God of Wrath: A Dark Enemies to Lovers Romance (Legacy of Gods Book 3)

5. Cecily

If anyone were to watch this scene from the outside looking in, they’d think it was the epitome of craziness.

A foreign entity has grabbed hold of my consciousness ever since I was ambushed in the middle of the hauntingly eerie forest.

I haven’t stopped running.

Adrenaline pumps in my veins with nauseating inflation until I nearly throw up with it.

If this is insane, the one chasing me is at the peak of the madness scale.

He didn’t tell me to run to give me an opening, no. He did it because he probably gets off on seeing me flounder.

Gasping for air.

Getting lost on unknown grounds.

Are his muscles as stiff as mine? Is blood pumping in his veins with overwhelming power? Is his pulse skyrocketing with each passing second, refusing to be contained or calmed?

If I were to reach into my chest, the only thing I’d be able to touch is the remains of my exploding heart and the decimation of my withering morals.

However, shame is the last emotion on my mind as I keep running and running. Fallen branches and the bushes scratch against my legs and hands, but I shove them out of the way.

I trip on a stray rock, groaning in pain, but I barely pause before picking up my pace again.

My lungs burn and my muscles scream with exertion.

It’s the fastest I’ve run in my whole life.

And yet, his footsteps remain steady behind me. I hear them now and again, coming from different directions, flashing in and out of the night like a ghost’s.

For a moment, I think my state of hyperawareness is making up things. Otherwise, how could footsteps be heard one second and disappear the next?

It’s almost as if it’s being done…on purpose.

I carry on with my escape, even if the logical part of me knows that if I keep moving at this pace, I’ll eventually collapse and be easy prey.

If I want to preserve my energy, I have to hide—

A loud thud of footsteps rushes up from behind me and I screech to a halt, then whirl around.

My sporadic breathing fills the air, but the only thing in sight is trees.

Big, tall trees with their giant trunks and branches that resemble hungry predators” fangs.

I don’t stop to ponder the sound as I continue to sprint in the darkness.

In the forest.

In the middle of the night.

Only the moon offers any sort of light, and it’s shadowed by the thick clouds, camouflaged, absolutely distorted.

It’s also stained with the sound of my erratic breathing and the ghost-like steps of the one pursuing me.

Landon.

Though I probably shouldn’t call him that in this situation. He’s supposed to be a stranger right now.

A creature of the night.

A merciless monster.

A devil who’s come to collect my life.

The distinctive sound of feet slapping against the ground fills my ears. It’s the sound I’m making. A sound so deranged and haunted that I hear every crunch against the dirt, every pebble caught beneath my shoes.

It collides with my shattered inhales and nearly chokes my swelling lungs.

But that sound is nothing compared to the steps that appear and disappear, sometimes from behind me, other times from my left, right, and even in front of me.

It injects me with an abundance of adrenaline until I’m surviving on it. I have no doubt that if my level drops, I’ll turn into a shaky mess and fall to the ground.

The threat continues looming over me, getting closer and closer, playing a fucked-up game of hide-and-seek with my mind.

There’s no more powerful tool than mind games. Physical exertion pales in comparison to mental stimuli and that’s why manipulating, gaslighting, and abusing the mind have become the ultimate weapons in modern society.

It feels as if I’m observing a lesson from my psychology classes. Only, theory and practice are worlds apart.

I know that sealing my mind off would protect me, but actually accomplishing that under the current circumstances is next to impossible.

When I study my surroundings again, I realize I’m in a part of the forest I didn’t go to yesterday.

The trees appear taller, sharper, as if they have every intention of devouring me alive. The darkness hovers, lingers, and swallows my whole being.

The worst part? This is so far from the main house that there don’t seem to be any cameras around here.

A hushed sound comes from the right and I whirl in that direction, high alertness pulsing in my veins.

But the moment my face turns to the side, something grabs me from behind. By my hair.

