Desecrated Beauty (Twisted Fairy Tales #1) (9 page)

“Not this I won’t.” She pushed until he gave in and leaned back up putting some blessed space between them.

“Any more questions then?”

“Can you get off me?”

“Can you promise not to try and stake me again? I’d prefer to trust you. But you wouldn’t like the option where I don’t.”

“What’s that option?”

“I lock you up in the dungeon.”

“You have a dungeon?”

“I have a basement, it’s the same thing isn’t it?”

“Does your basement have chains and a cell?”

“Just chains.” He grinned devilishly before moving off her quickly. Quill took a deep breath and sat up, touching her heart where it pounded so loudly against her chest.

“Will I see you for dinner?”

“Do I have a choice?”

He grinned in a way to suggest that no she did not but didn’t say anything as she sat up completely and pulled herself off the bed. His eyes swept over the bits of exposed skin as she did, a pool of longing forming low in his belly. Patience might’ve been something that came with time, but it didn’t come easily when he wanted something as bad as he wanted her.

To his complete disappointment, she pulled her robe tight around her and walked to the door, not saying anything else to him as she left. He picked up the pieces of the stake, examining what she’d made it from and called in a guard to tell them to dismantle her bed.

Dinner came sooner than Quill wished, but her stomach wouldn’t allow her to skip it as it ached with hunger. She’d spent the afternoon going over everything he had told her and then reliving the curious mix of feelings he encouraged in her when they were close enough to touch. She’d managed to finally admit to herself there was something wanton and delicious in the idea of a forbidden affair with him.

But then again she was most likely the one labelling it wrong. He had probably trapped her here with the intention of eventually getting her to have sex with him. But she didn’t want to play into his hand; however much she had fantasized about it.

Nero was already seated at the great table when she came down. He was preoccupied with paperwork this time but didn’t miss muttering a half-hearted hello to her.

She didn’t say anything as the servant brought a new plate, laden with dinner and she dug in, losing herself in the mindless action of chewing and swallowing again and again. When she looked up, he was staring at her with intrigue and she felt herself go hot in self-consciousness.

“How was your afternoon?”

It was strange how normal he treated conversation as though he had forgotten she was feeling trapped and cuckolded here.

“It was fine,” she said tersely, focusing again on her food and trying her best to ignore him and her disloyal feelings.

“I thought about our earlier encounter and realized I have some questions for you.” Against her better judgment, she looked up at him, their eyes meeting for a moment.

“No guarantee I’ll answer them but feel free to ask.” She waved her knife at him to carry on.

He smiled like he was pleased with this answer and sipped his wine thoughtfully before looking back up at her, “why did you join The Desecrated?”

“Next question.”

“Do you have a boyfriend? Is that why you were upset I killed the other Desecrated and refuse to have sex with me?”

“No. I refuse to have sex with you because you’re dead.”

“My organs are still intact and functional.”

“Lovely for you.” She stuffed a larger than average mouthful in so she didn’t have to say anything else for fear of admitting she’d imagined the intact and functional organ more times than she cared to admit this afternoon.

“What sort of hobbies would you like to take up? I can arrange that the necessary tools will be found for you.”

“I like killing things, I’d love to add killing dead things to my trophy list.” She levelled her gaze with him, but the seriousness of her statement was seemingly lost on him as he grinned in amusement once more.

“I’ll get an assortment of things that you can try then,” he said with a nod before looking at her carefully, “would you consider becoming a vampire?”

Her head jerked from how fast it snapped up to look at him. Concerned not only with the casual suggestion but the serious tone in which it was said.

“Absolutely not. What would even make you think that I’d want to be like you?”

“You’d be powerful, a force to be reckoned with… You’d be mistress of this place.”

“Mistress? As in your mistress?” She stood up immediately, her appetite put off as she shoved the chair back so she could leave, “in your dreams. I would sooner die than become an undead monster like you.” She turned and left the dining room. She hated that every time they were together it ended with her leaving, an insecure show of her inability to control her emotions around him. But he riled her up in a way that should’ve been impossible.

