Page 238 of Coal Hearts

Victor cursed. “Sheath your teeth, you little cunt.”

Peter didn’t reply but a gagging noise sounded as if Victor shoved his jewel’s face deeper onto his cock.

My own cock reached breaking point.

I no longer felt drunk on booze but entirely high on Ily’s ungiven surrender.

Nine drops remaining.

A mere nine little ruby tears to finish this morbid game.

And I knew exactly where I’d bleed her.

Glancing down at my nakedness, I traced my knife along the red, ugly scar above my femoral artery. Or at least, I’d thought that was where it lurked. I’d tried to find it. Tried to slice it. Tried to bleed out all over the goddamn floor.

I’d failed and left myself with a nasty reminder that I couldn’t even kill myself successfully.

For months, that’d gnawed away at me. Shamed me. Destroyed me.

A constant reminder that even though I wanted so fucking badly to be good, that was never an option for me.

But now...I’d reached the bottom of my downfall. Black clouds above me. Midnight fog around me. And I’d never breathed such sweet air, never stretched in such welcoming oblivion.

That scar was now a promise.

A vow that I’d found where I belonged.

I was home.

Looking up, I caught Ily studying my puckered scar.

In a moment of lucidity and ill-advised empathy, she whispered, “What happened?”

I grinned at the softness of her voice, the imploring hope that I’d return to her and be the jackass who thought he’d been falling for her.

I couldn’t wait to teach her that that jackass was now dead.

“I survived.” I ran my thumbs on either side of her pussy, tracing the hypersensitive, ever-so-fragile skin. “And for the first time since that day, I’m glad I did because now...I get to play with you.”

She shuddered.

Her collar clinked against the hook.

Her entire body broke out in goosebumps.

“Please, Henri.”

“Not my name anymore, little nightmare. I told you that.”

“Please—”

“Hush.” Pressing a kiss against her left upper thigh where her flawless skin mocked my scarred one, I poised the tip of my knife. “This one might hurt.”

Not giving her time to tense or slip into whatever subspace she found sanctuary in, I cut.

Not too deep—I wasn’t feeling murderous. Just deep enough to grant her a matching defection, completing our ceremony of blood and belonging.

Scarlet instantly gushed.