Hellraiser (The Devil's Own #2) (29 page)

Razing Grace (The Devil’s Own, #3)

I was light

&

I was pure…

until I wasn’t.

Slice through my flesh with your poisoned dagger of savagery.

Have me plead for my death at your very feet.

Bleed me dry until I have nothing left.

For now, I don’t want my soul back.

- 1 -

Millie

Dark shadows reverberate around the cold concrete walls as I shiver in the corner of the locked cell. It’s been three hours since I was snatched from the warm enclosure of my sister’s car. I still don’t understand who or what took me. My once pearl white blouse now hangs loosely in a soiled mess, and my black slacks are stained with mud.

My body shakes, trembling in my skin as a pattern begins to form. First, a wave of fear washes over me, conjuring the reaper. Death is easy. Death is a means coming to an end, and you know the surges of pain that you feel whispering through your body is about to come to a merciful end, so you relish in that comfort.
Just one more breath,
you tell yourself as your eyes slowly close and a tingling sensation of defeat simmers inside of you. My breathing shallows as I inhale deep, slow breaths. Little colorful dots dance around behind my lids as I mentally take myself to somewhere warm. I think about hot chocolate on a cold winter night sitting by the blazing fire. Memories of Melissa and I cuddled by the fireplace on Christmas Eve comes surging through my mind and I smile, remembering how happy our family was before my father passed away. My head shakes, yanking itself left to right, trying to fight off the memories of that fateful night.
One nightmare at a time, Millie,
I tell myself.

Only this isn’t a nightmare. The cold metal shackles locked around my feet are very real. I peel my eyes open just as loud footsteps echo through the cold, lifeless walls, and my body stills. Climbing to my feet, I hear a deep chuckle from the other side of the rusted metal bars.

“Millie Hart. Well, it’s a pleasure,
sister
,” he snarls with the side of his lip kicked up in a smirk.

I can’t see much more of his face, but I recognize his voice from the man Melissa and I spoke to inside the limo. My throat freezes as a cold sweat breaks out over my forehead.

The tall figure with a lean build steps back and gestures to the bars, commanding someone I can’t see from where I am. “Unlock it.”

My throat bobs under my swallowing, but I still can’t manage to get a word out. The heavy jolt of a lock popping off causes me to flinch before the squeaking of a thick metal door pierces my ears. The tapping of dress shoes on the cold concrete pavement at Kurr’s arrival pitter patter into my cell. I instinctively step back.

He chuckles. “Oh, sweet girl. One step back isn’t going to get you far.”

My voice fights through the contracting of my throat. “What do you want from me??” Cold ice slips into my bloodstream slowly—not fast, not rushing, but slowly it seeps in and makes sure it doesn’t miss a spot as it slithers its frozen cube through my pulsing veins.

The scraping of a chair squeaks out over the floor and my breath pauses again as he takes a seat. He throws his ankle up to rest on his knee and cocks his head. “You, my dear child, have more than one purpose,” he calmly declares before running his long fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair.

Movement catches my vision from the other side of the cell, and my eyes flick up to find the outline of the same silver masked man who drove me here. I’m guessing he’s the same one. The masked man’s shoulders square as his feet separate, his stance morphing into the dangerous being he probably is. The entire atmosphere of the already-chilled cell takes a nosedive lower as chills break out over my skin. His dark eyes peer at me through the eye sockets of the mask as my pulsing vein pounds to a dangerous beat against my neck.

“I’m just me, Millie Hart, twenty-one, a nun at our local church in Detroit who went to visit her sister in Westbeach. I’m no one special, I’m just me,” I reply through a hoarse whisper, my eyes remaining locked on the dark depths that brazenly glare right through me.

He tsks at my comment as he sits forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re so much more than that, little Millie. You’re a walking paycheck. Revenge. And you have made an enemy out of the good priest all in one. You, my sweet child, are a triple threat.”

He stands and walks toward me until his chest is flush against mine. His rough fingertips run down my temple, pushing my dark blonde hair out of my face.

