Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

58

THERON

The following week, we’d just finished working out and were starting a strategy meeting when the guards came into the yard—something they never did.

“Kraven, Vetticus wants to see you.”

“Why?”

“Fuck if I know, hands behind your back.”

I looked at Nyx and Atlas, both looked ready to protest, but I barely shook my head and while they didn’t look happy about it, they both refrained from acting. I did as the guards said and after they cuffed me, the concerned looks of the men followed me as I was escorted out of our building towards the mansion.

Instead of leading me into the same room as before, I was escorted into a dining room where a large table dominated the center of the room. The guards put me in a chair and cuffed my wrists in front of me, attaching the middle to a ring in the table.

“Good evening!”

Vetticus said cheerfully as he swept into the room. He was followed by a group of kitchen staff carrying dishes that wafted amazing smells throughout the room. They set everything down on the table and Vetticus shooed them away and regarded me with a smug look on his face.

“Hungry?” He asked.

I didn’t answer. He came and perched on the edge of the table next to me.

“I was thinking about our conversation from last week,”

he said. “All the other men are so…dull. They just curse and call me names and then plead with me not to fuck them.”

He reached across the table and grabbed a bottle of wine that he poured into a glass, speaking as he did.

“It made me realize that you and I have something…special. I’m not supposed to have favorites but, well, here you are.”

He held the glass within reach.

“Wine?”

I looked at the glass and then away and he chuckled.

“Ah, I see,”

he took a sip from it. “If I wanted to poison you, it wouldn’t be through wine.”

He stood up and grabbed my hair, pulling my head back. “Open your mouth.”

I refused, glaring up at him, my hands twitched on the table where they lay cuffed. He smirked and took another sip of wine then leaned over me, letting some of the liquid fall from his mouth onto mine. My breathing picked up as I tried to keep my anger in check, as the wine spilled over my chin and down my bare chest.

“Do you want to see what happens when you don’t play nice?”

His eyes jumped over to a monitor on the wall and it flickered on. I saw Nyx, Atlas and Preacher all tied to chairs, naked and blindfolded. “I pulled your favorite three—I figured you wouldn’t care too much for the others but these are the ones you seem to be the most possessive of.”

Fuck. I cursed silently, my jaw clenched tightly in rage. Vetticus turned my head towards the screen more and I watched someone push the button for Nyx’s tracker. Electricity shot through his body. There wasn’t any sound, but I saw Atlas and Preacher struggle, their mouths open as they yelled at whoever else was in the room.

“Stop,”

I growled.

“Are you going to play nice? Look, you’re the one who wanted my attention and now you have it.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen, my breathing growing erratic. The shocks finally subsided and Nyx slumped forward in the chair as much as his bonds would allow. Vetticus dragged my chin back to his.

“I won’t touch your team as long as you do what I say,”

he said. His gaze dipped to my mouth, still sticky with wine. He ran his tongue from my chin up my jaw, cleaning up any lingering drops of liquid. “Do we have a deal?”

I didn’t reply quickly enough because he sighed and made a motion with his other hand. My eyes jumped back to the screen to see a man approach Atlas with a knife. He dug it into his chest and I watched a line of blood appear as he dragged it across his skin. Atlas took it with gritted teeth until the man dug his fingers into the cut, coated his hand in blood and smeared it on Atlas’ cock.

He went rigid, his chest heaving as the man roughly handled him. I struggled against Vetticus’ grip, the cuffs clashing against the ring holding me to the table.

His hand dug into my scalp. “I’ve half a mind to watch Reaper lick the blood off Phantom’s cock but I think they’d enjoy that too much. Don’t you?”

He pulled my head to his again. “Do we have a deal?”

I took deep breaths through my nose in an attempt to control myself, feeling like at any moment I could detonate. My gaze flickered over to the screen again to see the man still abusing Atlas. He was yelling something and then his head snapped forward and he head butted the guard who quickly punched him in retaliation. The guard returned and trailed his hand through Atlas’ blood again, drawing a path down his stomach.

