Chapter 11 Chapter 11
Gabriel
I could taste her skin on my lips still, but it was what I had seen last night that kept me from concentrating. Watching her as she writhed on her bed, her back arching and her lips moaning was almost more than I could bear.
How I’d managed to keep control of myself I didn’t know, because even when she was asleep I haunted her dreams and she wanted me. Audrey might not know my name yet but it was me she was dreaming of.
Me who was making her cum.
Leaning back against the leather chair, I stared at the bank of monitors. I was meant to be checking out the cameras I had put into one of our clubs for my family. They thought someone was stealing from them. Not that it would be the first time but this time it was more than a few pound here and there going missing from the tills. It was thousands and they wanted to know who it was.
As the youngest King brother and the one no one saw, it was easy for me to get in and out without being noticed and plant the cameras.
There were some perks of being the hidden away monster of the family and that was one of them. The other one was that no one was breathing down my neck about my facination with Avery.
Not that my family was happy about it, they just couldn’t stop me. Not without letting the world know I was still alive.
The dirty little secret.
So I could watch her and plan. I leant back even more and took a bite out of the apple in my hand as my eyes swam across the screens dedicated to the cameras in her house.
All of them were empty. All of them but one and that’s the one I concentrated on. Watching as she moved around the kitchen. Pulling things from cupboards and studying them. She had been doing the same thing all day. Moving from room to room. Rummaging through everything.
Sorting out the things she would get rid of from her grandmothers estate.
So far the pile of things to donate to charity was tiny. Audrey was struggling to let go of the past.
It was a feeling I knew well. Like her I couldn’t let go of the past either. Hers had been full of laughter and love.
Mine? Darkness and pain.
I shook the thought away. With Audrey in my life I could finally put the darkness to rest. It had always been that way. I saw her and the shadows retreated.
It was one of the reasons I had to make my move soon. Meeting her under the apple tree and tasting her skin for the first time had proven that. Watching her relentlessly kept the darkness at bay, sure but barely.
The moods were getting worse. Those despair’s that I couldn’t shake and always ended up in diabolical violence were pushing in on all sides.
If I lost control now, I would lose my freedom. My brothers loved me, father did as well in his own way but I wasn’t a child anymore. I wasn’t even a young man. They would only forgive my “transgressions” for so long.
And that meant I needed Audrey to calm the beast.
I just had to make sure the timing was perfect.
As if on cue, a loud ringing sound echoed from my speakers. Not my phone but Audrey’s
She caught it up, stared at the name on the screen for a second before jumping up on the island and answering
“Hey, I’m going to put you on speaker phone.” She said in her happy sing song voice.
“You will never guess what I just received.” Her best friend gushed.
I smiled before I could help myself. The timing couldn’t be more perfect but hadn’t I planned it this way. I knew what she as about to say because I was the one who made it happen.
Two invitations.
One for her and one for Audrey..
The most prestigious party of the season. Mine. I held it every year. For charity of course and I never went. This year it would be different because-
I blinked, realising I had missed half the conversation. Not that it really mattered. I knew why Audrey was suddenly doing a jig around the kitchen. Her hips swayed deliciously and absently I took another bite of the apple. The juice running down my chin like soon her juices would.
“Angels and demons did you say?”
“Sure did and I have already found the most amazing costume. So you sweet Audrey , have to go as an angel.”
The swaying hips stilled and a frown punched her eyebrows together.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” Audrey said quickly and even I could tell she was lying. Her friend would definitely be able to pick up on it.
“Tell me Audrey.”
“I just don’t think I should go.” She said quickly. “Strange things have been going on here.” Audrey’s laugh was full of self mocking. “I’m pretty sure I’m going crazy.”
“And that’s the reason you need this party. A chance to dress up and dance in some ancient castle, it’s exactly what you need.”
“Oh so I should just swap one old house's ghosts for another?"
The line went quiet.
“What do you mean ghosts? What the bell is happening up there Audrey. Talk to me.”
“It’s nothing,” Audrey spoke quickly and I let out a whooshing breath. She wasn’t going to tell anyone about me yet. Maybe because she didn’t quite believe I was real but maybe it was because she realised I was part of her.
The dark part.
The part she couldn’t live without.
“I just don’t think being here is healthy for me in the long term. Too many skeletons in the closets.”
I saw her shrug to herself and smiled. There were no skeletons in the closets in that house. The bones were all buried deep but there were demons.
Demons that hid and watched and moaned at the sight of her.
“Um hello? I’ve been saying that since you got there. Have you given any more thought about selling up and moving home?”
“I hadn’t but I met a guy earlier.”
Apple forgotten it dropped to the floor and rolled under the desk as I sat forward.
What the hell did she mean, she had met a guy? What guy?
Was there going to be another man at the top of my list? I wouldn’t share her.
“His names Michael. He’s part of the King family that owns the house up the road. You know the creepy one. We got talking in town and he made an offer.” She took a deep breath. “A very generous offer.” She mumbled,
At my side my hands closed into fists. The demon inside wanted out. I was full of monsters and every single one of them was braying for blood. Insatiable beasts.
“Are you going to take it.”
Say no, I begged silently. Say no and put the demons back to sleep.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
My happiness evaporated. Snarling like a wild animal I jumped to by feet. The leather chair falling back with a bang and smashed my closed fist into the nearest wall. Blood bubbled up over the open skin of my knuckles but it wasn’t enough.
Causing myself pain was never enough. That wasn’t how I fed the beasts inside. The only thing that could feed them now was the blood of the person who had hurt me.
My brother Michael had moved behind my back to take away the one thing that kept me grounded.
He had tried to take away the woman I needed.
Damn him. Damn him to an eternity of hell.
“I’m not sure I could actually give this place up.”
Half way to the door I froze , half turning I watched as Avery wiped a tear from her eye with the back of her hand.
“This is the last part of my family I have.”
Sucking in a deep breath , my chest heaved. Getting revenge on my eldest brother wasn’t the only way to tame the darkness. There was one other and she lived right next door.
Audrey was the key to my happiness. There was no way I could wait until Halloween.
I had to make her mine now.