Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

64

THERON

The van pulled up to the estate after the game. The men were escorted into the infirmary and I was taken directly to Vetticus who was sitting at his dining table eating dinner. I was naked and bloody, covered in mud and freezing cold from the storm. They kept my hands cuffed behind me and kicked me down to my knees.

Vetticus stood up, wiping his mouth and letting his gaze rove over my body. He grabbed my chin, leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. I was still wound up tightly from the game and jerked away from him, only for him to bite my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. I hissed at him but he just chuckled and slid his tongue along my mouth, slowly licking away the pain. He pulled away with a hooded expression in his eyes and patted me roughly on the cheek.

“Pity about Kane,”

he said. “I have one of the best trauma surgeons on call, we could have given it a good go at saving his life.”

I didn’t say anything, my anger already simmering just beneath the surface as I fought to keep myself in control.

“And then Phantom,”

Vetticus shook his head. “That one would have hurt, I'm sure. Good thing Reaper was able to stop him.”

He looked at me as he said it. “They’re close, aren’t they?”

I know Nyx and Atlas had been being careful about exploring whatever sort of underlying feelings they felt for each other, not wanting Vetticus to use it against them. But Vetticus watched us excessively and for someone who knew us intimately, it wouldn’t be hard to tell there were deeper feelings there than just friendship.

“I should explore that,”

Vetticus mused.

I could tell he was trying to get a rise out of me or some kind of confirmation he was right. I stared straight ahead, refusing to meet his eyes. This was how these visits normally went anyway. He would bait me then abuse me and when he was done, and I was nearing unconsciousness, he’d tell me he loved me. That was more recent. Even more recent was him trying to get me to say it back to him.

He knelt behind me and ran his hands up my thighs to my cock and started stroking me.

“I like when you’re still dirty from the field,”

he said, his breath tickling my ear. He shoved two fingers into my mouth, fish hooking my cheek and dragging my head back against his shoulder. I could feel the bulge already in his pants. “Covered in blood because of me.”

He removed his fingers and trailed them between my ass before pushing them inside me. I ground my teeth as he stretched me and stroked me at the same time. I wasn’t getting hard but his breathing picked up as he grew more aroused and his hands became rougher.

Releasing my cock, he grabbed my wrists and pulled up, forcing me to bend forward as the pain jolted through my shoulders. I heard his zipper and the sound of him spitting. It landed on my ass and with that as lube, he shoved inside me. He pushed me all the way forward onto the ground and drove inside me, gasping in pleasure.

“You’re going to bleed for me now too,”

he panted.

I blocked it out and went somewhere else after that. Shoving the pain, humiliation and anger aside and instead thought about everything I was going to do to him when I got free. He meant to degrade me, take away my power and tarnish the person I knew myself to be.

Rape was control—rape was power.

Vetticus used it as a way to psychologically torture me but also because he truly thought he could get me to love him.

But I wasn’t normal.

I was just as fucked up as he was. Except he didn’t know how to manipulate the body with the intent of the mind catching up and I had every intention of not giving this demeaning experience any power.

Vetticus pushed my arms up further, the pain cutting through my thoughts as he used the leverage to push my face into the wood and drive into me in hard strokes. Then a burning sensation flashed across my back, once—twice—as he ran a knife across my skin. I struggled, trying to pull away, but it only made him hum in pleasure and redouble his efforts. He set the knife against my skin and slowly dug it in, making all my mental walls fall apart as he made another agonizingly slow cut across my back. I heard the knife clatter to the floor and then his fingers were scrubbing across the cuts.

“You were made for me,”

he gasped.

His hips stuttered as he got close to the edge.

“Made for me—fuck—I love you…”

he panted.

I broke out in a sweat and my own breathing was erratic as I tried to push the throbbing pain in my body out of my mind.

“Say it back,”

he ground out.

I was silent.

“Say it back,”

he demanded again.

Silence. The room was almost eerily quiet except for the sound of his movements.

Finally, he couldn’t hold out any longer and spilled inside me, groaning out another declaration of love for me. He pulled out but didn’t let me sit up.

“Say it back,”

he panted.

I heard the hiss of his knife across the ground and he lay it against my back in warning.

“Fucking say it!”

He shouted.

But I would die before I ever said those words. He leaned down over my body.

“Next time I’ll fuck you with the knife and then my dick until you tell me what I want to hear,”

he threatened.

When he finally stepped away, I collapsed onto my side and curled in on myself, feeling my sweat drip onto the floor as I pressed my face into the cool hardwood. Relief that he was done surged through me and I couldn’t stop shaking as shock set in. Blackness thankfully came for me and I sank into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, warm water was spilling down on me as I lay on the floor of a shower.