I looked back at Vetticus.

“Yes,”

I ground out, nearly choking as I forced the word out.

The moment I spoke, the man retreated from Atlas and my eyes shuttered in relief which seemed to amuse Vetticus. He released my head and took another sip of wine. I sank back against the chair, getting as far from him as the wood allowed.

“They can hear us in there, but I think I’m going to let them watch too.”

My eyes jumped to the screen to see the men’s blindfolds get removed. Atlas and Nyx took two seconds to check in with each other before their eyes were on the screen where they must see me. Their mouths moved as they shouted something.

Vetticus chuckled. “How cute—they’re saying don’t listen to me. Don’t worry about them. What is a man to do when you all want to be self-sacrificing? Except Preacher—he’s a quiet one isn’t he?”

Vetticus studied the screen.

“I had a feeling he was going to be a favorite with the sponsors,”

Vetticus said conversationally. “He and his wife were incredible. She was military so breaking them was a journey, let me tell you. At the end, before I cut her throat in front of him, she turned and simply said, ‘I love you. I know you’ll give him hell.’”

Vetticus shook his head, awe in his eyes. “It was a shame I couldn’t bring her along too, but alas, I had orders.”

I watched Preacher’s face and could tell he was hearing every word Vetticus was saying. His hands were in fists and his chest was heaving with hatred. I tore my eyes away from the screen to Vetticus who was watching me carefully, swirling his glass of wine.

He dipped his thumb in the red wine and ran it along my bottom lip before sliding his hand around my neck and pulling me forward. His lips hovered over mine and I went to jerk back but he chuckled darkly.

“Remember what happens if you fight me,”

he murmured, his breath coasting over my face. I froze, and he closed the distance, pressing his lips to mine. I didn’t kiss him back as his lips moved to suck the wine from my bottom lip, biting on it gently then harder. I hissed as he broke the skin. A low rumble escaped him as he pulled back, his eyes half closed in pleasure and his lips stained red with blood and wine.

A knife appeared in his hand. He traced it across my collarbone before digging it into my skin. I growled low in the back of my throat. He slowly dragged the knife across my chest as he watched my every move, his eyes never leaving mine. He was careful not to mess up his brand, but let the knife trail a path under it. The blood tickled as it ran down my stomach and sunk into the waistband of my sweats. Vetticus pulled the knife back and took another sip of wine, then he slowly dumped the glass over my chest. The alcohol burned as it ran across my skin.

I didn’t make a sound except to breathe heavily through my nose. I refused to give him anything. If he wanted to play, I’d let him play. As long as he didn’t touch my men, he could do whatever he wanted to me.

If I broke, I knew I could come back from it. There wasn’t a corner of my dark mind that scared me or a part of my humanity I wouldn’t give up to survive this.

His lips were parted and I could see the lust and desire shining in his eyes as he watched wine and blood run freely over my body. His hand trailed down and rested on my cock still covered by my pants.

“You got so hard for me last time,”

he rasped. His hand moved over me again before he took his knife and cut through the sweatpants to free me. I gritted my teeth in displeasure when his hand found bare skin. His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath again. I fixed my eyes at a point between my hands and tried to ignore him.

“How would Whitney touch you?” He asked.

I couldn’t help it, hearing her name on his lips sent me over the edge. I lunged forward and slammed my head into his. He cursed and reeled back, blood running from his nose. He backhanded me across the face but his breathing was erratic and I could see the bulge in his pants from where he was hard, turned on by the violence.

“You can think of her if it helps,”

he sneered. “Although I’m probably not as gentle as she was.”

“Don’t,”

I snarled. “Say. Her name.”

I was nearly breathless with rage as he approached again. This time he knelt next to me and brought the knife to the V branded into my chest.

“Do you like pain with pleasure?”

