Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

15ElaineMy whole body was rocked, but I couldn’t move, staring in shock and horror at the way Lucian pulled the knife out of his hand. He didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, didn’t express even a moment of pain. I didn’t get it, didn’t understand, just stayed numb on the spot as he wrapped his bleeding hand in a towel.

“I mean it, Lucian,” I managed to whisper. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He was still smirking. “What the fuck is right with me, more like it.”

I still didn’t fathom it. I couldn’t. His hand was already bleeding through the towel but he didn’t give a fuck.

“Are you on some kind of drugs or something? What the hell?”

His eyes were as dark as ever as he answered me.

“I have congenital insensitivity to pain. Nothing you ever do will hurt me, little girl. If you have any sense in that pretty head of yours, you’ll abandon all hopes of it now and do whatever the fuck you’re told.”

I tried to digest his words, but it was hard. I’d never heard of anyone having any kind of congenital insensitivity to whatever. I’d definitely never heard of anyone talking about it when they talked about Lucian Morelli, and they would have. They’d have talked about it plenty if they’d have known.

So they didn’t know, did they?

Lucian Morelli had secrets.

My thoughts were spinning, and so were my words.

“Nothing will hurt you? For real? Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

It was so weird. Nothing.

The monster’s eyes were so cold, but there was a hint of something else in his gaze, some kind of weird vulnerability in his darkness. I was right . . . people would have talked about Lucian Morelli having congenital insensitivity to pain if they had known.

Nobody knew he didn’t feel pain.

“Is this why you hurt people so much?” I asked him. “Because you have no idea what it feels like? Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t be such an evil dick to people.”

“That’s none of your fucking business,” he snarled. “I don’t need an excuse to be an evil dick to people, don’t try to make one for me.”

I leaned back against the counter. “I wasn’t going to. You can’t excuse being that much of a sadistic asshole with a damn illness.”

We stood staring, eye to eye, both of us hating each other, both of us curious, both of us in so much of a fucked-up state we must have been in some surreal dimension in Constantine-Morelli hell.

I guess my tone was genuine when it sounded out next, because I saw his eyes lighten just a touch.

“Is that something you’ve had your whole life? Did they try to fix you? They tried to fix you, right?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t want to be fixed.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because pain is a weakness, Elaine. I’m free of it. I’m stronger for it.”

I didn’t believe him. Pain wasn’t a weakness. Pain was a truth and a connection to yourself. Pain was something that made us stronger, not weaker.

“Is it something you’ve had your whole life?” I asked again.

“Yes,” he said. “From when I was young enough to scrape my knees and not cry along with it.”

I could only begin to imagine the little toddler Lucian with bleeding legs, not needing to cry for his mom.

“Who else knows?” I pushed. “People must know, right?”

“None of your business,” he told me, but I shook my head.

“Seriously, Lucian. You can’t tell me it’s none of my business. I just stabbed you through the hand, and you’re telling me you didn’t feel it, and now you’re trying to take my interest away from that crazy-as-fuck fact with a none of your business?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your interest?”

I nodded. “Yeah, interest. You are an interesting piece of shit, Lucian Morelli, even if I can’t stand you.”

I knew he was trying to hide a laugh at my bold words. Sometimes I definitely made him laugh inside, no matter how much he wanted to hate me 24/7.

“Forget about it,” he said with a fresh scowl. “Believe me, you’ll be paying for your actions badly enough already.”

I didn’t give a shit about that. I was more interested in the weird creature in front of me than I was in what he was going to do with me.

Congenital insensitivity to pain . . . I wondered if the rest of his family had it too. The question was out of my mouth before I’d even realized I was saying it.

“Who else around you has it? Nobody talks about you guys having it. I’d have heard.”

He walked away far enough to flick the coffee machine on, the intensity of the mood broken.

“I said, none of your fucking business, Elaine. Shut your interfering little mouth.”

I didn’t want to shut my mouth, I wanted to know every little bit of his secrets. I was like the sneaky little girl tiptoeing through everyone else’s mysteries all over again, curious.