PART ONE
Ashes
“Into this wild abyss, the wary fiend stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while.”
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
time in a sex club. Though she had heard about them, she knew many girls who were taken into them, she had somehow never found herself there.
And Moonflame was as upscale as it could get. Her buyer for the night, a gray-haired man with an expensive watch and a nice suit, held her waist as he led her down the corridor and into the wide open hall. It was dripping with luxury, from the chandeliers on the high ceilings to the velvety red couches to the gleaming wood. It was luxury she glimpsed in her darkest moments, only to return to nothingness.
Lyla watched people in various stages of undress sitting around the lounge areas, simply talking and sipping their drinks, some men and women wearing masks while some of the girls and boys remained bare-faced. It was a party for those who could afford it, and Lyla could feel the power pushing at her from all sides.
Swallowing down her nerves, unprepared, she followed the man as he guided her to a door at the other end of the luxurious hall. He had been a smart one—he hadn’t bid on her at the auction. Instead, he’d come straight to the complex she lived at and purchased her for a year, and Lyla was terrified because she didn’t like the sadistic look in his eyes, and she didn’t know if he even knew about her new contract. He usually just watched the auctions, so she didn’t know how he could know of a deal that went through during the day.
Dressed in a black gauzy chiffon dress that tied at her waist, without any underwear, she dreaded what was to come of the night as the gray-haired man led her into an auditorium of some kind. There was a stadium-like arena with couches on elevated levels at her back, people on them watching. But instead of an empty middle area, there were tall red walls lining it up, only one opening in the middle for entrance.
It was a maze.
Before she could even grasp the full sight, the monster at her side turned her to the audience, tugging her dress open so her breasts popped out to their lecherous gazes.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced. ‘Whoever catches my slave tonight gets a chance to play with her.’
Horror ripped into her, her eyes flying over the masked and unmasked people. They were sick. Every single one of them. So sick.
‘No.’ The word escaped her before she could control it, and she felt a large hand strike her cheek.
‘You don’t speak, girl!’
Skin burning, she looked down at his feet, her brain warring with anger and pain and disgust, knowing she was helpless to stop this. The monster pulled her hands tightly behind her back, tying her wrists up with some kind of rope that abraded her skin.
‘Run,’ the monster slapped her burning cheek lightly. ‘Save yourself for a few minutes before we find you.’
Adrenaline filling her veins, she didn’t wait a moment before darting into the maze, escaping the eyes on everyone. The walls closed in around her, a head higher than she was, enough to keep her hidden from the watching eyes. She took a deep breath, looking both ways, before darting to her right and running full speed until she came to a dead end. Chest heaving, half her dress undone, she pivoted to the left, with no clue where she was going, just wanting to run and escape, but the powerlessness of knowing there was no escape made her eyes burn.
She hated them.
She hated every single one of them for making her feel inhuman.
The tears stung her burning cheek, going down her jaw and falling, as she turned and ran.
She heard the laughter around her, heard some of the voices closer than they should have been, and the walls closed in on her even more. She couldn’t even stop and hide herself, knowing they could see her from their seats above, and god she wanted to kill them all, completely destroy them for treating her like this. She’d done nothing to deserve this. Nothing.
After a minute or an hour, she didn’t know, she turned left and came to a stop, looking at a little opening in the middle of the maze. From where she stood, she could see around the entire auditorium, and she realized she was in the dead center, in the visibility of others. There were five men on the couches above, one of them getting his dick sucked by a girl, two of them fucking a girl, the other two jerking each other off. A masked woman sat on another side, watching the scene and getting eaten out by a girl.
So many people watching her be helpless, and none of them willing to find a shred of humanity to help.
Two men emerged from the other end of the maze, their masks keeping their faces hidden, and she braced herself as they came toward her.
Heart in her throat, she watched as they grabbed her arms and dragged her to the middle of the room even as she struggled to get away, her struggles futile. Seconds passed, the men talking to each other in a foreign language, their hands tight on her biceps.
Defeated, she closed her eyes, and prepared herself to lose.
And suddenly she heard it.
Gasps and screams rang out in the air, and she opened her eyes, blinking, unable to understand why everyone who’d been watching seemed to be rushing out.
Her buyer, the gray-haired monster, sat on a couch, his throat slit open, red drenching his white shirt. Lyla watched, aghast, as the others ran out from an exit just as a blade flew and embedded itself into the neck of one of the men holding her. Something warm splattering on her breasts, the grip on her arms loosening, Lyla looked down at the blood on her body in shock. The other man holding her left and began to run, only to have a blade embedded in his back.
Terrified, filled with a deep-rooted instinct for survival, she jumped back into the maze, and pressed herself into the wall, running toward relative safety. Whoever had issues with her buyer, she didn’t want any part of it. Knowing she was visible from the elevated ground, she somehow managed to crouch and run, making herself as small as possible, her breaths heavy as her arms strained behind her back in the restraints.
Finding a corner away from the direct line of sight of the seating area, she straightened, catching her breath, her eyes wildly scanning for any danger.
And she felt a blade touch the nape of her neck.
Stilling, her body fraught with tension and her heart fraught with fear, she froze.
The blade traveled down the line of her spine, the sharp point just on the surface of the skin. A little pressure and it would rip her open. She closed her eyes, the sensation inducing fear and something else inside her, hoping against hope the killer didn’t torture her.
She felt a warm, tall body press into her front as the blade kept traveling over her back, and she clenched her eyes shut, her arms shaking.
A breath on the side of her neck, the scent of something familiar in her nose, and the voice of death in her ear.
‘Eyes, flamma.’
Her eyes flew open, shock, something else filling her system as she tilted her head back.
Devilish, mismatched eyes locked with hers through a mask, and her breath caught.
He’d come.
He’d come for her.
He’d killed for her.
Lyla began to sob, intense, acute relief flooding her body.
As his blade ripped through the restraints holding her wrists, she launched herself into his chest, feeling his body freeze and she clung to him, her tears wetting his shirt, his scent ensconcing her, his warmth chasing the chill from her bones.
She felt one of his hands hold her wrists behind her—similar to the restraints but somehow she didn’t feel bound—the other hand coming to grip her jaw. His thumb traced her lips before tracking the tears on her cheek, his gaze watching her cry in something akin to fascination.
His lips came to her cheek, his tongue darting out to lick her tears, before he pulled back, watching her with such innate possession she felt it in her marrows.
‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ she whispered in the space between their lips, her body overcome with the emotions she’d felt in the last few minutes.
His gaze intensified, and he leaned down, speaking right against her mouth, his words brushing her lips but barely, so close she felt them on her skin, a promise and the threat all in one sentence both claiming and capturing her.
‘I’ll always come for you.’
