Dark Need (House of Sin 3)

I should be.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

The rustling in front of me stops, and when I look up, Soren turns around and glares at me with that same penetrative stare he gave the guards, and it burns like fire straight into my chest. He starts walking toward me, each step of his burly feet making my heart thump faster until he’s right in front of me, and I can’t look away anymore.

The feet of a giant stand before me, and my knees quake as my eyes peer up slowly to his darkened gaze as he towers over me.

For a few seconds, we look at each other in the middle of the forest surrounding the house, the only sound being the air brushing through the branches of the trees.

“Follow,” he says, his eyes narrowing like it’s a threat.

But what is he going to do to me? He’s obviously not going to lock me up in that dungeon we just passed through, so what else does he have planned for me? Either way, I don’t stand to lose much by standing my ground.

So I cross my arms and plant my feet firmly. “I’m not going with you until you tell me where we’re going.”

His eyes twitch again, but he just continues to stare at me.

“What is going on? You’re going to take me to my next prison camp, right?” I ask, realizing that none of this may be what I thought it meant. “You’re not going to let me go, are you?”

He snorts and rubs his chin like it’s funny or something.

Suddenly, his face turns dark again. The lightheartedness vanished like my own resolve just now.

“No.”

I’m caught off guard by his sudden answer. “Well, I refuse to move another step until you tell me why I’m not being set free right now.”

Typically, it doesn’t take me this long to rebel, but something about this man just makes me want to keep my mouth shut. Especially when he bends over like he does now, with his hands against his firm waist, his nostrils flaring as he looks down at me like I’m a petulant child in need of a scolding.

One word spoken with such a low, gravelly voice is enough to make goose bumps scatter on my skin. “Fine.”

Suddenly, he puts his hands on my waist and lifts me, taking me by surprise. My squeal is muffled by my lungs when they are squished as he throws me over his shoulder and starts walking.

And as he turns around, he growls, “Have it your way.”

Chapter 3

Soren

I have met a few girls before during my work at the House, but none with such a tenacious spunk like hers. The woman Eli told me to punish in the dungeon was feisty too but in a different way. Much like a cat, she would claw my eyes out if she could. But this one … this one is all talk and no spine.

And I knew as much the moment I laid eyes on her.

She quivered the second I noticed her.

Not just now or when I pulled her out of bed. No … way before that.

The first time our eyes connected, she shivered and shrunk underneath my stature, whimpering over my height and strength. Or maybe that was just my imagination running wild.

And that never did me any good.

No, this girl is trying to bring out the worst in me, and I can’t let it happen.

Eli told me not to damage the goods, and I will do whatever it takes to honor his request. I owe him that much.

Still, this little Kitty pretending her claws are sharp is really making it hard for me. I don’t like carrying things, especially not women, but if she won’t listen, then that’s the way it’s going to be.

“Let me go!” she yells. Her little paws punch my shoulder, but it doesn’t even faze me.

It’s her shrill voice that gets the rumbling in my chest going.

“Put me down!”

“Be quiet!” I bark, then I clench her stomach harder against my shoulder until she’s all out of huff and puff.

Little Kitty needs to learn how to behave and not pretend to be a lioness.

“No, not until you put me the fuck down!” she squeals, pounding down on my back as though it’s supposed to make me want to stop.

Like it’s supposed to hurt.

It doesn’t.

She doesn’t know pain like I do.

I’m used to pain.

I was born in it.

I lived with it.

I was made in it.

And I will die in it.

Pain is the only thing I know, the one thread in my life that keeps me going.

Pain makes sense.

This kitten, however, doesn’t.

“Just let me go, goddammit!” she yells.

I pause and pull her off my shoulders and into my arms, where she flails around like a turtle on its back, so I restrain her arms against her belly to make her stop.