Red Rabbit: You Shatter So Beautifully (Red Rabbit Series Book 1)

by Devyn Rivers

He didn’t ask for consent for anything he had done to me. He’d taken what he wanted and I’d been forced to give it to him. Except, somewhere along the way, my mind stopped thinking it was bad. He enjoyed the Stockholm Syndrome effect where he could manipulate someone into betraying their own mind’s decision to say no. It was definitely fucked up.

“That’s why I come here,” he said. “No other kind of interaction will give me the thrill of forcing someone to fight within themselves.” “I can’t decide if that makes you a villain or just a really sick man,” I said. “I prefer antihero,” he said with a wink. “Then your name suits you.”

legs. I struggled again, but he pushed the button and I collapsed against the desk, wanting to scream in pain but unable to while the shock rendered me immobile. He drove into me and pushed the button again and my entire body tensed and convulsed around his cock. He groaned and drove into me a few more times while I was rigid. When he stopped I tried to gasp in air around my sobbing. “Oh god, you feel good when you’re getting shocked. You’re all tensed up and clinging to my dick.”

“Ah,” he said. “Pleasure with the pain. Unfortunately, I’m not much for making things pleasurable for you. I get off on the pain part. But at least I know how to make you wet when I need you to be.”

I couldn’t help but gag, not wanting to taste Paxton. I didn’t say anything but my glare made him chuckle. Tank untied me and I slid to the floor, unable to stand. Then they lifted me between them and we left the room. I was dazed and the pain consumed me to a point I let it take me away. Later in my cell, I curled into a ball and tried to sleep.

His other hand found my clit and before I knew it the edge was roaring towards me and pain exploded through my body. I fell into a darkness filled with torment and I screamed and thrashed as the orgasm broke me apart. I blacked out and when I came back down to reality, I threw up at my feet and gasped for air.

My throat felt raw. I was having a breakdown. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was drowning.

“Well, I’ve been reduced to supervised visits,” Paxton said with a scowl. “Apparently I’ve damaged Cooper’s goods too extensively.”

Paxton raped me and played with my injuries until I felt the moment my mind broke and I went somewhere so dark and crazed I didn’t even recognize myself. Eventually the chaos closed in around me and I welcomed the darkness as it crawled across my vision and pulled my tortured mind away from reality. I sank screaming silently into the abyss and was thankful when everything finally faded away.

It was Graham. No, it wasn’t possible. It had to be a hallucination. He was dead. I saw him die. “Hey—Shh—I’m here—come here.” He was making soothing sounds as he knelt near me. His face looked pained as he took in my distraught state.

“Graham?” I said hoarsely. “What—what are you—? Oh my god—” I reached out to him, his image wavered through my tears and as my fingertips touched his, I broke apart and completely lost it.

The state she was in made me nearly blind with rage. I wish I could have made a move sooner. I was almost too late, any longer—she was already destroyed but at least she was alive. I could work with alive.

I gripped her tightly in my arms, trying to hold her pieces together. Her cries tore at my soul and she felt like a shell with too many cracks.

“Just breathe baby—just breathe—” She shifted in my arms and looked up at me. Those beautiful green eyes now haunted, dull and so terrified I felt sick. “How are you here?” Her voice was ragged and weak. “I wasn’t going to leave you here,” I scoffed.

I nodded to the other side of the bed. I wasn’t about to tell her I came in to see the guards watching him rape her when she was unconscious. I killed them first, then dragged him off of her and beat him to within an inch of his life and finally shot him. She didn’t need to know that.

We didn’t encounter any trouble until we were almost there and a door opened and two guards came through. They looked at us in shock and hesitated for a second too long in their surprise. I shot them both in quick succession and they dropped heavily to the floor.

The third threw himself at me but his fighting was sloppy and I threw him in front of me and snapped his neck. Kaelin was pressed against the door, watching me with something close to awe and fear. She was seeing me for exactly who I was. A methodical killer. A cold blooded murderer. A broken man.

