She felt me, just as I had felt her, just as her presence had drawn my eyes to her as she walked under my window. Like the prickle of dark magic.
Somehow, we were connected, I knew it down in the marrow of my bones.
Would I dare step into the light?
The urge made my muscles twitch. I wanted to grab her, to drag her back to my chamber and tear that bodice from her overflowing tits, to sink to my knees between her legs, mount her on my face and drink the nectar from her heavenly cunt.
Into my mind came images of the table secretly stored in the chamber beneath the ruined tower, of the chains and whips. I felt myself becoming impossibly hard at the idea of her bound and ready for sacrifice to me. I’d never used that room, but somehow I knew someday I would.
I spent years crafting it, a cathartic recreation of the harm that was done to me, but knowing somehow my needs were different. Darker in some ways but less in others. I would never subject another human the way I had been subjected, would never make it all about myself.
Maybe it was the years of my own torture that ruined my brain and twisted my heart, darkening my thoughts of desire and lust and sacrifice. But it was always a distant, disconnected idea that I would someday find someone upon which I wanted to reveal and unleash that part of myself.
Until I saw her…
“If someone’s there, show yourself.” She spoke more defiantly now as I took note of the sensual curve of her neck and the steely ache in my cock redoubled, nearly sending me to my knees. She was barely a dusting of time past girlhood but she possessed a potent sexuality that stirred me down deep. Her innocent eyes beckoned me to my demise.
Her lips parted, and her pink tongue danced against her lower lip before her teeth pulled it inward. I’d never kissed a woman before…the vague memories of my mother giving me that form of maternal affection were dim but the kind of kiss I thought of right now was far from the sweetness of a mother to her child.
My heart thundered as her voice felt like it touched my hot skin and I took a step forward, to the very edge of the shadow that hid me. One more inch, and I would step into the light...
But the duke’s words after years of mistreatment returned to me. Fourteen-year-old Randal, brought before his tormentor in chains lest I take revenge for the things he’d already done, or in anticipation of those that were yet to come.
You’re a fucking monster, you little bastard. A freak. Big as a bear and strong as an ox even at your age. Hideous, that’s what you are. If it weren’t obvious who sired you I’d wonder if it wasn’t the devil himself. But by god you have your father’s face. I’ll fix that...
Hideous.
If I hadn’t been before, what he did to me made it so.
I could already see the way she would recoil if she saw me—mask or no—as all who saw me did.
She would see the sort of horror spun from nightmares. The thought of her scared, of me or anyone…of anything…turned to a knot of anger and protectiveness I had long ago thought I’d lost.
The heavy seconds beat along with my heart until she spun on her feet, tossed one last unsure glance over her shoulder and disappeared down the corridor. Watching her go, a hunger grew up inside me. Gnawing and biting at the soft parts I’d long since forgotten.
And my heart tore itself apart, knowing having her would be impossible.
Chapter 2
Randal
I burst from my bed, the dream still fresh, cold sweat trailing between my shoulder blades as I heaved air in and out of my lungs. The knife I always kept beneath my pillow, the very one I’d used to end my tormentor’s life, was brandished in my left hand as I lunged forward, cutting at the air as I was caught in that horrible space between nightmare and waking.
For the last month, most of my dreams had only been of her.
Iris.
But, tonight, darkness pushed away the light and I woke shaking with the tang of blood on my lips. I swiped the back of my hand over my mouth where my teeth had cut into the flesh. Over the years, the frequency of the dream had lessened, making me believe at times it would never return. Then it would crash through the stone walls in my subconscious mind, reminding me of how the past is never truly in the past.
The events of the dream still played in my head, even as I sat there heaving breaths of the fresh air coming through my bedroom window. Such a contrast to that place.