Chapter Twenty

Nila

Alana. The name he kept referring to, my God-given name, was not me anymore. I buried Alana years ago, gave her a proper goodbye and stepped into the darkness, never to emerge again. I was no longer Alana: weak, innocent, happy. I was Nila: dark, seductive, and full of rage. With every reference to Alana, to Noel, I was back in that cage hoping to be let free.

Jacob, for all he had claimed to want my love, was enacting his father’s plan for me. He was turning me into a toy for his sick pleasure. And yet my darkness was calling out for more. What the hell was my problem? My fascination with Jacob ran as deep as my blood, flooding my senses, calling out for more.

More of what? I didn’t know, but I knew nothing could come of this. For fuck’s sake, I was a prisoner of my original kidnapper’s son. And here I was, bared to his eyes, to his touch. Wet, I shivered in anticipation of what would come next.

I hated that he made me feel like this.

“Tell me what I want to know, Alana,” Jacob demanded, knife to my neck and hand caressing my thigh.

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped.

“It’s your name.”

“No, it’s not. My name is Nila. Alana is a weak, insignificant girl.”

“She’s a part of you. I’ll always think of you as Alana. Innocent, young, and pretty, waiting for me to feast upon your flesh. The one I asked to be mine, and she said yes. Alana is everything to me.”

“Don’t, Jacob.”

“Don’t what? Tell you the truth. Tell you who you really are? You may dress yourself up and play a part, but underneath all that hatred is Alana Masters, the girl who ran from me. I took the fall for you, sweetheart. You owe me.”

“I don’t owe you a thing!”

“You helped me kill my dad. You ran. You left me to take the fall, and I ended up in a hell hole biding my time until I could come for you. You fucking owe me.”

Maybe he was right, maybe I did owe him. Maybe he owed me. Hell, maybe we were in debt to each other, never to be free of one another until one of us was dead at the other’s hands. Maybe our debt was made to be paid in blood.

In any case, Jacob may get my blood stirring, but he was my enemy. At one time “the enemy of my enemy” rang true, but now no one stood between us. We were each other’s greatest downfalls.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, surprised at my admission.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. I want you to tell me about these patient notes.”

“What do you want me to say, Jacob? Do you want to hear about every man I have killed? How I tortured them for sport and got off on their pain, their agony? Do you want to hear about their screams echoing through this room or how they begged, pleaded for me to spare them? Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes! I want to hear about it. You shouldn’t have been doing it on your own.”

“You were gone! I did what I had to do to survive. The darkness ate up my insides like acid until I gave myself over to it. I would’ve gone crazy. I would’ve killed myself if I hadn’t started to kill others! The kill, the blood … it gave me the willpower to survive!”

“I should’ve been here.”

“But you weren’t! The men who preyed on weak, pathetic girls like I used to be. I used them for my pleasure. For my pain. I used them to forget about Alana. I never wanted to remember her or how fucking weak she was. And now you’re here! Here, dredging up those memories. You just couldn’t let me be free. You couldn’t let me exist on my own.”

“When are you going to realize you’ve never been alone? Your pain has always been mine. Your darkness? Mine. Everything about you has always belonged to me. Your soul is a part of mine, and I will have your heart.”

I clenched, the wetness sliding between my thighs. Jacob immediately homed in on it as he started to bring the knife from my neck to my mound, a caress between old lovers. I bared my teeth at him. The edge of the knife so close to my delicate skin held me on edge, but every nerve in my body was poised to combust. Try as I might to think otherwise, Jacob was captivating me, and my body was having a reaction to him in every way.

“See there? See how wet you’re getting for me? You want me, Alana. Now tell me about the fucking patient notes before I use this knife again.”

Was it him or the darkness exuding from him I wanted? I was so confused, so torn. The cage had fucked me up and torn me apart, only to leave me the thing I once hated. Now I was teetering between showing how much I hated him and how much I craved him. For a therapist, I was truly fucked up. I had no answers for myself. Only more questions.

“Tell me what I want to know, Alana,” Jacob snapped, taking the blade to my shoulder and making his mark across it. Not deep, but enough that I knew he was in charge.

For now.

Biting my tongue, I refused once more, only to feel the searing bite as he dug the blade into my chest. Feeling the sharp edge dig deeper than before, he carved something into me. One word. Four letters.

Noel.

My son. Jacob’s brother.

I now bore his name on my chest, carved by a knife, sealed with blood.

