Chapter 26

Bram

I like popcorn.

The damn phrase would not get out of my mind. It was the entire reason I was eating it by the handful. The reason I had a full bag in my goddamn hand and was heading to Slave Row. I was spoiling the damn girl when I should have been beating the ever-living hell out of her for her disobedience.

No. It was all a lie, wrapped in a pretty little excuse. I wanted to see her. Heaven help me, I need to smell her again. To fuck her until this suffocating feeling of losing her was gone. What was I doing? I needed to turn around right this minute and head back to my apartment. Tomorrow was a big day. Twenty-four-six-ninety needed her rest.

Everleigh.

Fuck … me … I had called her that. Not to her face, but in my dreams. There, in my private little space, she was Everleigh, my slave. I’d woke up pleading to her. Begging her to come back. She kept running away. Running back to something or someone I didn’t know. But it wasn’t her running, it was me.

“Master.”

The guard nodded in respect and I handed over my half-eaten bag of popcorn as I passed. He smiled, taking it, and following me down the rest of the way to her door. As I held to my slave’s bag, I could feel my pulse increasing. The keys jingled in the guard’s hand and he opened the door. Everleigh sat up in bed, staring at me, confused. I kept quiet as I stepped in and shut the door.

“Popcorn?”

“What are you doing here, Main Master?”

I walked to the bed, sitting on the edge as I handed her the bag.

“This has to be done before tomorrow. I doubt we’ll talk much afterward and you need to know.” My hand pushed into the top of her bag, grabbing a handful as I forced myself to say it. “I like you.”

Still, she sat there staring at me. One-by-one she popped them into her mouth and I couldn’t stand waiting to see what her response would be.

Not that it mattered. My feelings meant nothing.

“You like me, but we’ll not talk much after tomorrow.”

It wasn’t a question. She was stating back what I had said and I couldn’t stand how this wasn’t easy.

“I like you, but that doesn’t matter.” I paused, taking more popcorn.

“West is a good man. He’ll—”

“Will you stop, already? I know he’s a good man. Or he appears to be a good man. I don’t like him for some reason, but even that isn’t relevant. None of that changes what is right.”

“And what is that? My overprotectiveness? My temper? My jealousy? I’ve killed for you, slave. I’ve killed for you more times than I’ve ever killed for anyone else. More times than you even know about. If I

could do that to someone determined to hurt you, what will I eventually do to you? And before you say, nothing, think again. You’ve never seen the side of me that I hide. You have no idea how much I’d love to hurt you. What you caught a glimpse of with me was the man who has spent years longing to have you. What you didn’t see was the beast lurking in the shadows. He’s there, and he wants to see you bleed. Don’t give him opportunity. Don’t do that to me.”

“Bleed how? What do you want to do to me?”

My forearms came to rest on my thighs while I stared at the ground.

To speak the horrors out loud only gave them life, but she had to know.

“Short of sleeping with your mummified corpse in my bed, probably every horrible thing you’ve ever heard that goes on here. Although …” I laughed in disgusting disbelief. “If I did end up killing you, I can see how I wouldn’t want anyone to take you away. Maybe it’s the reason I haven’t rid Master Yahn of his former slave. Call me sick, I’ve seen everything there is.

Nothing gets to me anymore.”

“So … you’d come to beat me? Try to kill or torture me? You’d want to cut my skin?”

I glanced over, not able to take the way she was studying me. The uncomfortableness left me pushing back on the bed to rest against the wall.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” I swallowed through the sickness I felt over myself. “Kill you, that I can’t say. But, hurt you, yes. And I’d do more than just cut you. I’d mark my ownership all over your body. Whether it be actual cuts, bruising, marks, I don’t know. Maybe all. Those may eventually kill you. I think if I got a taste for it, the action would become more routine.

Maybe you wouldn’t even be recognizable after a while.”

I paused, seeing all the demented things flash before me. “Dammit, slave, I’d fuck you covered in your own blood and then bath in it if it didn’t mean I’d lose you. That’s my dilemma. I’ve wanted you so much and for too long that nothing is impossible.” Silence.

“What would you cut into me? What would it look like, your name, numbers, just cuts?”

My head snapped to her and I tightened my lips at her even asking such a stupid question. She should have been repulsed. She should have been begging me to leave.

“I don’t know. I haven’t given it serious thought. I won’t. If I did

…”

I looked away as she shifted on the bed. I couldn’t do this. I should just go. This was a mistake to think that I could come down here and talk sense into her.

“I’m not normal. I’ve never been. At least not after I came here. I wish I was som—” I hissed, jerking my hand from the mattress. A bead of blood surfaced over the top and a deep rumble vibrated my throat. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Making my mark, first,” she said, holding the scalpel. “Are you going to be a baby about it or do I get to continue?”

“You’ve lost your damn mind. We’re not marking each other. You belong to another.”

“And if I didn’t belong to someone else?” She bit her lip, rolling on her knees to lean toward me on all-fours. “If I was yours, would you let me mark you? I’d let you mark me.” “Stop it.”

“Would you carve in Bram? Whitlock? Mine? Tell me, Master. No.

Show me.”

I flew from the bed, ready to attack her. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

A smile tugged at her mouth and she reached up, sliding the thin straps of her night dress over her shoulders. The thin material caught on her nipples before pooling in her lap. As I watched her raise the scalpel, my hands started to shake.

“Maybe it’s just the blood you like and not so much the cutting.” She pushed the tip of the tiny blade into her chest, once, twice. The third time she gasped and my legs were moving on their own. Fascination drew me forward. Streams of blood raced over her breasts and toward her stomach, and I couldn’t turn away. I couldn’t stop myself from crawling back onto the bed.

Everleigh’s chest rose and fell faster and I could see her fear. She trusted cutting herself, but me … that was an entirely different story. She didn’t know me well enough.

“You like it.”

I tore my eyes from the crimson streams. I didn’t give my answer. It wouldn’t have come if I wanted it to. My hand shot forward, gripping the back of her hair to pull her into my mouth. As if I was afraid this would stop, my other hand came out at exactly the same time. Warm wetness left my palm gliding over her chest while I made my way up to her throat.

Her small sound of pain got trapped in my mouth, but it didn’t stop her tongue from meeting mine with such need that it made my head spin. Up and down I went, letting her blood coat my fingers. I smeared the substance over her breasts and back up to her throat. The essence of her blood, of her life, took over my senses. My cock was so hard that I couldn’t fight the one thing I had fantasized about more than actually just fucking her. This—this is what I wanted. What I craved and dreamed about.

“Why do you do this me, slave?”