The silver strands nearly rip from the roots as he shoves me toward the ground.

I don’t go down peacefully.

I have no idea what’s come over me, but the moment he clutches me, an overpowering aggressiveness floods me.

Usually, I wouldn’t want to be involved in any violent situations, or at least, I would look and see before considering any physical retaliation.

Not this time.

It could be the adrenaline or my need for survival. It could be the suppressed emotions of my helplessness. Whatever it is, I hold onto it and I claw at his fingers that are forcing me forward.

I kick and buck my whole body as an animal-like growl echoes in the air.

It’s mine, I realize as he successfully knocks me to the ground. I try to fall on my hands and knees, but I fail to release his fingers at the last second and I end up flat on my stomach.

The rough dirt smashes my breasts and whooshes the breath from my lungs. I still try to buck so I can turn over and somehow knee him in the balls.

I fight so hard that I forget this scene is my doing.

I fight so hard that I believe every molecule of survival instinct in me. Perhaps it’s because he’s using savage strength to grip me.

He’s not taking it easy.

No, he probably came here without any plans to be soft or politically correct.

He came here to invade and conquer.

This is the real thing. Him, uncut and with the sole purpose of inflicting pain.

His calm, deep breathing reverberates in the air and strikes me across the skin. His merciless grip is a promise, a preview of what he has in store for me.

The more I fight, the tighter he pulls on my hair, until I think he’ll rip it from the roots.

I arch my back, using the remnants of my energy to try and twist.

Then something heavy and unmovable lands on the middle of my back.

His knee.

I catch a glimpse of his black trousers in my peripheral vision, one knee on the ground and the other pushing against my back.

It’s enough to make me pause. The pressure is so strong that I think he’ll break a bone or a few.

Maybe I should’ve said that bodily injury is a hard limit, too, but I thought that was a given.

Perhaps it’s not.

He pins my face to the ground with his crippling grip on my hair. I smell the dirt and taste the small pebbles on my tongue.

Unlike earlier, I remain still, considering the threat of his knee.

My limbs shake as the reality of the situation rushes into me.

This is a lot more intense than what I signed up for. Yes, I wanted the possible freedom this could provide, but the unknown territory, the complete helplessness, claws at my mental strings.

My breathing shatters and each of my inhales choke me with the smell of the earth and him.

Leather.

That’s what he smells like.

He’s a combination of leather and wood. Maybe a hint of bergamot? I’ve never associated these scents with Lan, but I’ve also never heard him speak in that gravelly voice from earlier, so maybe he has a persona for nights like these.

Nights where he sheds his slick, elegant fa?ade and fully embraces the beast inside him.

The brash ruthlessness of his touch, scent, and whole existence flares and ripples in the air around me.

Silence shimmers in the calm. Only my shattered breaths and his deep ones linger.

It’s a minute, no, possibly a second, before everything crashes down.

The sequence of his movements roughens as his free hand pulls on my jeans. He doesn’t undo the buttons—he all but shoves them down, creating a violent friction against my core and thighs.

The chilling air assaults my underwear-covered arse.

Something happens then.

Aside from my gasp and open mouth.

I come to focus on my pussy that’s aching, pulsing, and absolutely shivering with the need for any sort of stimulation.

Did I become turned on just now? Or maybe it started during the marathonic hunt?

I thought I could like this, but I wasn’t ready to actually be so into it that being chased would bring me to this state.

No, it’s not only about being chased.

I had to be caught, too.

The beast at my back must also feel it when he pulls my underwear aside and presses his fingers against my needy core.

A deep groan spills from his throat, and that sound, coupled with his callous fingers against my most intimate part, triggers a bizarre sensation.

My back arches again, but it’s for a completely different reason than a fight. I’m reaching for that raw power flowing from him, but a mere shove of his knee pins me back in place.

He strokes my folds roughly, brutally, until my lower half is floundering, begging, nearly dissolving for more.

