Twigs slash at my skin, debris rips through me, and the moment I stop moving, I hear the chain hit something above me—metal winding around and before I can react, I’m jerked upright by my wrists, forced to my feet.
My arms continue to stretch high above me, converse barely scraping the ground, body pulled tight like a wire ready to snap. Rain pours down my face, hair slicked and heavy, my shirt clinging to my skin, soaked and stained with mud.
I just hang there, trembling as I hear his footsteps behind me, moving in a circle, but when he stops in front of me, I feel the sharpness of his blade press beneath my chin. My entire body tenses, eyes squeezing shut as he lifts my head and all I can think is, this is it.
He’s going to kill me.
But when he doesn’t move, I finally look up at him. He stands there, a statue carved from shadow and silence, gawking down at me. But this time, he’s not looking through me—not like he usually does. No. Now, he’s looking at me like heseesme. Every flaw. Every fracture. Every secret I thought I’d buried too deep to be found.
The weight of his gaze pins me in place, a silent hand around my throat. It’s not fear that chokes me, not exactly—it’s something worse. It’s recognition. I can’t breathe right. My chest rises and falls in shallow bursts, lungs working overtime like they know something I don’t.
The eye contact alone nearly unravels me, like he’s peeling me open with just his stare, and I want to scream, sob or collapse into him. But all I can do is stare back.
“Just do it,” I whisper, voice raw and cracking, my bottom lip quivering as my eyes water. “Take what you fucking want. Kill me.”
Wrath’s head tilts to the side as he inspects me, then I feel it—his blade, cold and sharp, dragging down the front of my throat. It presses just enough to remind me it’s real, gliding slowly, following the line of my heaving chest and he holds eye contact the entire time.
The blade stops right above my heart, and he lingers there—hand trembling like he’s tempted to push it in. He’s just seconds from choosing violence, I can feel it. But then, all at once, he snaps the knife shut and slips it into his pocket. He replaces it with his marker, biting down on it between his teeth.
Without warning, both his hands shoot out and he grabs me, seizing the bust of my shirt, rough and intense. He pauses and waits—eyes flicking up to mine and when I don’t resist, his hands rip through the fabric with a brutal pull, tearing it clean in two until it’s falls to the floor and I’m left bare, exposed and only in my panties.
My stomach tightens as his greedy gaze sweeps over my body, lingering on my tits, the hardness of my nipples before continuing to move downward.
Usually I’d curl into myself, but I know I can’t do that, and to be honest, I don’t feel I want to. Maybe if he sees how disgusting and scarred I am he’ll be put off. Maybe he’ll let me go and choose someone else to call his.
Yet, he isn’t put off at all. He takes steps forward, his eyes travelling back up my body until they settle on mine—full of hunger.
When his wet, shirtless body touches mine, my breasts pressed hard against his abs, my breathing jams in my throat from the overwhelming sensation of the connection that passes through me. My head tilts right back, his lips mere inches from mine, breath fanning against my lips.
His hands find my hips and I flinch on instinct as he tucks his thumbs beneath the strings of my panties and begins to slide them down, dragging them over the curve of my ass. The thin fabric clings, peeling away from my slick pussylips before falling to the ground.
Cold air hits me everywhere at once and just when I think he’s going to take what he wants, right here beneath the trees, he steps back. The heat of him leaves me, the loss instant and without a word, he drops to his knees in front of me, the pen still clamped between his teeth.
I stare down at him, too stunned to speak. A single tear slips down my cheek, hot against the cold, as I watch his eyes trail over me like he’s reading something only he can see, lingering on the places I’d rather he didn’t, on the parts of me I’ve hated the most.
His hands reach out, trembling as they find my scarred thighs before his palms slide upward slowly, thumbs pressing deep into my skin until a strange, dark ache coils low in my stomach.
He pauses at my hips, then moves back down again, like he’s memorizing the shape of me.
He finally takes the pen from between his teeth, rips off the cap, and presses the tip to my skin. He starts to write on me, right across my stomach and my brows draw together, confusion curling inside me.
He doesn’t even look up. He’s too locked in and focused, like I’m paper and he’s trying to rewrite me from the outside in with words, symbols and lines I don’t recognize.
He keeps going, moving around me, covering every inch of skin he can reach, front and back.
When he’s in front of me again, something in him shifts. He grabs my hair, ripping it back, and I hiss, eyes squeezing shut. As soon as he starts writing on my tits and chest, slowly moving upward to my throat, my eyes gently open again.
Not stopping for a second, his gaze slowly moves to my lips, then up to my eyes. He searches them for a second before dropping back to my lips.
I just stay completely still, letting him do what he wants, wondering what the fuck is going through his mind in this moment.
When it seems like he’s finished, he tosses his pen aside, taking a step back. He suddenly shoves his hand in his boxers and yanks his cock free, rock hard again as he gives it a few rough jerks with dark eyes, taking me in.
I feel the arousal spike inside me again, my pussy thirsty to taste him inside me. But when he starts unwrapping the barbed wire from around his neck, I know he’s about to do something.
He walks forward, crouches and starts binding it tightly around my ankles. I hiss as the sharp edges slice into my skin, each twist biting deeper.
Then, without warning, he stands, and he does something that rips a scream from my throat. He pulls the wire upward, forcing my legs to split until my feet are folded against my stomach, suspended in the air. The chains straining my arms groan, my joints screaming, nearly pulled from their sockets.