Vetticus’ hands were traveling over my body, surprisingly gentle as they washed my cuts, my ass, even the scratches and minor injuries from the game. My entire body hurt and I tried to move away from him but I was so weak and in so much pain, I didn’t get far. I felt the bite of a needle on my neck and the familiar warmth of the drug swept through my blood. He used his mouth on me and although I tried everything I could think of, the drug hardened my dick for him.

The drug heightened all sensations to an almost painful degree. His mouth was uncomfortable, too stimulating, and I groaned and whimpered whenever he scraped his teeth across my length. My eyes were shut with exhaustion and when his mouth left me, I couldn’t open them to see what he was doing.

His hands gripped my cock and excruciating pain made me thrash on the tile. I turned my head and was sick. The ground was heaving under me.

“A little something to remember me by,”

Vetticus said. His thumb brushed over the head of my cock and the pain made me heave again but there was nothing to empty. “I’m going to pierce you again and then you’re going to fuck me.”

I tried to shake my head but I couldn’t even do that. The pain came again, and the drug made every nerve ending light up until I couldn’t handle it and passed out.

When I came to, there was a weight on my hips and I couldn’t move. Vetticus was on top of me riding my dick. I was in so much pain at this point, I turned my head and threw up again. A soft sob escaped me and I completely broke. Finally giving in to the breakdown, I was thankful when the darkness came to take me away.

There was no easing awake. The next time awareness hit, I surged up and was violently sick, this time off the side of my bed in our cell. I hung off the side of the bed, one hand gripping the frame as I gasped in breath after breath.

“Easy, here’s some water,” Nyx said.

When the world stopped spinning, I sat up, wincing hard as pain rolled through my body. I accepted the water as I carefully swung my legs over the side and took a long drink. I lowered the water bottle to see all three men hovering, worry lining their faces.

“It was bad this time, wasn’t it?”

Atlas stated.

I must have looked as shitty as I felt.

I was going to deny it, but I simply looked at him and nodded. A murderous look took over Nyx’s face, but it still warred with the guilt I saw every time I came back from my time with Vetticus.

“He wants me to tell him I love him,”

I said quietly. I hadn’t been planning on telling them anything of what went on but that seemed important. “I think it’s just going to get worse. He’s—he’s getting more violent.”

“Okay, that’s it—you’re done,”

Nyx snapped. “I’m done with you taking this like you’re the only one deserving of this torture.”

“Nyx—”

“No, god dammit, he’s going to kill him!”

Nyx growled, rounding on Atlas who’d spoken. “You seriously are okay with him being subjected to this over and over again?”

“Nyx is right,”

Preacher said. “This has gone on long enough.”

“It’s fine—”

“It’s far from fucking fine,”

Nyx fumed. “We saw what he did to you.”

“This isn’t a matter of redirecting his attention.”

I hissed. “If I refuse, or make things difficult, he’s just going to bring you guys in and torture you or even kill you in front of me. Then he’s still going to do whatever he wants to me.”

Nyx surged to his feet, digging his hands into his hair. “This is bullshit.”

“I know, but there’s no point in you three getting hurt if it’s not going to help,”

I insisted.

I was exhausted as despair settled heavily on my shoulders, dragging my body down with the pain. It was getting to be too much. We were falling apart—our compartments where we’d carefully placed everything were cracking under the strain. The ruin and destruction when they broke would be catastrophic and most likely deadly.

I went to stand up and nearly passed out again as a wave of dizziness swept over me.

Nyx jolted like he wanted to help me but I held out my hand to stop him. He gritted his teeth but didn’t say anything.

“I need some air,”

I said, looking pointedly at Nyx. I wanted to talk to them about our escape plan but didn’t want to do it inside where Vetticus could eavesdrop.

“Alright,”

he grumbled. “Atlas help me bring some of the breakfast out.”

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to make it to the middle of the lawn but I unabashedly sank onto a pillow the guys had brought out and carefully ate the cold breakfast they’d saved for me.

“It needs to be the next game,”

Preacher said flatly. “I don’t care if it’s a wasteland and we have to take out an entire swarm of drones.”

“I agree,”

Nyx said immediately.

They all looked at me.

I knew they were right. Vetticus was only getting more and more unpredictable and violent. He’d stop at nothing to make sure I was his and I was tired of it. I was done with the constant threat on our lives.

I was tired of the games.

I was just fucking tired.

We were losing ourselves. After Atlas’ breakdown and this last torture session with Vetticus—reaching my own breaking point; I knew if we didn’t go soon, there’d be nothing left to save.

I looked around at these three men I’d become so close with. We’d bled together, suffered together and I would never forgive myself if I dragged our agony out long enough to get one of them killed.

It was time to put an end to this.

“Next game then.”