Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

114

THERON

I sat in a chair, idly toying with a knife as I leaned forward on my forearms. In front of me Vetticus dangled naked and unconscious from a chain, strung up by his wrists. I hadn’t touched him yet. I wanted him awake first.

I heard the door open and Nyx and Atlas appeared. Nyx circled Vetticus with a dark look on his face before coming over and hopping up on the counter behind me. Atlas came and stood next to me, folding his arms across his chest.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Let’s finish this,”

Atlas nodded.

“Nyx, wake him up,” I said.

Nyx hopped down and brought the smelling salts over to Vetticus, waving them under his nose. Our captive jolted and jerked awake, blinking rapidly as he came back to reality. When he saw me sitting in front of him, he smirked.

“You know if you wanted to tie me up, you could have said something,”

he mocked.

I shook my head. “You just don’t understand do you?”

I rose to my feet and walked over to stand in front of him.

“This doesn’t change anything—I claimed you long ago,”

Vetticus smirked. “You wear my brand, I’ve taken your body, nothing can change that.”

“Delusional,”

Nyx scoffed.

Vetticus’ gaze sharpened on Nyx behind me and he frowned. “I should have killed you myself.”

“Yeah, you should have,”

Nyx agreed. He held out his hands. “But you didn’t…and now the Reaper is here for you.”

Vetticus scoffed. He looked back at me and let his gaze trail lazily down my body and back up. “You can’t change the past, Kraven. You’re mine and you always will be.

I poised the knife on his face above his eyebrow and saw the first flicker of fear appear in Vetticus’ eyes. I reveled in it.

“No, Vetticus, that’s where you’re wrong,”

I slid the blade down, digging it deep. A cry of distress left him as I dragged it through his eye, down his cheek and ended at his jaw. A deeper, more violent version of the cut he made me give Emersyn. “I was never yours in the first place.”

Nyx, Atlas and I took turns brutalizing Vetticus.

When he passed out, we revived him. Soon we were covered in blood and the entire space looked like a slaughterhouse. After the first cut, Vetticus didn’t have anything smart to say again. In fact, the only words out of his mouth for the next two hours were curses and screams. We tortured him for every loved one he’d taken and we made marks and inflicted pain for everyone we lost in that hell—for Preacher, for Kane—even Red and all the kids whose names we knew and those we didn’t.

At the moment, Nyx was in the process of cutting off Vetticus’ pinky finger. Atlas held a smoking iron ready to cauterize it. We wanted him alive as long as possible. Vetticus’ screams echoed off the walls only to die off a moment later when he passed out.

“Oh no you don’t, pussy,”

Nyx growled, waving the smelling salts under his nose again.

Vetticus jerked awake and moaned, then screamed again as Atlas pressed the iron to the stump where his finger used to be. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room. Nyx tossed the finger away in disgust and patted Vetticus on the cheek.

“Sucks doesn’t it?”

He chuckled.

There wasn’t a spot on Vetticus that hadn’t been abused. He was missing several fingers, one of his eyes and I was pretty sure most of his blood was on the floor instead of inside his body. His once cocky features were vacant and dull. He was finally resigned to his fate. Atlas handed the iron to Nyx.

“Heat that up again,”

Atlas said.

“With pleasure,”

Nyx answered. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make him choke on his cock,”

Atlas muttered.

Vetticus screamed, his struggles pathetic and weak when Atlas placed the knife at the base of his dick and started cutting. He made an animalistic sound of anguish and passed out halfway through. Nyx let out an unhinged laugh.

“Man, that’s satisfying,” he said.

Atlas held out his hand for the iron and when Nyx handed it to him, he shoved it into Vetticus’ skin over the wound. Vetticus woke up again, his screams piercing as he panicked and struggled, sobbing as he struggled to breath. Atlas dangled Vetticus’ appendage in his face and grabbed his jaw, forcing his mouth open.

“This is for all the times you terrorized the two people I love the most,”

he growled.

He shoved the dick into Vetticus’ mouth.

“I shouldn’t be turned on by that,”

Nyx chuckled. “But I like it when you get all possessive.”

Atlas came over and grabbed Nyx by the throat.

“You’re mine, not his,”

he growled.

“Forever, baby,”

Nyx smirked and Atlas yanked him into a kiss.

I watched them and a wave of peace swept over me. I looked back at Vetticus, hanging broken and bleeding—a barely breathing corpse. All the years of planning, hustling, and the torment of knowing he was still out there—all came down to now. Everything seemed more clear than it ever had before. I always wondered who I’d be once the smoke cleared and the blood that was owed was paid in full.

Who am I if not a hunter?

That was the question I asked myself, worried I’d get in too deep and lose any shred of humanity I had left. I worried I wouldn’t know what to do with myself once the hunt was over. Who was I without Vetticus driving my every breath? Even in the darkest moments, I’d never been his. I’d sat in wait, collecting my shadows and my pain and honing it all into a storm of vengeance. I’d bent to his will—all so I could get me and my men out alive. But in the end, it was always my game.

Powerful under the guise of being powerless.

Kaelin.

She’d wanted me to put the past to bed and come home to her. To give all of me to her. It should have felt strange, it should have felt wrong, to give instead of take. I wasn’t sure if I could really love someone or not, but I knew I would damn well try.

For her. For Graham. For the life I’d built.

The thought of her had me tossing the knife at my feet and heading towards the door.

“Where are you going?”

Nyx asked, tearing his face away from Atlas momentarily.

“To find Kaelin,” I said.

“What about him?”

“He’s the Devil’s problem now.”

Who am I if not a hunter?

I suddenly wasn’t afraid to find out.