers. “You’re doing so well…so fucking well.”
His praise was wrong…
But fuck, it felt right.
I rocked my body with his thrusts, watching as his fingers disappeared inside me, chased by the warmth of his tongue. “So fucking well.”
My body clenched with his words. “Fuck me,” I moaned. “Please, I need you to.”
I drove his head hard against my core as lightning ripped through my pussy…and I came, hard. He licked and sucked, then lifted his head. In the gloom, the muscles of his throat worked as he swallowed. But there was that hard glint in his eyes. “You’re fucking mine, you understand that? You’re…mine. You go into the darkness, I’m right there with you. There’s no leaving me, Ryth. Not now, not ever…in this life, or the next.”
I sucked in hard breaths and felt those words.
He was scared.
More scared now than he’d ever been.
He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and reached behind him. “Lift your foot, little sister,” he urged, turning back with a pair of gray sweatpants. He worked carefully, slowly, more contented now. More…here. I was too. I was more here than I had been.
He slid my feet through the openings and pulled the pants higher. “Lift.”
I pushed trembling hands against the floor, holding myself higher as he slid the waistband over my ass and around my hips, settling at my waist.
“Your shirt,” I whispered, staring at his chest.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me.” Then he pushed up from the floor and walked over to a hospital table in the corner of the room. The crack of a bottle seal sounded as he came back and knelt beside me. “I need you to drink.”
The burn…the ache…it was all I felt.
“For me.” He pushed the bottle toward me.
I had no choice but to take it.
“Because I cannot lose you too.”
I swallowed the cold water, letting it run down the back of my throat until I coughed.
“Easy.” He rubbed my back and I was lost to the movement. “More,” he urged.
I swallowed again and pushed the bottle away. “Now you.”
If this was how I got through to him, then I would. He fixed that self-destructive stare on me. I knew the look well…but this was the only way we were going to survive…together. “You don’t drink, I don’t drink.”
He scowled, then reached up, took the bottle, and lifted it to his lips.
That’s it…drink.
He finished the bottle before rising and making his way across the room. My gaze was dragged back to that blinking red light in the corner of the ceiling before the sharp crinkle of plastic drew my focus.
Caleb strode back with a sandwich in his hand, then he held half out to me. “Now eat.”
My stomach clenched as panic and acid rose in the back of my throat. “No.” I shook my head and met his gaze. “No. Not the food.” Memories assaulted me from the first time they’d dragged me here. “You can’t trust the food.”
He just lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite. His jaw worked as he chewed and swallowed, waiting…
You can’t trust the food…
