My lips curved when she startled, her hand flying to her chest as if she could hide her heart from my sight, an organ I knew was cold as stone.
Over a hundred people dead, and for some reason I didn’t yet know, she had been the cause of it.
Beside me, Isabelle stirred, her brown hair sweeping across my chest, one leg bent over my thighs where she’d cuddled up next to me in sleep. It was rare I let any woman stay in my bed overnight, but I’d been lost over the last few days, my body using the woman beneath me while my mind was somewhere else.
Isabelle was a favorite among the fighters but a poor substitute for the woman my thoughts had been focused on. Still, she’d filled the need I had, the desire for sensual violence, her whimpers and cries just enough to sate the beast inside me.
While she’d fallen asleep satisfied to have played her role, I’d sat against the headboard and allowed my thoughts to return to a time in this house when I’d been nothing more than a poor servant’s kid who was treated like a dog.
You’re useless!
Clean it up!
Do as I say, or I’ll have you and your mother thrown out!
How can you stand being so dumb?
On and on and on, her words tumbled through my brain, their ugliness driving my resolve to punish her, the memories leading me to enjoy the time I had to perfect my games.
Lisbeth would learn eventually that she wouldn’t escape the person she’d been when we were young. Every word she’d spoken was a price she would pay, a debt I would extract for a particular value until the ledger was balanced between us.
Those thoughts were in my head now as a whimper drew my attention down to notice my hand had fisted Isabelle’s hair.
“It hurts,” she complained on a whisper.
“Probably because your mouth isn’t where it should be.”
The corner of her lip curled, her long, languid body moving next to mine as she turned just enough to stare up at me.
“Is that an order?”
When is it not? I thought, uninterested in the games she played frequently.
Isabelle had perfected the role of obedient plaything, her fake tears practiced enough to fool the eye and satisfy the hunger of men still dressed in the blood of their kill. For me, it did nothing. There was only one place that drove my pulse into a heady beat, only one arena that sharpened my gaze and honed my senses.
I hadn’t fought in over a month, and already I could feel the violence building up in me, the reckless need to deliver pain while accepting it back, to hear the chorus of bloodthirsty voices rising up with the demand to kill.
There was money to be made in the underground, and the Rose family was raking it in.
My fingers fisted tighter. Isabelle’s face flushing white from the pain, her lips falling open, silent for once. Without another complaint, she slid down to kneel between my legs, her hand fisting my cock to bring it to life, the tip of her tongue teasing the tip until the heat of her mouth took it in.
She wasn’t just practiced in fake tears and sensual games, Isabelle was also the only woman who could practically swallow me, her throat so relaxed that she wouldn’t choke when I fucked her face.
My head fell back as my hips pumped again and again, desperation building inside me for a release. It was only when Lisbeth came to my mind that my body responded to any degree, my hatred pouring down Isabelle’s throat when that relief finally came.
My silence while she licked my cock clean had been the only dismissal she’d needed. Quietly crawling from bed, she gathered her things, barely covering her body as she fled my room to run off and do whatever the hell it was that kept her busy all day.
I tucked an arm behind my head and wondered when Lisbeth would notice the changes in the house.
The business interests hadn’t changed for the family, only the proof of them that ran the house. While Marcus was alive, he’d kept the truth of his ventures far from Lisbeth’s notice, but there had been no reason to keep up appearances following the ball.
At any given time, you could wander down the wrong hall and encounter one of our fighters doing whatever he wanted to one of the whores. The mansion had lost the delicate sensibilities of Lisbeth’s