Nothing. No shiver, no flinch. Just a deep, drug-induced sleep. Her skin is soft, just like I thought it would be. A stark contrast to the filth on my own hands, the things I’ve done and the people I’ve destroyed.
Slowly, I brush her hair away, clearing it from her closed eyes and her long, dark lashes fan over her cheeks. My mind is a fucking battlefield. She’s beyond beautiful, a waste of death. So delicate and mine. I can already tell she’s going to be a test of everything I’ve ever known.
She doesn’t know how fucking lucky she is that I’m the kind of sicko who only gets pleasure from the dead, and I’m not here to do that tonight. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to leave my mark and play twisted games with her before I see her again.
I withdraw, slowly rising, my body tight with restraint. My blade disappears into my jeans, replaced with something less deadly, but just as permanent. My marker and lifeline where my words fail.
My leather jacket, soaked and heavy, slides from my arms and crashes to the floor like dead weight. My pulse pounds while carefully climbing onto the bottom of the bed, my face low as I crawl up her frame like a shadow stretching in candlelight.
I hover so close, rain drips from the wavy strands of my hair onto her pale skin. My gaze hungrily drags over her shape beneath the sheet that barely hides her. She’s small compared to me. So fragile. And fuck, I could break her so easily. I wonna tear her tiny cunt apart.
I brace my weight on one arm, the other bringing the marker to my teeth and bite the cap off. Then, with slow, deliberate strokes, I press the ink to her skin. My backward words stain her in thick, black script, carving words into her body without ever breaking the flesh.
After the final stroke, I click the cap back on and shove it into my jeans. My cock is now heavy and pulsing, grinding against the soft swell of her ass every time I move, causing an unbearable ache.
A low growl rips from my chest, dark and animalistic in my throat as my dark gaze devours her all over again.
I have to leave. Now. Before I lose my shit entirely.
Lowing my face, I press my forehead against the side of hers, closing my eyes, relishing in her one last time. Then, gripping my last remains of my self-control, I leap off the bed. As soon as my boots land on the floor, I scoop my jacket up and head for the door.
Pausing at the threshold, I glance back at her, realizing she’s the first to ever live. For now. I blink blankly for a second, questioning my entire existence, an unusual feeling settling in my stomach as I return my eyes to the dark hallway ahead and leave.
Chapter Six
Arabella
“What does it say?” I hear an unfamiliar voice say, waking me up.
“I don’t know. It looks backward.” Noir answers.
I groan, the dull throbbing in my arms making itself known as I realize I’ve slept on my front the entire time, my limbs numb under the pillow. My body protests as I push myself up onto my elbows, my eyelids heavy with sleep.
“What does what say?” I mumble, squinting as the bright morning light spills through the shutters.
I turn my head to look at Noir beside the bed and another girl with black and pink hair standing next to her. They don’t answer right away, they juststare.My tired gaze flickers between them, irritation creeping inside me.
“What?” I repeat, demanding answers.
The girl with the black-and-pink hair grins, arms crossed. “I think it’s time to stop sleeping naked, beautiful.”
As my eyes adjust, I take in her curvaceous figure and pretty face. Her pink irises glow unnaturally against her tanned complexion, and full black lips. She looks like a walking contradiction, something soft wrapped in something lethal.
Then my gaze drops to my chest, relieved that my breasts are still covered beneath me, but I must have slept for two days straight.
“I still have panties on,” I state flatly, knowing the sheet is still covering my ass and legs.
The girl giggles, tilting her head. “Not for long if you keep this up.”
“Blush,” Noir growls, cutting her off. “This isn’t the time to be making jokes. What the fuck is that?”
Something in her voice makes my gut drop and my head snaps around to look at her. Noir gestures sharply toward my back, and that’s all the confirmation I need.
My fingers clutch at the white sheet, yanking it around myself as I scramble to my feet and my pulse pounds in my ears as I think about a few nights ago.
Wrath.
The memory of him lurking around outside, watching and taunting me, slams into me like a freight train.