But he doesn’t give me more.

His middle finger ghosts near my opening, hovering, flickering, lingering, but never slides inside.

I can feel the warmth emanating off his skin, the reprieve from the cold air, and the promise of forming a shield against it.

The more he touches me everywhere except for where I need it the most, the messier I become.

I don’t recognize the incoherent mix of noises that spill out of me. Every time I buck my hips, he stiffens his grip on my hair, warning me without words to stay in place.

That he’s the one who’s running the show.

The one who’s in control.

The one who can both hurt me and please me if he chooses to.

A shiver goes through me at that thought, but I remember that I have the power, too.

Smoke.

The word has been hovering at the tip of my tongue ever since I made a run for it. If I say it, everything will end.

But I don’t.

Despite the torture, I choose to alternate between breathing through my nose and mouth, then focus on the moment.

On his assertive touch.

He’s a man who takes what he wants and there’s something arousing about that.

Just when I think the torment will never end, two of his fingers thrust inside me. At the same time. All the way to the knuckles.

I shriek, the sound permeating our silent surroundings.

Despite being soaking wet and needy for more, I wasn’t ready for this. My core clenches around his fingers as he drives them in and out of my heat in a long, controlled rhythm.

Each thrust picks up in speed methodically, too in tune with my body’s reaction until they’re ruthless and merciless.

My toes curl and a whole-body shudder grips me. This is so different from the tentative, almost shy way I touch myself.

There’s nothing shy about his touch.

It’s a command, a force that can’t be stopped or derailed.

A disaster of my own making.

He’s here to take, and take, and take some more.

And I can only give.

My hips slam against the ground with how much they buck.

He drives in a third finger. Pleasure mixes with pain as I’m stretched to my full capacity.

It’s impossible to breathe properly, but I force myself to relax, to take it, even if he’s ripping me from the inside out.

His rhythm grows in intensity and I gasp with each in and out, the sound animalistic in nature.

Usually, I hide my face in the pillow or any surface to muffle the sounds of pleasure.

Now, I only have the dirt.

I don’t get to focus on that when a sharp flood rushes through me.

It’s a flicker of pleasure at first, but then it mounts, inflates, and intensifies until tremors cover my skin fully.

I’ve never experienced this type of pleasure before.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I’d be on the edge of blacking out due to an orgasm.

Hell, I didn’t think orgasms could feel this way.

The ones I give myself are always soft, pleasurable, and make me sigh in content once I’m done.

This one?

All I can do is scream at the collision. In my attempts to mute some of the carnal pleasure, I nearly eat the dirt.

A low, gruff sound comes from the devil looming over me, watching, sporting a dark halo that I’ve never seen on Lan before.

But then again, I’ve never been introduced to this side of him before.

“So this is how good girls like you get off. Does being used in the middle of the night like a worthless fuckable hole turn you on, Lisichka?”

I choke on my inhale and everything pauses.

The air. My heart. My brain.

But not him. He definitely doesn’t pause.

He, as in, the guy who certainly didn’t sound like Landon.

At all.

Unless Lan picked up an American accent, a different intonation, and has decided to mess with me.

The worst part is that he sounds familiar.

Waytoo familiar.

“L-Lan?” I whisper in a barely audible voice.

“Try again.” His voice has roughened, sounding absolutely terrifying.

Oh, God.

Oh, no.

Please, no.

The only reason I went against my character, my moral code of conduct, and did this is because I thought it would be with Landon.

So why isn’t it…? I clearly picked him through the app.

No one else could match his physical traits.

The beast—literally and figuratively—curls his fingers inside me, stroking a part of me no one has touched before. “You look plain and innocent, but deep down, you’re nothing but a dirty little slut. You’re ready to do anything to get rid of this barrier, no? You asked for it last night, begged for it, even.”

My body must be going through a shock, because the moment realization rushes back to me, it’s like someone has kicked me in the stomach and crushed my rib cage.