The blood flowed, my anger simmering alongside it. That bastard did this on purpose, knowing perfectly well it would be a crack in my armor. Son of a bitch, that asshole was good.

I would still make him bleed though.

“Tell me, Alana. Tell me right the fuck now.”

“They are the men I killed, okay? Are you happy now, Jacob?”

“No,” he raged. “I won’t be happy until you fill me in on the details.”

“They’re my kills. They were my patients. Day in and day out, I had to hear their wicked little secrets. Their lusts for their daughters, for neighborhood kids, for the women they work with. Their sick desires, their plans. I snapped, and I killed them. I laid them out and feasted on their fear. I made it my own. I tortured them. I broke them. I made them bleed for me. I made them beg for me. And then, as they confessed their sins to me, I forced them to draw their last breath at my hand. I murdered them, and I loved it. I fucking loved it! There’s my confession, Mr. Sin Eater.”

He yanked me back and shoved something into my mouth. Jacob’s cock was being pressed between my plump lips. Hard as a rock, Jacob looked down at me with a frantic look in his eyes. My rant had overcome him, and the lust shone all over his face.

His forced erection in my mouth brought me back to the first time his father did this. How he pushed himself on me, leaving me to gag around it until vomit threatened to come up. Jesus. Like father, like son, that was for sure. But I wouldn’t let Jacob do this to me. Not now. I bit down, hard.

“You bitch! You fucking biting bitch!”

Fisting my hair, he tried choking me on his length once more, but each time I threatened to bite down again.

“Take it, Alana! Fucking take it.”

His father had taken a lot from me, and Jacob was doing the same. I may have been Jacob’s prisoner, but it was time to remind him I wasn’t a timid little girl anymore. I was a grown woman filled with hate, pain, and rage. I had killed men a lot bigger than Jacob. I had brought them to their knees before taking them out of this world. The son of a bitch was easy on the eyes with his dark features, honey-brown eyes and a dimple that actually made me want to swoon, but I’d be damned if he forced his dick into my mouth one more time without consequences.

“Fight it as much as you want, but you’re going to be begging to suck me soon enough.” With one hand fisting my hair, the other went to his cock. It was pure pleasure and pure torture at the same time. On one hand, the gratification on Jacob’s face sent spasms through my body. But on the other, I hated how it made me feel to see him like this. I wanted to fight him, but I was becoming a victim of my body’s needs.

The betraying bitch.

Something drew me to him. Something dark and primal, but I was drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain. I was mesmerized by a boy who, by all accounts, could be a monster himself—the flesh and bone of the devil. Yet there was something in his eyes, in the way he carried himself, that called out to me.

Maybe his father had fucked me up worse than I thought.

My pain recognized Jacob. My blood called out to his. The darkness that slowly crept into my mind and soul ached for this boy.

Oh, how precious is he. What a wonderful specimen. Handsome. Dark. Dangerous.

But the side of me with some sanity left sickened at my thoughts. He’d flat-out told me he wanted me. He wanted my body. He wanted me as his toy. But the thought didn’t disgust me as much as it should. What the hell was wrong with me?

His hand worked his hardness in fast motions, then slow. A twist here. Faster, faster. With a groan of my name, his cum painted my face and he swiped his shaft across my lips. Even as sick as it was, my tongue came from behind wet lips to lick the head of it. The salty taste of his release slid down my throat, and I immediately found myself craving more.

I was a nasty, vile woman getting off on the taste of my captor’s seed, but I loved it. The darkness howled at me to be released. To let this man eat me. Fuck me. This would be no ordinary sex. This would be dark, dangerous, kinky sex. The kind you only heard about in fucked-up books and movies. If I weren’t careful, this man could literally be the death of me. Better yet, I would be the death of him. If I could only convince him I was on his side, I could get the upper hand. But first …

“Noel was never yours.”

“I know. You were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Delicate. And you said we were together. In my mind, through it all, Noel became mine.” Jacob shrugged as if it all made sense.

“No, Jacob, he was mine. He’s always been mine. You may have deluded yourself into thinking otherwise, but don’t get it twisted. Noel was my baby, my blood. Never yours.”

“My blood ran through his veins! He was my brother.”

“Exactly. Your brother. Not your son. Noel is mine.”

Mine. Mine. Mine. Noel was mine, and I wasn’t going to let what he meant to me be tarnished by Jacob. Noel was all I had left of Alana. My dirty little secret. My shame. My love. Jacob could take many things from me, but he could not have Noel.

I’d kill him first.