All the blood rushed to my cheeks and I felt both his hunger and anger hit me in hard waves as his arms kept caging me in.
For a long time, Beau Knight had been the symbol of what I feared most. He was the living, breathing reason why people like me avoided places like the Pit.
But things had changed, I was different now.
Being kidnapped and tortured for days by demon hunters tended to change a girl’s perspective on life, it seemed.
Tensley had warned me about his older brother for years. And I knew now, standing so close to Beau Knight himself, he’d been right to do so.
I hadn’t seen him much over the years since the Knights had taken me under their wings, if at all, but I had heard rumors about him. And
I’d also heard rumors about Savage, but I hadn’t put the two together. I hadn’t known.
Until now.
I hadn’t told anyone of my plan—to go to the Pit and fight. To find whatever information I could on the whereabouts of Dolores. I knew what they would have said.
A big fat no.
I knew how dangerous the Pit was. Only the ones who had lived in that hole, their souls and their bodies inked in blood and sin and sex ventured into its dark depth.
A souleater—one that hadn’t tasted a soul properly for months—didn’t just waltz into the Pit.
When the bouncer first saw me and I told him I wanted to fight, he laughed.
Right in my fucking face.
He let me in as a joke, thinking it would give the Pit’s scum a good laugh. I knew from the start that I wouldn’t win a fight, but I still had a bit of experience living on the street. I knew I could survive a fight. It’d be all defense and no offense, but I didn’t care. I didn’t go to the Pit to win. I’d gone in looking for answers. For leads to where Dolores was, a friend who had taken me in when I was broken and weak.
She had told me she was going to pay off a debt with another demon at the Pit, but I never saw her again. No one had.
The last place I knew she had gone was here.
The place even she had warned me against ever stepping foot in.
But as I stepped inside the Pit, I felt the pull.
My parents had warned me about the addictive nature of certain environments for souleaters. How one thriving, chaotic place could sing to my soul and make me impulsive, dangerously living on the edge of life and death. And as soon as I tasted the heavy emotions of anger and lust and violence in the air, I knew I’d be coming back. After months without feeding, I needed the pain, the feeling of danger and risk.
When I volunteered to fight, people had sneered at me. But I needed an excuse to stay longer. To find more information that could lead me to Dolores.
I let Beau’s words sink in slowly, letting the ripple of anger settle before I risked losing it in front of him completely.
“Your soul’s too tainted for me, Beau Knight,” I said, waiting, hoping for the reaction I craved. The anger that thrilled me. “I don’t fuck guys who will feed me shit.”
His fingers curled deeper into the sink bowl, the squeak of his skin rubbing against dirty porcelain.
“I wouldn’t let a lowlife like you taste me anyway,” he said, just as lowly, just as bitterly and I couldn’t hide the blow. I clasped my mouth shut but cringed when the raw flesh collided. I could feel his eyes scan me once again, judging me like every other male here had.
Too thin, too pale, too damaged.
I barely restrained an eye-roll.
“Can’t say you’re much of a prize either, Knight. Heartless. Shameful. A sinner. You’re not above a lowlife like me,” I said, my lips turning up at the corners mockingly. “How does it feel to see your brother be the Dux you were destined to be? Oh wait, don’t say, I can taste it on my tongue.” I pretended to be tasting something, my brows furrowing. “Yeah, it tastes pretty foul and desperate.”
Beau growled lowly, the sound vicious and dark, arms shaking with restraint. He was about to say something when his eyes fell to my ribs where I’d been holding my middle subconsciously. With his eyes there, it reminded me of just how much they actually hurt. I winced softly.
“Tensley’s going to be mad his little friend was hanging out in the Pit,” he said, his gaze on my face again, glaring at my bruised lips.
I shoved at his hard chest, the action no doubt hurting me more than it hurt him. “He won’t know,” I said through gritted teeth.
He shoved me right back with enough force that my back hit the filthy mirror behind us. “Unless he’s fucking blind—” He gestured to my face and paused, again scowling—disgusted by my appearance, by my existence. “Stay still.”
My brows pinched. “What?”
His fingers pressed into my side, a pinch to my ribcage and he moved closer.
I leaned as far back as I could, but there was nowhere else to go, nowhere else to run and my heart, my mind was screaming at me to escape.
“Stay fucking still,” he growled and before I could snap back at him, his head had dipped and his hot mouth was touching my throat.