Instead of going to her bedroom where she would only feel like a caged animal she crossed the hallway and deliberately walked through the sitting room toward the door he had explicitly told her to never open. She didn’t care about his rules, if he wanted her to be his mistress then she needed to know everything…

She was careful as she pushed the door open and peeked through. She didn’t know what to expect. Her imagination told her it would be a room soaked in blood. That there would be discarded bodies of humans strewn everywhere like dirty laundry, but the truth was it opened into a lounge, decorated with chaises and cushions. The walls were dark in colour and hanging on the far side was a selection of leather belts and straps, whips and other toys.

There was a faint metallic tinge to the air but nothing overwhelming to the senses. On the other side of the room, there was a door leading out of the sex chamber. Quill passed a bed made of cushions to get to it, pushing it open to see with surprise it led to stairs.

A knot formed in the bottom of her stomach and something told her not to go down. Creeping past the door she closed it carefully behind her and slipped down the stairs in the darkness. She kept one hand held out to the side, feeling her way along the wall as she descended into the basement. Dungeon - her memory corrected. That’s exactly what it was, she realized as she got to the bottom.

It was dank and darker than the room upstairs and faint moonlight illuminated the walls where, as promised, chains hung in a manner that suggested they were deliberately used to splay a human body on the wall. Then she saw the blood streaks running down the cement wall. Not enough to suggest death but enough to suggest pain.

In the dim she could hear the echo of voices and she followed them, bringing her into a main room where cells were laid out. Her stomach turned with fear and hatred, but something spurred her forward, searching the tear stained faces in the darkness for something familiar. She hardly noticed her racing thoughts that prayed Rose’s wouldn’t appear. In the end, she breathed a sigh of relief even if she wasn’t feeling very relieved. These people were still prisoners; she had to help them in some way.

She searched around, looking at the walls for any sort of key or item that would help her open the cages. Beyond the cell room, she found an armoury. But what she found there was shocking. Amongst the collection of modern weapons, there was also a pristine collection of antique medieval torture devices. She reached out and touched them in curiosity before jerking her hand away remembering what he said about scent and vampires.

He would know she had been down here. If she were going to help these people, this would be her only chance before facing whatever wrath being in a forbidden place would bring her. Finding a device that looked something like a giant set of pliers she came back out into the cell room and went to the first cage. Fixing the device against the lock she pushed down with all her might, fighting the rusty metal until she heard something break.

“It’s going to be okay, I’ll get you out of here,” she promised as she dropped the pliers and quickly began prying the lock out of its hold before tugging the door open.

The woman behind the door didn’t acknowledge her presence. She hadn’t said anything beyond the nonsensical whisperings she continued to mutter so when she stood suddenly and launched herself at Quill it took her by surprise.

The woman threw her entire body into Quill, their bodies flying backwards into the cages behind them. The woman grabbed her shoulders and screamed the most gut wrenching and terrifying scream she’d ever heard in her life. She shook Quill violently, battering her head against the metal bars of the cage behind her as she reached out in dizziness trying to get a grip on the woman attacking her.

Despite all the times she had fought Nero the woman didn’t back down the way he did. She continued to panic, taking out her anger and fear on Quill’s helpless body until suddenly two hands grabbed the woman and threw her back into the cage with a snarl.

Try as Quill might to scamper back to her feet she was too dizzy, her body discombobulated from its senses as she attempted to regain her composure. The vampire who had come to her rescue sedated the woman with a bite before moving to the cage and tsking at her rudimentary destruction of the lock before going to find something else to secure it with.

Even after he was finished with the cage and turned his attention to Quill, she still saw stars and standing was completely out of the question.

Sensing her helplessness he reached out and grabbed her collar, pulling her to her feet with an echoing rip. She grasped at his hands, one of hers checking to see if he had ruined her shirt while the other braced herself against his strength.