“My last name is Bennet,” she said. Like that would mean anything to me. At my blank stare she sighed. “I’m the CTO of Phox.”

THE BREAKING It is in the breaking, we become whole again. It is through darkness, we find the stars. Somewhere between the soul and the self, we find what we’re made of.

“I did get shot,” he said dryly. “But it went straight through my side. Thankfully it didn’t hit anything vital but it did take me time to recover.” “Thank you—for coming back for me.”

“I’m no hero,” he said quietly. His own eyes were haunted and grim. “Don’t start thinking I’m a good man, sweetheart.” “Not a chance,” I said. “We’re in hell Graham. There aren’t any heroes here.”

“Kaelin—fuck—,” he breathed. He reached out a hand and I trembled. There were lash marks all over my body. Most were angry red welts but some cut into my skin. The worst ones were the two cuts that ran along the side of my hip. I risked a look down at him. His face was a storm of fury and misery for my pain. He lifted my shirt up my stomach a few inches and an angry growl escaped when he saw the cuts and welts that extended up further. My body was a molted collection of bruises and knife wounds. He grabbed the first aid kit and fiercely got to work.

We had broken. Cooper. Trav. Myself. They tore apart our bodies and dug into our minds. They made us watch each other go through hell and I think that’s what ended up making us all break apart. To watch someone you care for go through torture of the darkest kind is just as bad as getting physically tortured yourself.

Graham’s arms were still around me and his hand was running up and down my arm. I tensed at his touch. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be held but he’d never hurt me and a small sob escaped as I realized that’s all I wanted: to just not hurt anymore. “Just breathe, beautiful,” he murmured. “That’s all I want you to do right now is breathe.”

One minute I was running, the next I was on the ground. I must have fallen but I don’t remember. I heard footsteps and curled into a ball. I was done. I just wanted this to all be over. “I’m not leaving you,” Graham said fiercely. I must have been telling him to go, to leave me behind, but my mind was foggy.

In my manic state I tried to grab the gun from the pack. Graham lunged for me and wrestled it away from me before I could do anything while I fought him viciously as the storm raged around us. “Just kill me,” I sobbed. The rain thundered down and I was on my knees in the mud, pleading with him, clawing at his pants in my unhinged state. “Make it stop—I can’t—I see him every time I close my eyes—just make it stop,” I repeated over and over. I finally gave up and my forehead fell forward onto Graham’s leg as I cried.

It’s a dark and desolate existence when you feel like your body and mind aren’t your own. When reality is a confusing place but your dreams are even worse. When your very soul is broken, there aren’t any safe places. Not even within yourself.

“The first man—who bought me—he was good to me.” “What does that even mean?” “He didn’t hurt me,” she said quietly. “You’re right, the bar is in hell,” I growled.

“No—he—he made me feel really good actually.” “Kaelin, that’s still rape.” “I know,” she looked miserable. “But he was the only one who protected me in there. He said he’d try and come back to get me out.” “And you believed him?” I asked darkly. “I had no reason not to,” she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter—” I said flatly. “If anyone comes close to you again, I’m going to kill them. What kind of sick fuck goes to a place like the Warren and makes someone feel good?”

“He saved my life,” she said. “The one you killed, he wasn’t the first to hurt me. And for the life of me, I can’t quite bring myself to condemn Kraven, even though I know it’s Stockholm Syndrome...”

I brought her hand up and kissed the back softly. “I wish I could erase everything bad that happened to you in that place and replace it with something good.”

eyes. I let her step back but I shifted my hips and she looked down. “I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly, seeing my arousal. I chuckled and adjusted myself with a shrug. “Baby, that’s just what your kiss does to me.” She blushed further and gave me a small but genuine smile.

We sat like that for a time and I rested my head against his shoulder. “I think that’s the first personal thing you’ve said to me,” I said finally. I heard a rumble of a laugh. “Well now you can’t say I never told you anything about myself.” “I would have been happy just knowing your favorite food,” I teased, lifting my head to grin at him. “Oh god no, that’s way too personal,” he joked.