“Boys. Make sure she gets well acquainted with you all.” He pauses, running his eyes down my body, violating every speck of my skin through his glare alone. “Be sure to leave the innocent part of her intact.”

He turns and leaves, the heavy cell door sliding closed behind him. I look to the side to see a lean man wearing a black steel ghost mask slowly walking towards me as the driver remains leaning on the cell bars, his arms crossed in front of himself. I step away until my back hits the cold concrete wall. The driver pushes the black masked man out of the way forcefully before stepping into my space. With a deep chuckle that vibrates around the empty silence of the damp cell, his body presses against mine, his taut chest colliding against my soft, heavy breathing. Cold metal skims over my cheek, setting off a tingle of fear in its wake, as he tilts my face out of the way with his own and inhales deeply. His steel-covered face is in the crook of my neck, both of his muscled arms caging me in on either side of my head.

He growls a guttural groan that has my legs trembling in fear. “I smell virgin…”

Snapping my mouth closed, I move my head out of the way from him, evidently granting him more access. One of his legs force itself in between mine, spreading it open an inch. My eyes clench shut. I’ve been faithful to my religion all my life. I’ve been nothing but committed to the Catholic Church and what it demonstrates. I swore an oath that I would remain pure and untouched until the end of my days, so why do I feel like all those years are about to be ripped away from me and torn into little pieces?

His crotch glides across my stomach, his hardness pressing into me.

“Stop playing, Tripp. I need a taste,” chirps a hyena voice from somewhere behind the wall of muscle that currently blocks my view.

When I finish counting the imprinted patterns engraved into the dark, gloomy wall beside me, I finally raise my eyes to meet the deep sockets of whatever it is that lies behind that sinful mask. There are no windows in here, only a droplight which hangs from the ceiling by a cord. Every time it moves, the light casts a different shadow on the driver’s frame. I swallow as the light swings again, illustrating the driver’s—or Tripp’s— deep grey eyes. Normally, light-colored eyes lighten one’s features, but that isn’t the case here; his eyes are grey, a grey that you don’t find on the Prince Charming in your dreams, but rather on the Grim Reaper himself.

His other leg joins the one which currently pushes against my core, and a light groan slips from my throat. It isn’t a groan of pleasure; it’s a helpless one of someone who was about to meet her maker. His shuffling pauses and I silently begin praying that he doesn’t take that groan in the wrong way. His other leg presses between mine forcefully, thus causing mine to stretch wider to accommodate him.

“Don’t scream or fight it,” his voice slithers through my ears and seeps into my pores. His hand begins gliding up my thigh, leaving a trail of panic in its wake. “Ask me why,” he continues.

His voice is like walking through the gates of Hell where the walls are alight with scorching flames that simmer over your delicate flesh, but you never die. You feel every stab of excruciating fleck of burn that the fire will leave over your skin and you wait, fully conscious, anticipating the holocaust to rattle the ground under your feet and commence. This man isn’t just dark. I can feel it. His aura is bleeding into my soul, touching it with a shadow so dark it can make the celestial sphere seem like just another star in the sky.

“Answer me!” he snaps, the grip he has around my upper thigh tightening with his tone.

“Why?” I mumble quickly, fear clenching my throat so tight it’s as though an invisible hand has gripped around it, demanding for me to begin my final words.

His hands skim up my thighs until they almost reach my apex. My breath hitches and deep chuckling ripples around me, breaking my thoughts. “Because,” he growls, his voice cupping me down there.

Shame washes over me—pure, undiluted shame. Something inside of me splinters, and a sob almost escapes my mouth. This is the most private, untouched, and pure part of my body. I hadn’t even experienced an orgasm before on my own, so when his rough, calloused hand presses against me forcefully, a tear escapes and trails down my makeup-smeared face, and when his thumb presses against a spot that had at times ached to be touched, a whimper leaves me as my shoulders slack in defeat.

Defeat, because as much as I hate it, there was a part of me that liked it.