“You ruined my shirt,” she mumbled with a thick tongue. The vampire didn’t care as he grabbed her by the neck and unforgivingly walked her back to the stairs and all but dragged her up them. As they were going up, they were passed by another vampire heading down toward the cages.

“Is he going to feed on someone?” she asked, helplessly trying to turn to look before being twisted back toward the stairs as her ankle smashed against the edge, pain rippling through her leg. She would’ve gasped if not for the fact his tight grip was nearly cutting off her windpipe.

“Nero isn’t going to be pleased with your treatment of me.”

“Fuck Nero. You’re trespassing.” They got to the top and he threw her on the floor. Her body landed with a thud and she coughed on air as he freed her. The impact of the floor against her already aching body only worsened the pain shooting up her back and neck. She rolled for a moment before lying there under the spell of another bout of stars. People needed to stop knocking her about or she was likely to be sick everywhere.

“If he heard you saying that…”

“You tried to free one of our subscribers. You’ve trespassed in a place you were told to stay away from. I’m well within my right to punish you.”

The way he said punish made her breath hitch as he loomed over her. Her heart suddenly sped up as her muscles tightened in fear.

The way he hung there reminded her exactly how powerful he was compared to her. She found herself often forgetting how easily she could be swatted like a fly. He could crush her bones and not even blink an eye or feel the slightest hint of remorse. She was nothing to him, an inconsequential speck on his lengthy existence.

She blinked and realized she wasn’t staring up at the vampire anymore, but her father. He curled his hand around the supple leather of his belt, making a grip on the whip that lashed out toward her, connecting with her skin. She flinched like the leather had actually touched her, her eyes rolling back in her head as her body started to shake.

His hand came down on her, a fist that bruised the soft flesh. It didn’t matter that she cried in pain, crying out for him to stop and begged like the child she was in his presence. It didn’t matter that she was flesh and blood. In his eyes, she had failed him today, yesterday and would continue to do so. This was just another lesson in strength. It was a lesson of character, of ability, of weakness… Everything with him was a lesson and anything anyone said differently was wrong.

It didn’t matter that the doctor had told them her heart was weak from the physical strain of her training. When, in fact, her mother and her sister knew that it was the strain of abuse she endured at the hand of her father. It was worth it though, that’s what Quill told herself. If it kept Rose out of the limelight, if Rose was safe then that’s all that mattered. Rosalie’s safety was the only thing that had ever mattered for Quill. There had been many a time when their father had come home and used her as the brunt of his frustrations. But Rose had always been safely tucked away in a closet, under the bed, in the next room. She was never within his line of sight and never got hurt. At least, that’s what Quill had always hoped.

What had happened after she had left the house, forced out by her sister who told her run and save herself, she didn’t know.

The vampire hadn’t even laid another finger on her but there she laid on the ground trembling like a frightened child, sniffling and sobbing thanks to a man who was nothing more than a figment of her imagination. Her father was long gone in her eyes. She would never have to see him if she didn’t want to, but that didn’t mean he didn’t haunt her some nights. That didn’t mean there were days when she chased him away with beer and booze. She did what she had to to keep his memories at bay.

She was a wreck as sobs wracked her body. The vampire stared down at her in fascination. He had never seen a creature break down so easily before. It was as though a levy had snapped.

All that control for naught, one day without it and she broke. She’d felt her grasp slipping for hours now. Here it was: the cumulative result of Nero’s insistence that she just let go. She hadn’t just let go, she’d been bashed around until her grip had slipped. She had worked so hard to keep this at bay.

Her nose bled though he hadn’t touched her, slipping down her lips and dribbling off her chin. It was her body’s natural reaction to the stress of her memories. Her chest ached as it tightened and her heartbeat suddenly rose higher than it was used to working. Her blood rushed through her body as her head spun unnaturally. Even if she had the strength to sit up, it would’ve been impossible and all the while the vampire hell-bent on revenge stared down at her in surprise.

As the blood started to come out more freely only then did he react naturally as his incisors lengthened in desire and he sunk into a predatory position.