That Sik Luv

by Jescie Hall

“I’m as holy as they come. And boy, do they come.” He throws me a sly grin.

“Shh,” he whispers against my neck, the scent of leather and sulfur hitting my nostrils. “Don’t scream,” his deep voice rumbles through his chest into mine as his hair tickles the side of my neck. “I’d hate to break my new favorite toy.”

I’ll have her screaming for her God, begging him for redemption, not knowing it’s me there to save her.

“He thinks his own son messed that up by attempting to ruin the Induct ceremony himself, not realizing his father had already paid off the deacon to end her.”

“Don’t cry for him. Those tears look fucking hideous on you.”

“No one hurts you, but me,” he says definitively, as if it’s supposed to bring me some sort of comfort.

“But the pain I’ll bring upon you is the kind you’ll need. The kind your body begs for me to find deep inside that sweet little exterior. The kind your insides scream to release but are muffled with deceptions of sin.”

“Recognize Briony, that I’m the air to your fire. All you need to do is fan the flame.”

I’ll be the voice she never knew she needed.

“Caldwell.” She looks back up at me and there’s no guilt whatsoever.

“And who’s paying you to protect him?”

I find my release with my wholesome father’s closet whore.

What I can’t decide is if falling into his darkness will set me free or destroy me entirely.

She flips, bringing a knee to her chest and kicks me square in the jaw, sending my head sideways. A piece of my tooth chips off as my lip splits, the blood pooling in my mouth almost immediately. She stares at me above her with terror and shock in her eyes, disbelieving of her own strength. I run my thumb along my bottom lip, seeing the blood. “Oh, fuck yeah.” A smile stretches across my face and I feel the blood rush to my cock.

“I never knew how much I’d enjoy your infliction of pain. You’re a vicious little thing. Got more fight than I thought.”

He smells like wine, leather, and horrible, soul-shattering decisions.

“You’re a woman without a voice, Briony,” he whispers against my lips. “Let me be the throat through which you scream.”

“See?” he whispers. “You’re not his little slut. You can’t even properly swallow a cock.” The graffiti. His sick and twisted games are endless. “You did that?” I seethe through clenched teeth. “You wrote those vile things about me?” He sighs against me. “Forgive me. Tasteless, I know. Not really my style, but...when in Rome, we do as the Romans do, don’t we?” He’s insane.

“I’m your God now,” I whisper his words back to him, the same words he wrote over the passage, finally deciphering the message. The Lord your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies. It wasn’t meant as blasphemy. It was a sign of his protectiveness. He’s willing himself to be my shield, but only if I bear the sword.

A wave of familiarity floods me when I gaze into those piercing hazel eyes meant for evil beneath the full, iron-clad face mask. The mask boasts a long, deep crack slanted through from the corner of the forehead down to the opposing jaw, striking through it like a deadly lightning bolt. He’s dressed in a fitted black designer suit, the edge of a neck tattoo peeking out through the collar of his crisp white button-up shirt. His dark hair is slicked back and tucked behind his ears, making the sharp angle of his jaw cut through, his full pink lips protruding above me with an obvious scar lingering near his mouth and along his jaw I hadn’t noticed before.

“Dare me to set fire to this night and I will.”

The seriousness in his gaze tells me everything I need to know about what this man would do for me. He’d burn churches to the

ground, to nothing but ash and dirt. Murder and mutilate anyone intending to harm me. Teach me to explore sensations that h...

They wanted to end me before I lived, just as they do Briony, but my mother held on, secretly bearing the child of a man who had done unspeakable things to her.

The vengeance I deserved after the hell Callum Westwood had put me through upon the discovery of the bastard-born son who carried his blood.

I emerged, dirtied and raw, with a heart that beats black.

I saw the look on Alastor’s face. He’s shocked to see her here. Alive. Seeing her in the presence of these men surprised me, to be honest. I didn’t think she had it in her to stare them in the face, especially not after seeing Caldwell’s dirty little secret firsthand. Secrets that are well-known to every disgusting man in here tonight.

Step by step, her body moves through the light, edging toward the darkness like a lioness; cautious, yet on the hunt, knowing the animals prowling around her.

“A baptism,” I say, grabbing the hand that was in Saint’s. “To erase the purification they’ve doused you in by making you a woman of strength, owning your sexuality; your freedom,” I continue, before standing straight again.

He’s the dark to my light as I am the color to his achromatic gloom.

He appears to live in a world of his own morals. A life of calculated destruction.

Desire is a dangerous web, entangling me in this unrelenting need for more.

exposing his throat and a wedge of his firm, inked-covered chest beneath it.

He watches me through the holes of the mask as he toys with the cuffs of his shirt near his wrists, rolling the material up his corded forearms, exposing more of his ink as he does. The man is covered with them.

in a quick breath, her round, plump breasts rising. “Now you know how I feel every time I’m without you,” I say, slapping the side of her face gently with each word. “I can’t. Fucking. Breathe.”

“If you want a life that doesn’t have me in it, you’ll have to fucking kill me yourself. I’m yours, and you are forever mine.”

They marked me a murderer. Branded me the enemy because Callum Westwood knew a life that included me could never work. I was his greatest mistake. His greatest downfall.

I promised I’d bring them down, one by one. I swore to her I’d find the daughter they ripped from her arms before ending her life like she wasn’t even human at all.

“Lucky I figured it out.

You were protecting me. I could’ve killed you for even voicing the words.”

She doesn’t realize this fiery passion only activates my crazy.

The whole stint using Saint’s name in my confession... He wasn’t wrong, I was protecting him, but in the same breath, I got a rise out of the maddening jealousy he seemed to portray. Saint gets under his skin like no other, and the reasons for that are entirely unclear.

I exist only for her now. I’ll fucking kill Briony if she ever tries to leave me, then end my miserable fucking life right alongside her. It’s as easy as that.

“You are the fire that burns stagnant, the coals and ash yearning for the chance to ignite, ready to burn cities to the ground in your fierceness. A force more powerful than any man that came before you. You are my fucking existence, Briony. I live and breathe for you alone. I am yours eternally, entirely at your mercy.”

One taste of Briony and I’m on my knees, ready to kill or be killed for my queen.

His tongue darts out of his mouth as he licks the cuts before kissing them gently. Healing his harm. My heart swells further.

He’d convinced me that what we did behind those church doors was for my benefit alone. For my salvation. But it always felt wrong, and asking for it to stop only encouraged him more. I’d learned to be quiet and accept the ways of the world until the day I finally broke.

She smiles a cutesy little smile at me, and I can’t wait to smack her upside the head with my cock and wipe that smirk right off.

“I’m not missing anything, Nox,” she says to him, her heel indenting the side of his face. “And no one, especially not a strung-out pimp from Detroit, disrespects Aero in front of me.” Oh, fuck.

Nox’s eyes glance over at me as I sit back with a satisfied grin on my face, cocking my brow. She was listening the whole time. I didn’t think she could hear us. “Aw man, y’all are so fucked up.” He laughs against the rug beneath him. “I love it.” I knew he would.