Wait...the first?
I rubbed my temples, trying to claw through the stress. Did that mean he was a virgin? The deeper into this world I fell, the worse my questions became.
Why was he so black-hearted that he could dispatch a stranger with his bare hands?
Why did he have a panther as a pet and wore all black as if he was a ruling underworld emperor?
Why had no one come to arrest him for killing someone?
“No, I mean...” The girl struggled for something, someone, to help her. No one made eye contact with her. No one dared. Including me.
“What do you mean then?” Lucien asked quietly. “Perhaps you’re not here to sleep with me but to end me instead?”
“No. I would never. I—”
A battle-cry cut her off as another woman launched to her feet, yanked a dagger from a sheath beneath her skirt, and flung herself at him.
The blade twinkled in the lowlights.
Lucien rose effortlessly to his feet and sidestepped, just as she slashed her knife through the air where he’d been.
Smirking, he backed up a little. “Impatient to begin I see.”
“I’ll fucking gut you, you psychotic asshole!” She charged at him, her arm sweeping upward to plunge into his chest.
And he didn’t move.
He stood his ground. He held her eyes and I swear his chest puffed up as if begging the dagger to sink deep—
But the panther pounced on her, knocking her sideways and pinning her flat on her back.
She screeched as she tried to stab the beast, but was too late.
Its giant jaws latched around her throat and with a savage shake, it ended her with a wet crunch and a sickening gurgle.
The women who’d chosen to stay all flattened themselves over their knees, no longer submitting but committing full self-flagellation by bowing for their lives.
Nausea drenched me in ice-cold sweat.
I glanced behind me to the exit.
I begged my legs to stand and run.
If only I wasn’t so pathetic.
If only I’d fled with the other women who’d come here by accident.
Then I wouldn’t have to see. Wouldn’t have to be at this monster’s mercy.
Get up, Rook. Go. Before it’s too late!
Groaning, I planted my hands on the marble and tried to push up. My wobbly elbows gave out, and my headache switched from throbbing to splintering, driving a stake through my brain and making everything wretched and wrong.
By staying you’re one of them!
He’ll think you’re here to bed him or butcher him.
RUN!
I tried again, only...black-framed bare feet appeared in my hazy vision.
I froze as Lucien clucked his tongue, towering over me. “You’re rather bold, aren’t you? Not even bothering to bow like the rest of them.”
He didn’t seem to care a pool of blood seeped from the girl his pet had killed. Didn’t seem to notice the countless other women all cowering around me.
We had numbers on our side.
Even with his panther slaughtering us, if the women who’d come to kill him banded together, they could win.
I swallowed hard as he ducked to his haunches, his eyes narrowing on mine. “Well? Nothing to say for yourself?”
Up close, his eyes were absolutely devastating. Endless and hollow, dark and relentless.
In his stare, I saw vengeance and wrath and bone-deep hatred.
“I...” I licked my lips, moaning a little as the pain became too much. I wanted to pass out. At least if I was already unconscious, I wouldn’t feel him kill me.
“You...?” He chuckled under his breath, mocking and mean. “You what? Why are you here?” Curling his fingers, he ran his knuckles ever so gently along my jaw. “I hope you have a better reply than the others because I’m getting bored.”
I shuddered as his touch sent the same stinging pain that the drone did with its electrical shock. His hot fingers radiated through me, searing my heart with flames.
“I’m...I thought this was a spa weekend.” I hated how weak my voice was, how every word dripped with a plea not to hurt me. “I-I don’t know who you are. I—”
“Liar.” His lips pulled back in a snarl as his hand latched around my throat. “I told you only the truth would save you.”
“That is the truth!” I clawed at his wrist, trying to get him off me.
The cuffs of his loose black shirt fell down his forearm, revealing a wide silver cuff inscribed with emblems I couldn’t read.
He winced as I tugged it, then snarled as he squeezed me tighter.
My vision popped with white stars—not from stress this time but asphyxiation.
He had to be mentally insane.
He’d just killed two people, stood in a puddle of clotting blood, and the only thing etched into his features was barely controlled rage.
No empathy, no sympathy, merely venomous resentment as he forced me to join his victims. His hand shook with malice. My eyelids fluttered—
My life didn’t flash before me, but despair did.
I’d been so incredibly lucky to be born into this life, yet I hadn’t been able to do anything worthwhile with the wealth or power I’d been given. Instead, I’d turned out to be the worst sort of person whose only claim to fame was running away just to survive.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I willed him to get it over with.
He was doing me a favour.
Putting me out of my misery.
My fingers turned loose around his wrist, clinging with the last bit of strength I had to that strange cuff trapped tight around him.
He sucked in a breath as I sagged forward, crashing against him as his fingers continued to cut off my air.
My headache became a thousand times worse, determined to come with me into death.
I’d often consoled myself from the horror of dying that at least in a grave, pain couldn’t find you. On the day of my parents’ funeral, I’d repeated that over and over again, praying they were in a better place, together, happy, and free from the agony at the end.
But now...now I wasn’t so sure.
What if I always felt this pain?
What if I was condemned to eternal misery, reliving the moment of him squeezing the last droplet of life out of me?
I lost control of my body and tumbled completely against him.
His fingers unlocked around my throat as I knocked him off balance, sending him crashing into the congealing blood on the floor.
Even without him actively strangling me, I was too far gone to get off him. My chest crashed against his, my forehead landed somewhere on his shoulder, and our legs tangled.
We ended up in a pile on the ballroom floor.
And for the longest moment, as I hovered between living and death, he trembled beneath me.
He groaned low and deep, the noise vibrating beneath my ear where I lay on him. The sound didn’t sound pissed off or angry but tortured. Tormented.
Shoving me off him, the growls of his panther circled around me, either holding back the other women who wanted to kill him or preparing to finish me off.
He kicked me away from him, and I had just enough strength left to watch as he shot to his feet, clutched his heart with white-knuckled fingers, and twisted the black shirt as if he could tear the organ out of him.
“Mr. Ashfall?” An eager, stupidly brave woman raised her head. “If you’re unwell, I can—”
“Leave,” he snarled, panting hard as he twisted his shirt into a knot, pulling up the hem and revealing a flat, muscular stomach. His gasps were drenched in agony.
“But if you’re hurting, I—”
“LEAVE!” he roared. “All of you. SCRAM!”
The boom of his voice ricocheted off the high eaves and bounced off the mother-of-pearl walls. The pitter-patter of racing feminine feet told me more than my failing eyesight could that they’d obeyed.
And as the shadows finally came for me and as silence blanketed my stress, Lucien Ashfall looked down at me splayed on the floor.
His eyes narrowed as he studied me, then, with a sweep of his black coat, he left me dying all alone in his ballroom.
