Tales of Darkness & Sin - Pepper Winters Page 0,106

the door, hoping to escape, but his steps thundered close behind me and his arms wrapped around my middle, lifting me off the ground as if I weighed nothing.

I struggled like a madwoman, clawed and kicked, but he carried me over to the bed and dropped me unceremoniously. Then he crouched over me, his body holding me down.

“Don’t touch me!” I hissed.

“Only a few minutes ago you squeezed my cock while you came around me, and now you play hard to get?”

He was being cruel on purpose, and it was having an effect on me. Tears sprang into my eyes. “You aren’t any better than the man you killed for me. You are a monster. You don’t deserve to touch me ever again, not after betraying me.”

He laughed darkly. “Betrayal?”

I glared, even as a tear slid down my cheek. I was fighting so hard to be strong but it was too much. Killer’s eyes followed the descent of my tear.

“How will you kill me?” I asked softly. “Will you make me suffer because someone paid you to do it? Or will you make it quick?”

Something shifted in Killer’s eyes and for a heartbeat it gave me hope, but hadn’t I misinterpreted his actions before? He was playing with my emotions, maybe that was part of the torture leading up to my death.

Killer pushed away from me and straightened, looking away. He smirked again. It looked wrong on his face. “Twenty-four hours, Little One, then you’ll find out.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Killer

Part of me knew that I did her wrong. Whatever humanity was left inside me, pitied her. Ached for her.

I didn’t remember much of my childhood before the cage… before the insistent need to kill… before the bloodlust and the vicious anger inside me. For a long time, I forgot to be human. I forgot what it felt like to be… human.

I was owned. A slave. An animal.

A fearsome beast – and I had been treated as such.

A monster who slaughtered.

I was… KILLER.

But in this moment, I actually felt… bad for Talia Barese. I might have been the Grim Reaper… but I guessed, I was still human, after all.

Too bad, I had been paid to kill her. She was my job and there was nothing I could do to save her. Even if little Talia had crawled under my skin, her death clock had started ticking the moment someone paid for her blood.

Goddamn it. She was a temptation I was weak against… a forbidden fruit I craved to taste. An obsession I couldn’t possibly deny.

When she had walked right into my territory, I thought she would have been an easy kill. I didn’t have to hunt her down, she had unknowingly walked right into her death. I had been pleased with the outcome.

Until I saw her.

Until I touched her.

Until I tasted her.

Until her cunt had squeezed my cock like her life depended on it.

FUCK!

Talia whimpered and her eyes fluttered open. She winced with a pained groan. I watched as she came back from her little sleep, as she fought to stay awake. A cough ripped from her throat and she groaned again, appearing to be just as disoriented as I expected her to be.

She had been sleeping for over twelve hours.

Talia slowly grasped onto her consciousness and the moment she was finally awake enough to realize her predicament, she thrashed to get free. A loud wail escaped her.

“Noooo! No! Let me go!!”

The chains clanked as she kept thrashing, fighting to get free.

There was no point. She was trapped.

Trapped for another twelve hours before I end her life…

I stepped out from the shadows. Her head snapped toward me and her wide, fearful eyes met mine. They glistened with tears. Tsk, poor Talia.

Minutes passed in strained silence before she finally let out a choked sob. “Why?”

I cocked my head to the side, waiting.

Her chin wobbled as she held in another cry. She sniffled and her watery eyes narrowed on me. She was refusing to break down in front of me. Strong and fierce. If it was any other time, I would have appreciated that.

Talia pulled on her chains, the sound of metal clanging against the wall loud against the silence. “Why are you doing this? Why did you use me? Why not just… kill me? WHY?”

“I do what I want.” I grinned. “I’ll kill you when I want and how? I will decide that too.”

She spat on the ground, looking incensed. “I hate you.”

My jaw locked, my eyes hardened and I took a step forward.