His utter lack of emotion threatened to snap open the lid of our Pandora’s box.

  “Why? Because it’s another one of your secrets?”

  He completely shrugged off my question and turned to leave, adding insult to injury. “I know your intelligence is lacking these days, but you should be able to figure out where the bathroom is.”

  This asshole!

  He’d hardly reacted at all to any of this. My emotions were all over the place, and he seemed to be as cool and collected as always. His indifference cut like a blade. I’d screwed up, I got it. But seriously? I realized being by his side was where I wanted to be, but that didn’t mean I would idly sit by and continue being naïve to what went on around me.

  This hideout was just one of many other things he’d kept a secret. From the time this all started he’d kept me isolated and ignorant. I didn’t understand. Why did he build such a divide between us? Or had it always been like this and I’d just never noticed?

  “You have this whole other life you keep hidden. Why don’t you ever let me in? Why do you even keep me around?”

  “Stop.”

  “No. Answer the question. For all this, you could’ve let me go. You didn’t have to swoop in and be a hero. So, why did you?”

  His grin was vicious. “You think I saved you, Lils? I didn’t. I’m not a hero. I came to collect something that belongs to me.”

  “Lies,” I retorted sharply.

  He laughed with a slow shake of his head. “Which part?”

  “Me belonging to you. I don’t belong to anyone.”

  “That’s very fucking hypocritical of you. You’ve been humiliated enough for one night, don’t you think? You didn’t even manage to make it a full twenty-four hours on your own. Do I need to prove this point too?”

  “I don’t need you to do anything but leave me alone. Next time I get away from you, I’ll be sure it stays that way.”

  He appeared in front of me so quickly I didn’t even see him move.

  “You never did know when to stop. I’ve coddled you too much. I didn’t want to do this right now.” Hand around my throat, he nearly lifted me off the ground.

  Using his body, he forced me to walk backward as I balanced on my toes. The mattress touched the back of my legs, and he shoved me down. Before I could attempt to get up, he pinned my wrists above my head with one hand and used his knee to spread my legs.

  “You did exactly what I hoped you wouldn’t. Do you know what I want to do to you right now because of that? You don’t seem to value your life, Lils.”

  It was eerie, how sinister he could sound while speaking as he normally did. I wasn’t used to his wrath being directed at me. I’d pissed him off and irritated him before, sure. But I had never once gone back on the promise I made him.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, do it or get the hell off me.”

  The look I got would make a grown man wilt beneath it. All it did for me was make my heart race faster. Maybe I should’ve been terrified, because he was terrifying, but I’d never felt safer with anyone more than I did with him.

  “Remember, you wanted this.” He shoved up the dress I was wearing and grabbed my underwear, tearing them as he pulled them off me.

  This action alone had my core clenching and my pussy getting wetter. I was goading him on purpose, pushing him to do something—anything other than not react. I think he knew that.

  It was crazy, but I knew that if I was with him, he wouldn’t hurt me no matter how badly he wanted to. He removed my dress and then flipped me onto my stomach. In my peripheral I saw his shirt flutter to the ground. The sound of his zipper going down came next.

  My heart lodged itself in my throat. Tingles of anticipation and an erotic kind of fear danced down my spine, lingering in my chest. The chaotic, violent side of him—I adored it.

  He grabbed hold of my ass and kneaded the flesh, kissing his way up my back. I shuddered when he got to my neck. He left love bites as he created a path to my ear. His chest pressed against my spine.

  I felt his cock—how hard he was, the piercing teasing the lips of my pussy.

  He kissed my cheek and wrapped one hand around my throat, slamming inside me without warning.

  A guttural sound tore from my mouth. I grabbed at the sheet, trying to breathe through the initial pain of his intrusion. He’d seated himself balls deep, pulling out and thrusting in again.

  He fucked me like a primitive beast. I trembled around his cock, feeling arousal drip to his balls. The grip on my throat grew tighter and tighter until water ran from the corners of my eyes and my lungs began to protest.

  He continued to suppress my airway and fuck me from behind. His mouth came to my ear and his hypnotic voice spoke quietly despite my repetitious moans.

  “Do you know what you are to me, Lilith? You’re an obsession. An addiction. You’re one of my greatest feats.”

  I shut my eyes, trying to concentrate on what he was saying, feeling pressure building in my core.

  “You looked at me with stars in your eyes, so I decided to use you and make you mine.” He knotted a hand in my hair and made a fist, pulling my head back until I could hardly swallow while keeping hold of my throat. “You are mine, aren’t you?”

  On my knees with my back flush to his chest, nails digging into the arm that held my throat, I couldn’t speak. This position forced me to take all of him without reprieve. He was fucking me like a demon. Nothing intelligible came from my mouth, just unfettered moans.

  “Answer me.” He let go of my hair and slid his hand down my navel, going right to my clit.

  He teased the bud, increasing the pressure until I was right at the edge before easing up. It was driving me insane. My head felt light. My body, sore from before, suddenly seemed like it would shatter at any given moment.

  The sweat dripping from our flesh added more friction every time we came together.

