Ravage by Lacey Andersen (ebook reader online txt) 📕

Inside, a few dim bulbs light the room. Four bedrolls lie on the floor. Food and water is sealed in bags in one corner, and there’s an array of weapons. She enters the room slowly, and sweat gathers on my forehead. Will she see anything that tells her I’ve been here more times than I can count?

She sets a torch in a holder on the wall and moves to the bedrolls. I feel strange when she selects mine and sits down. “Come here,” she says, and there’s something in her voice that I can’t quite read, but I do as my siren tells me to.

Sitting down beside her, the last thing I expect is for her to climb onto my lap. I know she can read the shock in my face when she leans closer and kisses me. In an instant, I’m hard, aching for her. The woman is like a sorceress. She sends my blood rushing straight to my cock, and every thought is gone. She kisses unlike any woman I’ve known. Her mouth is punishing. Hard. Her tongue flicks into my mouth like her only goal is to torture me.

I’m barely aware of it when she leans me back, but the friction of her sliding against my erection is enough to make me lose my mind. That’s why I’m at her mercy when she tears off my shirt. That’s why my desire sings when she undoes my pants and pulls my length out, tossing my pants and boxers on the floor.

When she kisses her way down my throat and chest, then lingers over my dick, looking at me and lifting a brow, I almost explode right there. Just a short time ago, she was sucking my cock in her room. I’d been so on the edge, and if I was honest, I’ve been on that edge ever since.

“I’m going to ride you hard,” she whispers, and her sharp nails slice gently into my thighs. “Turn around so I can undress.”

She shifts back from me, and I do as she says, flipping onto my belly. Waiting for her to disrobe. My mind is filled with what she’ll look like naked. With what it’ll feel like to finally sink into her hot body.

But when I look back, Esmeray is gone.

Just gone.

I curse my stupidity. How many god damn times can a woman’s touch make me forget all logic? I scramble for my clothes and pray that she goes down another path. That she doesn’t follow in her brother’s footsteps.

Because this place echoes with death.

14

Esmeray

I continue forward, following the blood smears on the wall. Something dark burns inside of me. It wants to fuck the brains out of Lucian and possess him in a way that I’ve never imagined. But the other part of me wants to punish him. No man should be as beautiful as he is. From his blue eyes that are almost white to the way he looks like some bad-boy prince from a fairy tale, he feels like mine in so many ways. Like a man I dream about every night.

And yet he lies to me.

Did he think I wouldn’t see his name carved into the wall of that room? Did he think I wouldn’t find it strange that the room had four bedrolls and that the sugary snacks were all in a bag by his bed? Of course not, because these men underestimate me.

And they’ll pay for their foolishness.

I’d managed to light another torch, and I use that to light the halls now. The darkness is deeper the further I go down the sloping tunnels, and the sounds of the rain are non-existence. And yet, the blood on the wall continues.

I frown as I look at it again. Something is…off.

Reaching out, I touch the scarlet that mars the wall, and I’m shocked when I pull my fingers back and find red on my fingertips. Red. Fresh blood.

But whose?

That strange feeling moves over my flesh again. Is it fear? I didn’t know. But I turn back to the tunnel that stretches before me, and I know that somewhere up ahead I’ll find the source of this blood.

Lucian’s face flashes before my mind. Then Dwade. And Bron. I hate that I picture them. The men I can’t seem to forget, but who lie to me. Who don’t have enough sense to fear me.

But when I round a corner, I see the body that sprawls on the ground. Suddenly, I’m rushing toward him, heart in my throat. My senses stretch out, but already I know he’s dead. There’s nothing left within him, just the shell of a body that’s been torn to shreds. Blood splatters the walls. It covers the floors.

Whoever killed him didn’t just want him dead, they wanted to send a message.

I scream as I collapse onto my knees, and anger overwhelms me like fire in my blood. This time when I reach out, I send pain into the minds of every creature close to me, except Lucian. Within the tunnels, I hear a dozen screams that echo my own. My powers work best when I can touch my victims. They work even better when I can see my victim. In moments like this, when I just sense the minds around me, it’s like throwing darts and hoping to strike something.

I was glad I had.

Reaching forward, I close the eyes of the shadow man. He should’ve lived the immortal life of one his kind. He should’ve had a lifetime to enjoy. But someone took that from him.

And that someone was going to pay for this.

Suddenly, I taste something strange in the air. My skin tingles, and I leap to the side as a blade hits the spot I was sitting and clings onto the ground. The scent and smell of iron fills the tunnel, and I scramble back from it, holding my torch out in front of me. A masked man separates from