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He gave my breast a squeeze and left his hand there, cupping it as we sauntered down the sidewalk at his infuriatingly slow pace. “You’re right. It won’t matter there anyway. Where we’re going, it’ll be dark enough to give you a tongue bath, and no one will notice.”
I shivered, hoping he wouldn’t follow through with that threat. Because of the wraithshade inside him, he preferred the terror he inflicted by threats to committing any of the acts themselves, but it wouldn’t be beyond him. He’d done worse.
He’d been a psychopath for as long as I’d known him, but the wraithshade was a new addition, only a couple years old. A demonic entity, now bound to him, he’d summoned it and invited it inside him for the potent abilities he got in return for being a willing host. As Hellborne creatures, wraithshades consumed human emotion. All Ivan had to do was terrorize people, and the parasite would consume the fear he’d stoked, making them both stronger and stronger.
Every time I thought Ivan couldn’t get any worse, he did.
We reached the entrance of a strip club with neon pink lights in the shape of scantily clad dancing ladies flashing obnoxiously in front of us, and I knew his suggestion about a tongue bath was no idle threat. He probably had all sorts of plans for us in the VIP lounge with the other girls.
I held my hand over my suddenly-nauseous stomach. “Ivan, not now, please. Just… go ahead and have fun, but let me go home. I don’t want to go in tonight.”
He snaked his hand up from my tit and curled his fingers around my neck, holding my jaw tightly. “Bullshit, Tess. We both know you love it, don’t be embarrassed. You wish you were hot enough to work here.”
The truth was that I could have been into it, but never with Ivan. “No, it’s not true.” I pulled away, but he only squeezed his fingers into my flesh harder. “Let go, I can’t do this.”
I didn’t know what was wrong with me. After all this time with him, my ability to go with the flow had turned anemic. Panic poured from inside me as I flailed against him, and he ate it up. I knew I was feeding them, but I couldn’t stop.
Chuckling at first, he spun me around to face him. I balled my gloved hands into fists on instinct because when my bare hands touched someone, I saw their death, and it was usually traumatizing.
“Tess, what do you think you’re doing? How dare you?” he hissed into my neck and then, with the tip of his tongue, licked a long, slow line up the shell of my ear. “Keep fighting, baby, because you taste delicious,” he whispered. His fingers dug into my ass as he held me flush against him. His hard cock pressed against my stomach, turning it sour. Inches from my face, he ogled me, the chilling glint reminding me of my place, and I went slack. “That’s right,” he said, licking the seam of my lips.
Screaming inside, I nodded, agreeing to follow him in and do as he commanded for the rest of the night. I knew if I did that, I’d be allowed to go home to the apartment I shared with my roommate, and sleep in my own bed, in my own room. Alone. Where I was safe.
Chapter Two: Empire of Fear
Tess
Pulling my jacket closedas if it could protect me, I lumbered out of the strip club the moment Ivan allowed me to. The streets of Crimson City were decorated for Halloween, as any city with a high supernatural population would be. People would walk around in costumes for at least two weeks before and after the thirty-first of October, so every year, we got a nice long celebration.
I stumbled home drunk over the confetti thrown during the procession. Not many people were still out since it was two in the morning, but I didn’t want to have to deal with anyone. So, getting my pocket knife out, I sliced into my hand and rubbed the blood in circles, whispering the spell to keep me veiled. I just wanted to get home, and I didn’t want to think about what had happened in the club ever again.
Grateful for my three shots of tequila in quick succession, I writhed around, dancing with the stripper in the private room Ivan had booked. It was always a struggle, but I’d endured enough beatings to know I had to remember to keep a smile on my face and make eye contact with each of Ivan’s friends. He liked to share me—always with this smug look on his face, sipping his whisky, watching me service them. Sometimes, he’d catch my eye and wink.
When the first man crooked a finger at me, I glanced at Ivan first, watching for his signal. He nodded subtly, so I danced over to the large red-haired man in a gray suit, and Ivan cuffed my hands behind my back. His slimy leer made my stomach churn, and I reminded myself to get into character. Fake it till you make it. I hated the feeling of his hands all over me even more than his cock down my throat. I could cope when he grabbed my hair in his fists hard enough to squeeze a scream out of me, but when he caressed my arms, down my back and over my ass, I had to fight the urge to punch him. At least Ivan made sure everyone knew my hands were off-limits, but that was only so that I wouldn't fall into a heap of traumatized mess from seeing their bloody deaths.
Shaking my head, I tried to pack that memory away when I caught sight of a couple making out against a building across the street. The man had a woman pinned against the brick wall, and I quickly realized she was whining at him to let her go. Stunned immobile, I watched, my chest rising and falling heavier as what I saw sank in. They couldn’t see me, of course, and as he continued to kiss her throat and shove his hand up her skirt, he paid no attention to her protesting. I squeezed my eyes shut and curled my hands into fists at the memory slamming into me.
The first time Ivan shared me with his friends, I begged him not to. “Please, Ivan, there are women out there who are willing,” I cried, motioning to the main floor of the strip club. Almost all of the strippers woulddo tricks in private rooms for cash. I’d watched Ivan and his friends with them three times by then, and all he’d asked me to do was play with myself. But that time, he bent me over a table, laughing as his friend stripped my panties off and slapped my pussy. I flinched at the sharp pain and blushed, ashamed of myself for also feeling pleasure in it. When I begged him to let me go, Ivan grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back. Pressing a knife to my throat, he snarled into my ear, “Who owns you, Tess?”
My heart broke in realization at what had become of me. “You do,” I sobbed.
“That’s right. You’re here to be my little party slut who loves to fuck. So do what you’re told and make it believable.”
Tears trailed down my cheeks as I nodded and told the guy with his cock already poised at my entrance how much I wanted him. I tried not to look at Ivan’s other friends standing around us, all sipping their drinks and stroking their cocks, waiting for their turn.
I bit my lip, pushing the memory back again and, swallowing my inclination to bark at the guy pressing the girl against the brick wall, closed my eyes and sighed. I wished I could walk on and not get involved, but that wasn’t who I was. It had been a long day and an even longer night. I just wanted to get home and curl up in bed, but she kept saying no, and it twisted painfully in my gut. I knew how that felt and was powerless when it happened to me. I wished someone had intervened for me, but I could change this for her, at least. He moved a hand to her mouth, the other one sliding her panties down to her knees. Her eyes widened, but she couldn’t scream. I felt that scream build in my own gut. The escalation wasn’t something I could turn away from anymore.
My instinct was to stomp forward and shove my knife in his back a hundred times, but I steeled myself and sliced across the top of myforearm, whispering an apathy incantation. The result would make her less upset about his advances, but it would also make him less interested in raping her.
She stopped struggling and just glared at him. His kissing slowed; he glanced down the street and then just blinked at her. “Hey, you hungry?” he asked her.
“No,” she croaked.
“Huh, me neither.” He backed up and started walking away. Her eyebrows knitted together for a beat, then she pulled her panties up. She watched him with her mouth agape as he tramped further and further away. Obviously confused, she threw her hands in the air and walked off in the other direction.
“You’re welcome,” I sang, but they didn’t hear me. Thank the goddess they didn’t hear me.
Back when I was a homeless teen, starving on the streets, I dreamed of someone saving me. No one would give me a job because I looked dirty and weak, so I didn’t know how to get out of my situation—but I was never going home.
