Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

“Good for you, Mr. Selfish,” I said and knew as soon as the words left my mouth that I’d pushed the cheek too far. He was on me in one of my frantic heartbeats, his bloodied hand tight around my throat, towel cast aside.

I felt his blood on me, still hot. It gave me chills, picturing how it would be my blood feeling like that if he chose to cut me.

“I like power,” he snarled. “Remember that.”

He forced my thighs apart enough to press himself against me, and even in my choked state I found I was moving against him.

I wanted to be Bethany Fryers. I wanted to be the little blonde girl who drove him wild.

His eyes were evil, but there was depth in them, a curiosity that danced with mine.

“You look like her, you know,” he told me, and it gave me a whole new wave of shivers. “Right from that masked fucking ball, you looked like her. I should’ve known you were fucking trouble then.”

I tried to speak, but his choke wouldn’t let me. He freed me enough to take in breath, and I sucked in a decent lungful before I found my voice.

“You didn’t realize it, did you?” I asked. “You hadn’t thought about me looking like that girl, not until tonight. I can see it.”

“Fuck you,” he snarled. “You can’t see shit about me.”

But he was wrong. I could. I was getting to know him and his monster ways, even if he didn’t want me to. Just as he was getting to know me and my crazy ways right back.

I was still moving against him when he spoke next, still desperate as he pressed his mouth to my ear.

“Now then, little girl,” he whispered. “Seeing as you know some of my filthy secrets, it’s time you told me some of yours.”18LucianI felt like someone had scraped my insides out and laid them on a platter on the counter. I’d never felt like it before. Exposed, like parts of me had been spewed from my center.

Realizations are a shocker of a thing. The realization that Elaine had reminded me of Bethany Fryers from the very first sight of her at Tinsley Constantine’s masked ball was still a hammer in the pit of me. That’s where the fixation had come from so early. The curve of her pretty little chin. The slope of her neck. The blonde waves cascading from her, and those pretty blue eyes. Yes, she reminded me of Bethany, of course she did.

I’d done my best to blank out my early memories of that sweet little bitch for as long as I could remember. Somehow, I knew she was a weakness in my perfect strength. I’d long since lost track of the girl who’d first captivated my fetishes, and I’d wanted to. I didn’t want even a hint of her in my life.

That’s why I should’ve killed Elaine in the very next heartbeat, to wipe her out of my senses, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just stood looking at her in my kitchen like a fool.

I was uncomfortable with the swing of the balance – her knowing more about my innards than I knew about hers. I didn’t tolerate any form of weakness in myself, and that’s what it felt like. I felt weak. It made my words lash out at her as they came.

“I’m serious, Elaine. It’s time for you to reveal your dirty secrets. I want to know every filthy little part of you. You owe me now.”

She shifted on her feet, as uncomfortable as I was. Still, she couldn’t hide that addictive curiosity in her stare.

“I owe you fuck all, Lucian,” she said, but again there was no venom in it, she couldn’t have mustered any if she’d tried. I could smell her temptation to talk to me. It was ripe in her shallow little breaths.

“You owe me your fucking life,” I spat at her. “You’d be dead by now if I hadn’t taken you from your apartment like a weak little bitch that night. The Power Brothers would have taken your blood already.”

“And I don’t give a fuck,” she said, but again, there was no venom in it.

She should be dead. I should have had my fun with her and killed her already.

The standoff was sizzling between us, laced with a concoction I didn’t understand. Hate, disgust, retribution, want, need. I damn well hated need. Need was something I could usually snuff out with a click of my fingers, getting whatever I wanted in a flash, but not with her. Not with the crazy bitch Elaine.

“You’d better start using that tongue of yours,” I said to her, “or I really will make you pay for it. I’ll make you pay for it in ways so vile, you could never imagine.”