her crying out in pain, her eyes welling with tears. “We’ve come to an arrangement. He realized that he and his friends need me.”
“Friends?”
Tugging my prize along, I spare her a grin. “Other gods fallen to the beauty of chaos. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know they need to sleep too. If they destroy dreams they’re just as doomed as everyone else. In anarchy we will find freedom. Mankind will bow down to us, and we’ll shape the world how we see fit.”
“You might make others bow down to you, but you won’t be getting that from me.”
“Says the woman already on her knees with the taste of me still in her mouth,” I counter, halting at the bars of a nearby cell. The occupants huddle in the corner sobbing, waiting for Cupid to defile them and taint them with his hate.
Robin tenses under my grip, twisting in my hold to see the source of the noise, her pretty face paling.
Humming in my throat, my attention jumps from woman to woman imagining which will be the next one to feel the slice of my scalpel. “Pretty things break so easily. Some take longer than others to die. Hopefully you’ll survive longer than my last one.”
Not waiting for her to comment, I march the rest of the distance to my workroom. I fling her to the concrete floor at the center. She lands haphazardly hitting it hard before straightening up to her knees with a wince.
The other occupant of the room shouts out behind his gag when he sees her. Robin’s attention darts his way, a look of horror blooming over her face when she sees him. Chained to the Saint Andrew’s cross, he’s stripped from the waist up baring his skinny chest and arms.
“Snatch?”
Fishing out my cigarettes, I free one from the packet before slipping them away. “You know he’s in love with you, right? Besotted like a lovesick puppy?”
Tension snakes through her posture where she’s still kneeling, a ripple of panic passing so quickly over her features I almost don’t catch it.
Tongue flicking out, she licks her lips nervously leaving a sheen across them. “Please let him go. Take him down from there.”
Popping my cigarette between my own, I spark up the end inhaling deeply. With a click of my fingers, a song starts playing through the speakers on the wall. Releasing the smoke from my lungs in one long drawn out puff, I dance to the music, moving my hips in time with the song.
“Quid pro quo. What are you offering in return if I do?” Swirling my fingers through it, the white swirls contort at my silent command taking on the form of naked dancers.
Robin releases a shaky breath. “Whatever you want.”
“Have you ever felt the sharp sting of a blade as it cuts your skin?” I question casually.
“Yes.”
It’s not what I’m expecting. Brows knotting together, I search her pale expression before the faint swell of foreign concern is pushed aside. She’s nothing but a toy. A plaything like the others. Something to be taken apart and put back together. Giving her hope is just part of the fun before I destroy it all so easily. Stalking to my trussed-up prey, I grip my cigarette between two fingers before jabbing the burning end into the flesh of his arm. Snatch jerks but doesn’t make a sound. Robin on the other hand makes a tiny noise of distress in her throat.
Blowing on the embers to rekindle the flames, I work a pattern along his pallid skin leaving welts in my wake.
“Stop.” Robin’s shout slopes into a scream, when electricity flows through her collar with one touch of my button. Shoulders shaking, she crawls around on the floor like a repentant pet.
Selecting a knife from the table beside the cross, I run the blade just below Snatch’s left nipple. “I’m not going to agonize over hurting your friend, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
His muffled agonized scream bounces off the walls around us, blood trickles from the wound I’ve inflicted. With an artist’s eye, I begin to carve patterns in the vulnerable living canvas before me. Celtic knots, Greek symbols. Whatever comes to mind while I work.
The male squeals some more, his muscles quivering, red slicking the length of his torso.
“Your screams will lull me to sleep at night.” A smirk creeps onto my lips. “Earth is nothing but an ant farm. Mankind are hateful creatures. Divided in so many ways. You don’t deserve