BREAK ME (Teased and Broken Book 3) (17 page)

Fuck this book so very hard.
 

And the man who had inspired it.
 

 
I realized I couldn’t write the end of the damned thing.

I was stalled.

I already knew the final heart and reality exploding scene.
 

I just …couldn’t … create it.

Not yet.

It was cutting me up.
 

I was looking for every kind of distraction.
 

Brett, was proving to be the best kind.
 

My gaze kept straying to him so diligently heating the Jacuzzi I was excited to share with him one last time before we took off to Hawaii.
 

The heater was still fucked.

I felt a twinge remembering my tease of Thornton Darko on Facebook. The fateful night my boredom reached out for a deadly thrill.

What he had said to me.

I love myself a writer! It is a date then? Yes? You, and your spirits, and your broken Jacuzzi that you are expecting me to singlehandedly heat.

I frowned over the memory of Thorn.
 

Even though I hated him for what he had done to me.
What he had done to Brett and I.

I still cared, and worried about him.

He was completing some Cellrager commitments. I had heard he was getting worse with each show.
 

Drunk out of his mind.

Brett’s phone buzzed on the table.
 

I snatched it up, scowled, recognizing the number.
 

Thorn.

Shit.

I intended to drop it and back away slowly.

But of course, I read the message.

Elena is mine.

I fired a message back.

Is that all you have to say?

Elena is mine,
he repeated.
He sent a picture.

I opened it and freaked.

 
A promotional poster.

Thorn in all his masked glory.

Dark green eyes hissing like flame from beneath the eye holes of the mask.

Intense as fuck.
 

Cellrager was coming to Ashby for one night only.

Thorn had often joked bitterly about it to me.
 

He was here, in my home town.

“Babe,” I called nervously to Brett. He was standing watching me through the steam that drift and writhed off the Jacuzzi.
 

“Yeah?” his brown eyes narrowed in concern.
 

“Cellrager is here, in Ashby.”

“Fucking hopeless!” Brett fumed throwing the cordless phone across the room.

I watched it explode against the wall and raised an eyebrow.

Shit.

“What’s wrong?”
 

“What isn’t fucking wrong Elena? That fucker is here in Ashby. Don’t think he won’t pull something, because he will. I know it. I just tried to change our flights so we fly out to Hawaii tonight.”

“And?”
 

Brett flushed and gestured sheepishly at the wall, before running a hand through his hair.
 

“I know why he’s done this,” he spat bitterly. “Why he’s decided to pay our little seaside shanty town a visit.”

“Why?” I asked, closing the distance between us. I wound my arms around his narrow muscular waist. “Brett?”

“Because I was angry with the message I keep getting on repeat from the stupid fuck. You’ve seen it,
Elena is mine.
So I told him.
I am making Elena my wife soon. She isn’t and will never will be yours. You circus freak fuck up.”

I sighed and dropped my arms from my raging man.
 
“You probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“Pretty provocative huh?
 
Do you think I too far with the circus freak fuck up comment?”

I couldn’t help a weak laugh. “So we’re getting married huh?”

Brett nodded. “Eloped.”

“Do you even want that?” I whispered. “Knowing that as long as Thornton Darko lives I still
want
that man?”

He was silent a moment as he stared at my mouth, then his gaze claimed mine. “What is important is you are with
me
El.
Me,
not
him.
 
Know what I am scared most about?”

“What?”

“That you will kill him because he will do something so bad you will not want him and I will lose you anyway because you will not be my El,” Brett’s brown eyes were wet with tears.
 

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said softly.
 

“That is why it fucking kills me that I can’t kill him babe. That no one can kill that fucker for you unless you …

“Don’t want him,” I finished.
 

He nodded and pulled me against him in a fierce embrace.

Dark, booming, laughter spilled out around us.
 

“The fuck!” Brett protested.

Thorn was standing bold and crazy in the middle of the room in his Cellrager get up.

His stare spat acid beneath the mask.

Shit.

“It’s hopeless love, you will
always
want me,” Thorn snarled.
 

My eyes pricked with tears.
 

I could smell the alcohol and broken on him.
 

He wobbled on his huge boot clad feet as he pointed at us. “Seize them. They’re going to feature as part of my show tonight.” He tipped back his head and howled. “It’s going to be a fucking horror show.”
 

“You want to
die
is that it?” I hissed angrily and stalked toward him.

His eyes went wide behind the mask as he backed away from me.

I slammed him into a wall.

“Feisty,” he hiccupped.
 

“Elena!” Brett roared as he was dragged, fighting and struggling valiantly, from the room by the seething army of minions. “Get the fuck away from him!”
 

Shit, Thorn’s people looked positively hating on my man. I guess, seeing him empty a gun full of bullets into their messiah’s head hadn’t endeared him to them much.
 

I swung my attention back to Thorn. “How are you?” I asked in a low voice.

“IT cares!” he laughed harshly. “How very dare you!? When we both know how few shits you give. You fucking played me. I believed you were
mine
. All or nothing, truly with me, only to find your words meant
nothing!
” His eyes narrowed. “I let you take another ride on Thornton Darko. You rode my fuckstick so hard you near broke him. You need to show more respect for your ride woman. For the effect,” he thrust his raging hardness into his huge black gloved palm. “Your pussy thrall has on the equipment,” he sniggered.
 

“How’s your dad?” I interrupted his rant.
 

His laughter died.
 

Thorn’s hand fell heavily on my shoulder and he pushed me back a step. “Don’t insult me by pretending to care witch.”

