Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,94

no purpose. I’d sit on his knee before he extinguished the candles and let him pet me and fawn over me. It was then that I felt something hard in the pocket of his trousers.

A lighter.

Again, I was tempted.

I knew there was nothing I could do with his face. It’s only a face. Would stealing a glance of his face make me feel better when he owned my body, my mind, and my soul?

The scales would still be unbalanced.

I wouldn’t do it.

But I thought about it when he was pressed up against my back, one hand clamped over my breasts and the other draped lazily over my still-flat stomach. His breathing and the way he’d just fucked me revealed that he was fast asleep.

I could smell his clothes a foot or so away from my face.

Maybe I’d never get another chance.

I would decide what to do with it once it was in my hands.

Arm outstretched, fingers dancing over the hem of his jeans—trying to find the pocket—he shifted his weight on top of me so quickly it took the air out of my lungs.

Warm and heavy breath caressed my cheeks.

Hands clamped down on my wrists, sliding them above my head.

He said nothing when he kicked my legs apart with his knees and slammed into me.

The next night he brought me a book to read. “Tell me, sweet girl, has your bleeding started?”

No.

I hadn’t bled once since before he took me.

But he would never know about that. Not until there was nothing I could do to hide it.

I knew that if I simply told him, he’d probably take me away from here. Maybe I’d go back to my old room with a comfortable bed. Maybe that would be better.

Maybe not.

Baron was right. Giving me a child gave me something to live for. I was thinking, for perhaps only the second or third time in my sorry little existence, about what came next.

The next night, last night, sometime after dinner—he always came after dinner—I found a stone with a sharp edge and slid it along the sole of my foot, wincing as the crimson liquid trickled down to my toes.

I smeared it over the tops of my thighs and was already naked by the time he came to visit me.

“I’m bleeding,” I told him, throat thick with broken glass. The first words to pass my lips in weeks.

His masked face trailed up and down my body. He paused for a long minute and then shrugged his shoulders. “Not to worry. We’ll keep trying.”

Did he believe me?

Who knows.

28

Sapphire

Surprisingly little blood comes out of a foot, and I only have two of them at my disposal. Any other body part would be noticeable.

Maybe with some luck the foot I used last night will have healed enough by tomorrow night that I can use it again.

I’m sitting on the chair, stone in my hand, leg crossed over my knee with my foot upturned, when a sound comes from the other side of the door.

He’s early.

I drop the stone.

Dive into my little nest with a burst of energy I’ve not felt in a long time.

The door swings open, and the next sound I hear is a tapping of wood against the hard stone floor.

Only one person here is old enough to require the assistance of a cane when walking.

I crawl out from my nest on the floor and move toward the chair, resting my back against it as two figures enter the room. One of them is a man I don’t recognize, and just like I suspected, the other is a tired-looking Celeste.

I do nothing but blink for a few long moments, feeling like I’m slowly waking up from a dream. I haven’t seen eyes on me in such a long time. It’s jarring.

“You can leave us,” Celeste says with the same curt tone I remember her using on Andrei.

The man shifts uncomfortably. “It’s better I stay. If he comes back—if he catches you—”

“He’ll do nothing to me, but I’m not sure I can say the same for you. When has Baron ever returned early from a hunt?”

The man looks unhappy but nods, regardless, and leaves the room just as Celeste settles herself into the chair opposite.

She says nothing for a long while, merely looks at me. There’s a pity in her eyes that makes me feel uncomfortable, and before long I struggle to meet her gaze. When she clears her throat, I swallow. “You look a fright,” she says.

I look down at myself, though I