“We only break once,” he said firmly. His hands running up my arms. “So we can put ourselves back together stronger than before.”

“You deserve to feel whole,” he said against my neck. “You are gorgeous when you come. But that is your gift to give me. Not mine to take.” He kissed me again.

This was so different from when we first had sex in the tent. He’d been dominating and wanted to make me come undone in his hands. I loved it. But he knew what I needed now. He knew I needed to make this something special again. Something I gave to someone of my choosing. He wanted to emphasize it. To showcase what it meant to gain my power back. I could have cried. I was so thankful.

My breath caught as I took in this beautifully damaged creature on my lap who somehow was sitting in a predator's arms fully trusting me not to hurt her. Even broken she was brave. I brushed one of her tears away and looked at her with a small satisfied smile tugging at my lips.

“Donuts,” I said. She immediately looked confused. “My favorite food is donuts.” She blinked and then a laugh escaped her lips and for the briefest of moments she was alive again. I decided I’d do anything I could to hear that laugh again.

I heard Kaelin scream and tried to get to her but my movements were slow and everything seemed far away. I went down on my knees again and this time couldn’t find the energy to get up. The last thing I saw before I fell into darkness was Kaelin being dragged out the door by her hair.

REDEMPTION When a star falls to earth we make a wish Their undoing is our redemption What then does it mean when a soul shatters? If we are stardust and moon rise, fragments of the universe, surely we come undone only to be made whole again. An unraveling— of the broken and the beautiful. Just as we wish upon a starfall, Maybe our pieces that shatter, Our soulfall—are the wishes the stars make on us.

quirked his lips. He looked amused. “You are quite a woman,” he said, looking me up and down in that lazy way of his. “Accomplished military tech developer with several notable patents, CTO of a world renown tech company, philanthropist and artist—even has her hand in biotech,” He looked at me pointedly and then chuckled at the shocked look on my face.

“I like you better like this—more wolf than rabbit.”

I heard a thud and the man closest to me fell, a bullet in his neck. I scrambled backwards towards the corner of the living room as three men in black tactical gear swept in and dropped the remaining two men in the room. I watched them wide eyed and then my eyes fell on the leader and fourth man as he entered the room. It was Kraven.

“Good girl,” he murmured, seeing I obeyed his instructions. His eyes swept me from head to toe and back again and I saw his gaze land on every single one of my scars. A muscle in his jaw ticked and the dangerous look in his eyes scared me even though I knew it wasn’t for me. “Come here,” he said, his jaw clenched.

“Is he dead?” He rumbled dangerously. I nodded my head and my lip trembled. “Yes,” I whispered. “Pity. He deserves worse for this,” he growled. He moved down so he could kiss a trail down one scar and a small sob escaped me. “I would carve him into pieces—” he kissed up the other scar. “And when I finally allowed him to die—” He peppered kisses along my hip, passing the scar to hit the spot he knew I was weakest. “—I’d drag him back from hell so I could do it all again.”

“You feel even better than I remember, baby girl,” he murmured before kissing me. My hands slid off his chest and down his arms and as his tongue invaded my mouth, his dick buried inside me and we both groaned.

“You shatter so beautifully, darlin’,” he breathed against my lips, moving so slow I could feel all of him every time he moved.

“That’s because you’re an expert hunter,” I gasped,

I was standing there gawking when I finally noticed Kraven, shirtless and in boxer briefs, moving around my kitchen. Shirtless. In my kitchen. In my kitchen—making coffee. I really was dreaming. He turned and noticed me, his eyes sliding down to the gun and his lips twitched. I suddenly felt embarrassed it was in my hands and blushed. “We need to talk about that at some point,” he said dryly as he turned and finished pouring two cups of coffee. “Although I will admit seeing you hold a gun right now with sex hair and legs for days is doing something to me.” He walked over and gently pulled the gun from my hand, replacing it with coffee. I just stared at him.

“You’re mine whether you want me or not, darlin’,” He said gruffly. “Even if it’s willingly?”