I flinched.

He tilted his head to the side, considering me. “Why that look?”

I sighed, throwing up my hands in exasperation. “Because everytime you call me witch it all goes to the shit!”

Thorn blinked at me and then giggled. I had never heard that sound out of the man before.

I stared at him in shock.

“Shit,” he slurred. “As I reflect upon this, I realize you’re right.”

“Thorn?” I pressed.

“I am not having this conversation right the fuck now – hey!” he objected loudly as I ripped his mask off.

I screamed at the sight of his face.

He looked so ashamed.

He was bleeding black ink from the corners of his eyes and his nose. One side of his nose looked caved in like he had been snorting too much cocaine. His lips were blackened. His face was like cracked porcelain. Tiny, pulsing black fault lines seething beneath the skin. Thorn’s face was cracking up.
 

“What has happened to you?”
 

My heart, my reality was
breaking
for this man.

He bowed his head.

“As I was saying, it’s going to be a fucking horror show, love.”
 

Twenty

“Thorn?”

“Put on this dress,” he invited in a sickly sweet voice. He held out a white form fitting luxurious slip of a gown.
 
“It would please a prick.”

I glared at him, folding my arms across my bikini clad chest. This was so not happening. I wanted an explanation. What the hell did he mean, horror show?
 

“If you hurt Brett,” I threatened.
 

 
“Put the fucking dress on Elena,” Thorn muttered, irritation twisting his voice.

 
Obediently, compelled by his request, I tugged on the dress.
 

“You should have stayed in the military base. You might have been safer there,” Thorn sighed. “Then again, I have always been able to get to you if I wanted.”

His trembling gloved fingers reached and stroked gently over the little raven necklace.

Of course.

If I wanted him.

He would come.

Why did I want him
now
?

I hated my wanton perverted mind so much.

It was my book VANQUISH ME’s fault.

I had been thinking of him.

Here he was.

As he ushered me out the door I saw we were alone.

The minions and my Brett were gone.

Just his black gleaming sporty enhanced Aston Martin in my driveway.
 

I stared at him. “Where are we going?”

“Dad wants to speak to you,” he said gruffly.
 
“He is an insistent, stubborn old prick, particularly approaching death.”
 
He grumbled. “Of course I wanted you anyway. You are not marrying Brett.”

I shook my head at him a little dazed.
 

“Get in the car,” he directed.

I felt the pull of his magic snap me forcefully into the warm leather embrace of the passenger seat.
 

I folded my trembling hands in my lap as he slammed the door and climbed into the driver’s side.
 

“What are you doing with Brett? Where have your people taken him?” I freaked.
 

He blew out a breath as he threw the car into reverse and peeled out the driveway.

“Thorn?” I pressed.

 
He simply screamed senselessly in response.
 

Thornton Darko did not scream often, if ever.
 

Nor had I ever really heard him giggle.

Sweet Jesus, we were at a new level of unhinged with this maniac tonight.
 

Fucking fantastic.
 

“Don’t you think it’s arrogant as my soon to be wife that you talk about this soft cock artist man? You dare say his name in my presence
witch!
You are
Mine!
I claimed
you.
I own your ass.”
 

“I am not going to be your damned wife, Thorn,” I said gently. “Mutilating my ass doesn’t give you any rights to ‘claim me’ as you call it.”

“You will, you
must
,” he predicted confidently. He cast a sidelong look at me. “Is it my face? Do I repulse you now? Is that it? Because this can heal baby. It’s temporary.”

I screamed when one of the deck chairs near the Jacuzzi sailed past the windscreen.

Holy hell, Ashby had pulled out all the stops weather wise in its welcome of Cellrager’s first and only show.

The late afternoon sky was practically black. It looked like beaten pulp, bloated with angry seething clouds.

Lightening hissed head of us.

Thunder rolled.

Wind buffeted the luxurious car. Thorn expertly guided it down the winding driveway to the road.
 

“Do you know why your dad wants to see me?” I asked quietly.
 

Rain began to fall.
Thorn laughed bitterly. “He wouldn’t say, but I have the distinct impression Elena, it may have to do with my very fucked up face.”

I was terrified for him.

Thornton Darko wasn’t right in the head.

He was fucked right out of it.

He had been hitting up that designer drug. What was it again? Devil juice?
To save his dad.

The tears that pricked my eyes earlier began spilling down my cheeks.
 

“My magical infusions have not gone well,” Thorn reported to me despairingly. “In fact I think I only hastened dad’s death.”

Oh…

My heart froze.

Shit

Thorn.

Oh,
no.

I exhaled, closing my eyes against all of his pain.
 

I wanted to take this impossible man and hold him in my arms. To give him comfort. His energy was dark and bitterly twisted, a fucked up mess of pain.

“I am sorry to hear that,” I breathed.
 

And I was.

He said nothing.
 

We drove in silence until I heard the distinct roar of a motorcycle.
 

Several.

Their head lights gnashed through the darkness and rain.
 

I could see they had fanned out around us, closing in.

A hiss parted Thorn’s blackened lips.
 
“It’s Cale with my fucking bike and some new friends,” he muttered. “That reminds me, I really do need to get that thing back from the little shit.”

“What is he doing?” I freaked.
 

Thorn grunted, pulling on the steering wheel sharply. He aimed the car into the bikes roaring beside us.

They gracefully pivoted and sped out of the way.
 

Something, or someone, landed on the roof of the car.