  “Mal,” I rasped, fighting to pull more air into my lungs.

  Abruptly he pulled out.

  “You’re not coming until you tell the truth. I’m not stopping until I get what I want. I can stay in your pussy all night, Lilith. I don’t care if I have to fuck you raw.”

  He let my throat go long enough to flip me onto my back and toss my legs over his shoulders, pinning in place so I couldn’t run from his dick as he pounded into me again. The bed creaked beneath us, gradually moving from its position against the wall.

  The pressure hurt. He was so big I couldn’t easily take him no matter the position, but he wasn’t giving me an option. The pain and pleasure were mixing together so rapidly I was on the verge of coming and sobbing.

  I concentrated on what I needed to say and not the man about to split me in half with his cock.

  “Yours.” Was all I remembered being able to convey.

  Something like lava pervaded my body, from my head to the tips of my toes as they curled into the mattress. His mouth covered mine in a bruising kiss a second before my mind went blank, everything turning black.

  When reality came into focus again, Samael’s hands were tangled in my hair and he was still inside me, his cock being squeezed by my pussy as he came.

  I grabbed his face and pulled him down to my mouth again. He kissed me back, tongue tangling with mine.

  His obsidian locks had a slight curl to them from sweat, but I didn’t care. I ran my fingers through his hair, the silky strands gliding between them.

  He pulled out after a few minutes, the motion causing me to wince.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I croaked, flopping disgracefully onto my stomach.

  “Good.” He swept my messy hair over one shoulder and planted a kiss on my shoulder blade. “You look beautiful like this, bruised and freshly fucked.”

  “Hmph.”

  “You’ll stay with me from here on out.”

  It wasn’t a question. He and I were a mess, but I knew I wasn’t going to run away from him a second time.

  I loved him too much. I needed him too much. I’d have to figure out how to see my family with his knowledge this time around.

  “If you ever break your promise again, I will do what needs to be done to make sure you’re with me forever, even if it means keeping you in pieces.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Lils.”

  The bed dipped and shifted as he stood. I laid exactly as I was, not ready to get up.

  His last words before he left were something about a shower, but I was too busy processing everything he’d just said to respond.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Holding my composure was one of the hardest mental battles I had to undertake. I only did it when it came to matters relating to my girl. There were endless things I wanted to do to her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hurt Lilith any more than I already had.

  If she left me again, I would make good on the words I’d just spoken, but I was confident she wouldn’t, nor did she want to. Now that I knew the source of her issues, I could try to resolve them.

  In my own way, of course. It would be a major pain in the ass, but I had to do it. We were destined to repeat what we didn’t repair. The fact I’d overlooked that she was suffering too burned my fucking heart. I should’ve known. It was an uncharacteristic oversight on my end. From the time we were kids, Lilith had a fucked-up inferiority complex.

  I made my way down the stairs, taking note of where everyone was. The main level was one big-ass room, which made that easy to do. This was one of my first strongholds. I’d come across it thanks to a tip from my silent benefactor. Only a few of my proselytes occupied it. The others were scattered elsewhere.

  Our main insignia—a goat head with the antlers of a stag centered in the great Baphomet’s sigil—was painted as a mural taking up the entire back wall.

  The second—the head of a lone stag—was on another. It was essentially two factions in one.

  The Lazarus were mine.

  Stags were Amo’s.

  We took equal responsibility and control of both. It was no different than making an alliance, apart from the fact that we did everything together, creating a supersized army of sorts. Our Stags were our front runners while we kept the Lazarus movements hush. The two were night and day. Lazarus recruits tended to be the worst kind of twisted fucks, while a Stag just needed to know how to kill when necessary, so it worked out well.

  Now that this was becoming common knowledge, as well as Amo and I revealing our true identities, things were going to get a lot more interesting.

  Brody and Poet were playing a game of cards, both giving their full attention to the hands they had.

  I wasn’t going to interrupt them.

  Aurora and Cherry were at the breakfast bar.

  I hadn’t decided what to do with this girl yet. She seemed to be a lag that went from place to place just so she didn’t have to be on her own. That sounded like a personal problem to me.

  On my way out the door, I caught Amo’s eye. He was engaged in a game of darts with Takara—their darts being throwing knives and their target some random fuck gagged and hung on the wall. That wasn’t my problem, either. People had to entertain themselves somehow. If it wasn’t one of ours, who fucking cared?

  Outside, I spared a glance for Jin. He was in the back building, prepping the first Brabus for tomorrow.

  The one I needed was still where I had parked it, although the husk of Knox had been taken away by now. I opened the rear end and dug out the duffel bag that had what I needed.

  Hearing someone approaching, I looked over and spotted Amo and Rory. If double trouble was a person, it was these two.

  “When did you get here?”

  “Maybe a half hour ago. Everything’s a go for the move.”

  “Good.”

  “How is she?” Rory asked.

  “What about you?” I retorted.

  Her grey eyes narrowed. “I’m still breathing, ain’t I?”

  I laughed softly. She couldn’t stand anyone showing concern for her wellbeing, but she was quick to show concern for our faction and her siblings—Butcher excluded. She made sure we kept tabs on Cam, who was surpassing both his father and twin brother in terms of brutality.

