There Are No Saints (Sinners, #1)

by Sophie Lark

I just want to tell you that every part of you, the things that bring you pleasure and the things that bring you pain, the parts of yourself you’re most proud of and the parts that seem like your own worst enemy eating you alive from the inside…it all makes up your mind, and your mind is beautiful and perfect, because it’s the only one like it.

You are irreplaceable. You are one of a kind. You are art.

I don’t kill women, typically.

I could overpower either of those women like they were small children. Where’s the challenge? The sense of accomplishment?

In fact, I’ve never admired anyone.

I feel no sympathy. No guilt. Those are emotions I’ve never experienced.

I’m aware, academically, of the full range of human emotions. I’ve studied them intently so I can mimic their effects. But they have no power over me.

What I do feel, I feel intensely: rage, revulsio...

I’m not killing Danvers because I have to. I’m killing him because I want to.

None of the bones are recognizable as a rib, a mandible, a femur. I filed them down, dipped them in gold, and mounted them in an entirely new arrangement. Still, their linear, organic shape remains. The sculpture lives, in a way it never would've had it been constructed of gilded metal or stone.

“What are you calling it?” “Fragile Ego,” I reply.

My mother wasn’t an artist per se, but she liked to fuck a lot of them.

Gritty footsteps sound behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy some large, dark mass hurtling toward me. I barely have time to turn before I’m struck across the back of the skull.

The same pain stabs through it, and this time I understand that I’m being pierced, not severed. This motherfucker put rings through my nipples.

A vicious slash burns across each arm as he slits my wrists.

That’s the thing about murder: no body, no crime.

I don’t even torture my subjects like this. Meticulous preparation has always been the foreplay for me.

So I take one last glance at the girl’s beautifully tortured body. Then I step over her and carry on my way.

Then I turn and I see death himself come to claim me. The man is tall, slim, and dark. He’s wearing a black suit, flawlessly tailored, incongruous in this barren place. It stands out starkly against the pale flesh of his throat and hands. His black hair, thick and lustrous, frames the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. An artist is always looking at ratios and proportions. His dark, almond-shaped eyes, the straight slashes of his brows, the line of his nose, the high cheekbones and razor-fine jaw, all relieved by the flawless curve of his lips—I’ve never seen such perfect balance.

I’m not fucking dying here.

I’m not dying here. I’m not fucking doing it.

She’s right—I dress like a whore. I’ve never taken care of myself. I probably will come to a bad end. But there’s another thing my mother always said about me: I’m a stubborn motherfucker. And I don’t take advice from anybody, least of all her.

Getting away with murder is pretty fucking easy.

I’ve killed fourteen people and I’ve yet to receive a single knock on my door.

Shaw has successfully thrown a wrench in my process. I ponder how best to deal with him. I could just fucking kill him.

“If we’re ever alone in a room again, only one of us will walk out breathing.”

I was so certain she was dead. I hate being wrong. I hate it all the more for how rarely it happens. My anger flares at the girl. This is her fault. Her fault for defying the fate rushing toward her.

“What happened? The guy took it too far?” “Well he tried to murder me,” I snapped. “So yeah, that was a bit far for my tastes.”

The figure who came and stood over me. The one with the face of an angel and the eyes of a black hole.

It’s unlike me to fixate on a woman like this. I find most people horrifically boring. I’ve never met anyone as intelligent as me, or as talented. Other people are weak and emotional—slaves to their impulses. Constantly making promises they can’t keep, even to themselves.

I do what I want. I get what I want. Always. Every time. If there’s a god of this world, it’s me. But even Zeus found mortals interesting from time to time. I desire to see Mara again, to speak to her. I want to manipulate her and see how she reacts. And if I want something . . . that means it’s good.

Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer—both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams . . .”

I smile to myself. Poor little Mara is not impervious to nightmares, whatever she may pretend during the daylight hours.

I pick up the next novel on the stack, Prometheus Illbound, and let it fall open to a dog-eared page. Here she’s marked: I do not love men: I love what devours them.

Lifting it to my face, I inhale the scent of her warm morning pussy.

I even put out my tongue and taste the cotton strip that nestled between her pussy lips.

If I had smelled this scent, I would have done it. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It’s addicting. The longer I spend in this room with her sheets, her half-empty perfume bottle, her dirty laundry, the more it fills my lungs, surging through my blood. I want it. Fresh from the source.

Besides . . . I don’t believe in revenge. This isn’t the first time in my life someone hurt me. Holding onto the anger, stewing in the rage, will only boil me alive from the inside. I learned that the hard way.

I never removed the piercings.

But it also reminds me that I ran down that fucking mountain, naked and half dead. I survived. In a sense, I stole these silver rings from him, because he thought they’d adorn my corpse.

“Poor people always like soup,” Josh says, grinning at me.

Can Cole kill him?

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. This isn’t the first time I’ve been irritated by the way a man touches me—actually, it happens a lot. I have sensory issues, sound and touch affecting me worst.

So intense was my desire to spy on Mara that I probably would have bought the damn thing.

This is the first time in my life that I’ve desired something without understanding why. Out of all the thousands of women I’ve encountered, how did Mara catch my attention like a hook through the gills of a fish?

I almost feel . . . jealous. I’ve never been jealous before. Why would I? No one on this planet has anything I envy. Yet I’ve already decided, with absolute certainty, that no one should be touching that sweet little cunt except me. I’ve smelled her scent on my fingers. I want it fresh from the source.

Lucky for him—I was already planning how I’d cut off his balls with a box cutter.

But Mara seems determined to surprise me at every turn. She sits up. Lifts her palm. Feels the rain pattering down. Then she pulls her dress over her head and tosses it aside. She lays down on the mattress once more, fully nude. I let out a soft sigh, my eye pressed against the telescope.

I can’t tear my eyes from the telescope. I can’t stop looking at her for a single second.

“Cole Blackwell is very generous.”

Instead, I storm out of the room, chasing after Blackwell.