I really fucking hate him.
“But Dorian and Amos were the monsters slayed by the monster slayer, because you paused being a monster long enough to also be a hero.”
“Caught that little dark piece of ironic hypocrisy, did you?” I ask dryly, packing more pillows behind my back—all on my own—because fucking Damien is a screamer, and apparently that earns him more attention. “I’ve said from the beginning I’m a monster too, Violet.”
“I’m saying this is the worst they were—Damien’s people. Technically, Dorian is also considered a first-born, but he’s a bastard, and that meant more back then. Dorian was a vile, sexual predator. Everything about Damien is now a curse of the flesh,” she says, saying that last part again as she glances over at me.
“To be fair, Damien was a sexual deviant before he was a monster. He just didn’t feed on sex back then,” I point out, since she makes him sound as if he’s a bloody saint with a scarlet letter unfairly pinned to him.
“How soon can you be better?” she asks curiously.
“You’d have made a fabulous drill sergeant,” I state with a humorless smile, before opening the next bottle of water and starting on it.
It’s like she knew when I was going to wake up and was prepared for me.
I wish she’d stop focusing on Damien so I could have her attention now that I’m awake. I feel ridiculous.
“Why do I need to be better?” I finally ask when she makes an exasperated sound.
“Because I’d feel safer if you were in the room when I attempt this. I’m sort of still feeling my way around my limits, since none of you have bothered to—”
“Fuck no,” I say when I finally realize what she’s suggesting, and I look at her like she’s lost her damn mind.
She swings her gaze toward me, seeming less omega than the girl prepping my stand with water bottles, and more like that fragile gypsy she was in the car with me that night.
“I’m a Portocale gypsy willing to forgive him for a crime he didn’t commit. And I can’t die.”
“Stop using that as an excuse to take unnecessary risks,” I groan, glancing around, wishing she’d also anticipated my need for a stronger sort of drink.
“Will he hurt you?”
“He won’t even know I’m in the room, Violet. That’s what you don’t seem to understand,” I say more firmly as I glare at her. “Damien is not there. He’s a captive in the back of his mind as he writhes in agony internally. The one driving shotgun is the abominable creature who will possess your every thought, action, and mind if he gets his hands on you the way he wants to. The monster will break you. Do you understand?”
“I understand that I’ve been stabbed, beheaded, set on fire, and had my throat slit. Some more than others. I haven’t been broken, Vance. My mother never let me test the limits of what I could withstand, and I understand why now. But this is different. I’m giving instead of taking.”
“None of that makes sense to me. At all,” I point out very reasonably, because I hate how weak I feel in this moment, and I’m really disliking the determination I see in her defiant eyes.
“Everything about Damien is a curse of the flesh,” she says again. “Idun’s curse, his entire identity, and this curse as well. It’s all tied to one time in his life, and something he once loved became the true curse, because he struggles to enjoy sins of the flesh anymore.”
“He’s had a change of heart recently. Wait until he’s awake to reward him for being more pathetic than me, like a rational girl.”
She swings her gaze to me once more, looking slightly worried about my well-being.
“I’m trying to end this curse for him, and you’re jealous?” she asks very seriously.
I bristle, not entirely appreciating the condescension in her tone.
“You can’t bloody break the curse like this. Don’t be a fool. And he’s a true monster right now, Violet. Something much worse and more sinister when you’re near. Step closer. Give him a minute to smell you while he’s down.”
She moves closer without the appropriate sense of fear, and stands just out of reach of the marked line.
He doesn’t do the predictable madman routine I’m expecting him to do. In fact, he does something he rarely ever does.
Damien’s head slowly comes up, and a feral tick tick tick sound rumbles in his throat. There’s a pulse of energy through the air before I hear the subtle rattle in the back.
My stomach sours immediately, because the monster isn’t fucking around with Violet.
“Step back right now,” I tell her, seeing her unresponsive as her pupils get broader and broader. “Violet, walk to me right now, damn it!”
She gets a little light headed, because she sways on her feet.
“He gets his hands on you, and you won’t care if he kills you or not,” I bite out, struggling to move my damn legs.
“I can’t die,” she says again, giving me some relief that she hasn’t been manipulated the way I was worried she had been.
“You may wish you could. He’s an alpha. One with a very tight grip on his true monster. Wait for that version of him.”
She sways again, as she seemingly tests him, even as her breaths grow steadily quicker, as though he’s starting to affect her too much.
“Violet, step away. Put some space between you two right the fuck now.”
“I can do this,” she says like she’s assuring me. “He’s trying to gently bait me.”
“Violet, he’s in your head. Step back now!” I say more seriously as I finally stumble out of the bed, but collapse to my knees when my legs refuse to aide me.
She takes a step closer as the little wafts of the nearly silent rattler echo through the air again.
“Violet, fucking stop!” I shout, but it almost seems like she’s committed to this and just allowing it to happen, not fighting it at all.
“Do not let him run this, Violet. Step back. Please, fo—”
I don’t even know how I was going to finish that sentence, because pure panic was guiding the words. It doesn’t matter now, because Damien moves with all the speed he has, grabbing her at the waist, and he turns, slamming her into the wall so hard I hear something crack. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be anything on her.
I hold my breath, feeling it painfully frozen in my chest as I watch, barely able to hold myself up. That rattle pulses the air once more, and the ticking in the back of his throat gets louder.
He’s not howling in pain now. He’s got what he was screaming for.
Fucking. Hell.
I quietly reach under my bed, grabbing the loaded gun that’s strapped there. Silver bullets won’t kill him, but they’ll fuck him up enough for her to get away.
If she’s even bloody lucid enough to do so at this point.
He could lose his mind and hurt her far worse…
Cursing, I lower the gun, rethinking that shit plan real damn fast, and forced to do nothing but watch for the time being. I need a damn sword.
His chains rattle as he runs his nose along her neck, the eerie ticking and muffled rattle working in unison again.
She sucks in a breath when he rips the robe from her body, and a dark, warning growl sounds from his throat when she moves too much. She goes utterly still.
I’m still holding my breath.
It feels like each second is an agonizingly long hour.
His darts out, and her breath hitches when he runs it along the base of her neck. She holds her hand out toward me, as if the daft girl is signaling to me that she’s okay.
She’s not at all okay. She needs her fucking head examined just as soon as I can breathe again.
Not even Idun bothered with him like this.
And she usually preferred us at our worst.
More fabric rips, and I see that he’s torn away her underwear as the chains start to groan.
His chest rattles now, as he pins her against the wall with his hips and uses his hands to start pulling too hard at the chains.
“He’s focusing too much. You really need to get yourself out of this,” I tell her sternly, having no fucking clue how to get it done without taking his head off at this point.
My little gun isn’t going to cut it, and my weapons room is four rooms down. It’d be wonderful if my legs would stop being numb right now.
Her bra is torn away next, and she hisses out a breath, as she gets up on her tippy toes, while his hand slowly closes over her throat.
He runs his nose through the side of her hair, that ticking getting steadier and louder, almost thrumming, like he has exactly what he wants right where he wants it.
He licks the side of her cheek, before tearing away the front of his own jeans.
Violet makes a startled sound when he shoves himself inside her with no warning at all, and then she moans as he yanks at the chains again.
I’ve seen what he can do with one set of iron chains. The silver ones aren’t faring any better.
They whine under his grip as he pulls Violet to him and thrusts into her so hard she should break. Instead, her nails dig into his back, and one of her legs winds around his hip, giving him a better angle.
The silver gives at last, the chains snapping at the top instead of yanking from the wall, and dread rolls through me as I aim the gun directly at the center of his forehead.