- 2 -

Tripp

I can’t let them have her, but I know I have to. If I show anything but indifference to Millie as I have with other girls who have been right where she is, they would know. I may be feared, but I’d be outnumbered… not that anyone would try to start trouble with me. I’m the alpha and the omega in the new Generation. I’m Army blood. The arms that raised me weren’t carrying love; they were carrying knives and AKAs. I’m agent 000, the executioner, and the damn devil who walks in the flesh. I’m feared on these grounds and the ones  outside of it. I can think of two-hundred different ways to end a human life without merely lifting a finger. And I do.
And I’m good at it.
I’m no man. What I am is much more beastly than what even your darkest imagination could muster. I could make you want to eradicate your own mere existence, and while I’m at it, I’ll even make you
enjoy
it. I’m less man and more machine—a machine that operates by blood and the thrill of the kill, not by batteries. A machine that could paint your blood on the walls with your kid standing there watching while I give him or her a graphic play-by-play on how I tore apart every tendon in their father’s body until the life slowly drained from his eyes and slid to the back of his severed-open skull. I’m the man you would send to wipe out the very existence of your worst nightmare. I’m not the man whose chest tightens at a simple whimper that escapes from lips so plump, I have to fight the urge to dip my head down and bite them so hard that blood draws. I shouldn’t be thinking about how tight her little virgin pussy would be around my shaft, but I do. I think about that whimper leaving her as I descend deep into her wet walls with each extraction the ribbon texture of her tunnel would grate over my throbbing cock. I wanna drop to my knees and feast on her all night until she begs me to stop as her orgasm rains down over my chin—and then I’d keep going. I’d lick up every single drop before latching my lips around her clit until I suck every little ounce of pleasure from her.

But I can’t. I won’t. Kurr has plans for her, big plans. I know how this process goes; it’s a natural occurrence at the base. I’m no man. I’m machine, and I will do as I swore on oath.

I will do it for more than one reason.

Millie

In a second, the tight grip around my thighs loosens. His body inches back, the tears that have escaped, now dry. “That was a warm-up. Next time, I won’t be as gracious. I’ll leave you with that,” he seethes.

Turning around, his back faces me. I scan over him, memorizing every inch of the man that’s rattled me.

“What’s your name?” I whisper just before he hits the cell door, following behind the pack of upset masked men who didn’t get to “play”.

He turns, walking straight back to where he was until his chest slams against mine and air wheezes out of my chest. His arms come back to caging me between them, my back now stinging like sharp little daggers have lodged deep inside, courtesy of the rough concrete walls.

“My name?” he asks, grating his crotch against my stomach. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I apparently have to leave your virginity intact, because…” He pauses, and when I peer deep into his stormy grey eyes, they’re like hard cement blocks that have been set ablaze. “That doesn’t matter right now. You’ll find out soon enough. But let me get this straight,
nun
. I may have to keep your virginity intact, but I can think of one hundred and one other ways to have those white panties you’re wearing drowning in your own cum and your tight little cunt craving for my cock to rip through that little hymen you have between your legs.”

He pauses and I wet my lips, my tongue running over their sudden dryness. His eyes follow the movement closely and he presses into me again, his thick bulge pushing against my stomach.

“You know what I’d do?” he questions, and I don’t want to know, but I have a feeling this isn’t a question. His masked face drops to my ear again as he hips slowly grind against me. “I’d rip those panties off and run my tongue all over that wet arousal you left in them before I’d circle your clit like a fucking halo of the angel you were, and replace them with the devil horns you will become. You’d fuck my tongue until your sweet release is seeping into the pores of my face, until your fucking virginity splits open from how hard my tongue is pounding into you, owning you, and I’d suck up every bit of evidence that ever showed you were innocent.”

My eyes close, my fingers tremble in horror.

He finishes. “Next time, I’ll be laying you flat on your back and showing you all the different ways a tongue can be used that doesn’t involve praying your hail-fucking-Marys.” I feel as though the crucifix that’s chained around my neck has caught ablaze at the mere proximity of him. He pushes off the wall and steps back. “You need to be trained.” Then he spins around and walks out the cell door.

With the heavy sliding of the metal bars slamming shut, I slide down the wall until my bottom lands on the cold cement floor where I curl up and let my sobs be the lullaby that pulls me into a deep sleep.