He asked. His hand stroked me as he teased the knife along the V, not cutting into the skin but scraping it along the scar tissue. I looked straight ahead, refusing to react again.

“The next violent thing you do, I will punish your men,”

he said, then his mouth was on my dick and his knife dug into the V at the same time. I slammed my head back against the chair at the assault of the conflicting sensations. Nausea swept over me so thick I nearly gagged as he dragged the knife down one side of the V, sucking the head of my cock as he did.

He did it again, cutting the other side as he took me into his mouth. When he was done with the V, he moved to my thigh, cutting deeply into me in time with his mouth. After five cuts, I still wasn’t hard, and he sat back on his heels.

“This should help,”

he purred. He pulled a needle from his pocket and jammed it into my thigh. “It’s my own personal cocktail. Different from last time. This one you’ll feel everything heightened, and it will make you rise to me, but you’ll still be able to move.”

Whatever he’d injected worked quickly, flowing like fire under my skin and setting every nerve ending ablaze. The cuts on my skin began to burn and as he took me into his mouth again, I could feel sweat break out on my body as pleasure overwhelmed me. I was breathing heavily and my hands shook from how hard I was digging them into the table.

I tried to will my mind somewhere else, but he dug his fingers into the cuts on my thigh and dragged his teeth along my cock. A groan escaped my lips, and I gritted my teeth in anger, my head falling back against the wood again in frustration.

“Your wife was beautiful,”

Vetticus said, replacing his mouth with his hand. I was getting harder by the minute as the drug raced through my system. My mind grew foggy, and it was hard to grasp onto thoughts. Vetticus’ voice sounded hollow as he continued to speak about my wife. What she must have felt like, the sounds she made when his men raped her. How despite everything they made her come. I fought back when he said that but his hand went around my neck, cutting off my air as his hand continued to work me.

Even though I mentally tried to fight it, I could feel him bringing me to the edge.

Vetticus stood up when I was seconds away from breaking.

Before I could register what was happening, he took the knife and slammed it into my hand. The blade impaled it onto the tabletop. He released my cock and I made a sound of distress, collapsing forward, chest heaving at the sudden assault.

He edged me closer with pleasure and pain, bringing me close to the point of release but never throwing me over. He pulled out his own cock, stroking himself with his hands covered in my blood. Perched on the edge of the table, his breath picking up as he stroked himself. Through the pain, I could tell by his breathing he was close. With a groan, he wrapped his hand around the knife and as he yanked it out, he came all over my chest to the sound of my pained groan. I collapsed back in the chair, writhing in distress.

I must have blacked out because when the nightmare swam back into view, Vetticus was stroking my cock using my blood and his come. I tried to move, but he grabbed my hair and dragged me towards him.

I looked past him to the monitor the men had been on but the chairs were thankfully empty now. He yanked my face to him as I shifted, trying to escape my release quickly blazing a trail through me. This time he didn’t stop and as I came, he pushed down on my hurt hand, making my body explode in a painful climax of anguish and agony.

“Yes, come for me, Kraven,”

he purred as I fell forward.

My sweat slicked forehead landed on his thigh and I didn’t have the energy to lift it. The room spun, so I closed my eyes, my body shaking as the sweat grew cold on my skin.

His hand caressed my hair, and I tried to hold myself together.

“You bleed so prettily for me,”

he murmured, petting my head again in a long, smooth stroke. “Sleep now, I’ll take care of you.”

I didn’t want to pass out, but my eyes wouldn’t open and he continued to pet me as I sank into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness, pushing everything that had just happened away.

I’d make him pay one day. For now, I’d survived another day, and that was enough.

I told myself nothing that happened to me here meant anything—it was all a means to an end. Fuel for the fire that would one day wreak havoc on the world and burn down everything in its path until all that was left was Vetticus and then I’d burn him too.

But not before I fulfilled my promise—to show him what it really meant to break.