  As for her and Lilith, one was wary and the other didn’t know how to bridge the gap between them. This was one of the rare kinships I hoped would resolve in a good way.

  For both their sakes.

  Rory had been through her fair share of shit. She deserved a chance to show she was genuinely interested in having them in her life. She was a slum baby. She’d run with some Venom boys before they split and took their own paths.

  The Badlands didn’t have great statistics for loners. Women had even less of a survival rate. Aurora was a rarity for making it on her own. It was no surprise my uncle had taken a keen interest in her.

  “Sore. Tired,” I finally answered.

  “Not all information is good information, babe.”

  “You’re the one who asked,” Amo replied to her. “You owe me, by the way.”

  I slammed the back end of the Brabus closed and turned towards them. “For?”

  “I kept that snippety bitch entertained.”

  He had to be referring to Takara.

  “Aw, don’t pretend like you haven’t been eyeing her for weeks,” Rory remarked.

  “You ready for the big meet?” he asked me, changing the subject.

  “It is what it is.”

  I wasn’t going to mention that I’d noticed his fascination with Kara too. When or if he wanted to talk about it, we would. That’s how we worked—respecting each other’s boundaries enough to know when to push an issue and when to shut the fuck up.

  Unless he had a major personality switch up, that pairing would never happen, anyway. Amo had made it clear the only people of the opposite sex he cared for were his baby sister, Rory, and Lilith—who would never believe that.

  Intimate relationship-wise, he killed off every girl he fucked after he got tired of them. My cousin Bella had been an exception.

  “You tell her yet?” Rory questioned.

  “Nah.” I looped the duffel over my shoulder and started back for the fief. “I will tomorrow…maybe.”

  “You sure you’ll be okay?”

  “I was invited. If they wanted me dead, they wouldn’t have gone through that much effort.”

  It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but I didn’t have the desire to discuss how I felt or thought with anyone. If my uncle wanted to get rid of me, he wouldn’t keep it a secret. I told them I’d see them in the morning and returned to the upper bedroom.

  I laughed to myself when I saw how she’d fallen asleep, partially buried beneath the comforter, long ways against the headboard.

  She hated the wet spots from fucking. Usually, she’d use my body as her buffer. I sat the duffel down and perched myself on the edge of the bed.

  With her hair framing part of her face, she looked peaceful. Effortlessly beautiful like she always did. I wanted to make this kind of peace her reality, but that was going to take a lot longer than one night to achieve.

  When I first met Lilith, she was nothing but my cousin’s best friend. I never intended to fall for her. We started off friends too, and before I knew it I saw her in a different light. She was the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about, my entire fucking world.

  I was told I wasn’t allowed to have her. I’d been warned countless times. Those in my way never stood a fucking chance in keeping her away from me. She couldn’t fathom how much I valued her. I never meant for her to deal with the side effects of my baggage or pain that didn’t belong to her.

  What she’d said before was the tragic truth. I was damaged. Mentally I was so fucking gone. Demons lived in all my scars, self-inflicted and otherwise. They dwelled inside my head, never giving me a moment of silence unless I was with my Lilith.

  No one knew the battles I fought every single day. I didn’t want them too. I was the only one who could face me. I was the one who chose to go down this road.

  From the beginning, all I wanted was to be something bigger. It was a long-winded pipe dream, an outcast’s foolish fantasy.

  She became a pivotal part of the daydream.

  That’s all it was.

  Until it wasn’t.

  I was offered the chance to make it a reality, and I took it. I did the groundwork. I studied and plotted—still to this day.

  I networked. I planned. Finally, I executed. Then I started all over again. Each goal crossed off my list brought me closer and closer to where I wanted to be.

  But the nearer you are to the top, the harder you can fall.

  He told me about this part too.

  He said it would all catch up to me eventually. He said every breath I took would be full of brimstone, and the demons inside me would try to destroy all I’d accomplished. He didn’t just warn me, he allowed me to understand he was as human as the rest of us when everyone viewed him in an immortal light.

  He wasn’t fearless but bigger than his fears. Romero’s demons were much stronger than mine, yet he’d learned how to co-exist and tame them.

  I wasn’t there yet.

  Not even fucking close.

  And Lilith…

  Lilith, she’s no angel.

  She’s the exact fucking opposite, but she put angels to shame. She loved every version of who I was. She deserved all the parts of me I couldn’t give. Sure as fuck didn’t deserve a broken heart.

  I knew I needed to let her in, it’s just I didn’t know how or where to start. I was a hostage of my pride. It was a double-edged sword. One of my biggest insecurities was that she’d despise what she found. I had no way of explaining why I was so fucked up.

  If I didn’t understand my fucking self, how could I expect her to?

  It was an indication of what I’d become.

  The enemy.

  I was a danger to myself.

  To everything and everyone around me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The only thing I could think of was food. Forget how sore my body was or the current situation, I needed sustenance. I sat up, clutching the blanket to my naked chest. Sunlight was streaming through the glass block window on the other side of the room, so I must have slept all night.