He’s Orange Mask.

“L-let me go! S-stop it!”

An unruly chuckle stabs through my ear. “You think I give a fuck about whatever little game you had with Landon?”

I go still, my heart nearly spilling on the ground.

I’m in that position where it’s life-threatening again, where my reckless decisions and impulsive actions might lead to my demise.

He can hurt me.

No, he will hurt me.

“I might consider letting you go if you answer the question you ran away from last night, Cecily.” He pounds his fingers inside me, rekindling the power he holds over my arousal.

My nails sink in the dirt as bursts of the earlier pleasure pulse and throb, tighten and clench.

My body still hasn’t gotten the memo that we’re in survival mode right now.

“Why were you at the initiation?” There’s a raspy, blunt quality to his voice, an authoritativeness that bleeds out with every word.

I purse my lips.

“I could and I would fuck your virgin cunt all night long. Then, when I’m bored, I’d stuff my thick cock into your ass and use your blood as lube. I suggest you answer the question before I get to that point.”

My muscles lock as I get a glimpse of his face. It’s only a fraction of it, but it’s enough for recognition to kick in.

It is Jeremy.

I suspected that he was Orange Mask at the initiation, then ignored it, decimated that thought, and chose to delude my mind.

However, there’s no escaping the facts now.

Not only is it his face, but the tone gives him away, too. It’s that cold, emotionless, and absolutely loathsome voice.

If there’s anything I’ve learned about the Jeremy Volkov, it’s that you should stay out of his path. Avoid him. Change direction upon seeing him.

Do whatever it takes to not be noticed by him. Or worse, be threatened by him.

Everyone on this island knows not to cross him, which is why I have no doubt that he’ll do as he’s promised. If I don’t give in and offer what he asked, I’m in for the lesson of my life.

So I calm my breathing, despite the pleasure he’s ignited at my core, and try to speak as neutrally as possible.

“I just… I just wanted to see what it was like.”

“Is that so?” he speaks with utter ease that’s in complete opposition to the way he’s driving in and out of my core.

“It is. I swear.”

“How did you get in?”

“I… I stole the invitation you sent Creighton.”

Lan did, but I’m not going to say that.

“Such a conniving little witch.” He hits a secret spot inside me, and he must feel it, too, because he hits it again and again.

“Please stop,” I sob, humiliation and shame dripping from every part of me.

I’m half naked and being held down by someone who might as well be a stranger.

A dangerous stranger.

A stranger who shouldn’t see me like this.

“Didn’t you beg me to fuck your cunt last night? Something about not wanting to die a virgin?” He thrusts again and again until stars erupt behind my lids. “I might be in the mood to do that. Right here. I will claim you like an animal in the middle of the night and no one will see you becoming all dirty and messy.”

I whimper and tremble. “I’ll scream.”

His sadistic chuckle fills the air. “By all means, scream. No one will hear you and you’ll only get my dick hard.”

He’s right.

They won’t.

Not only is this his property, but we’ve wandered so far away from the mansion that I can’t even hear the music anymore.

He’s planned this.

From getting me in this part of the forest to impersonating Landon. He planned everything.

And I fell right into his trap.

I’m helpless with no way out except for taking the lash of his fingers. The controlled in and out. The erotic sound against my forced wetness.

All of it.

I screw my eyes shut when a stabbing pleasure hits my womb and the orgasm is about to flood me again. I wait and I wait.

And I wait…

But he’s gone.

His fingers have pulled out of me, his knee no longer pins me in place, and my hair is free of his savage hold.

My pussy clenches like it did a second ago when I was about to come. Only now, that stimulation has vanished, leaving a dull ache between my legs.

Slowly, too slowly, I lift my head and stare behind me to find Jeremy standing in the middle of the night, blending with it, becoming an eerie part of it.

He’s wearing the black trousers and white shirt I saw earlier. No jacket.

Black ink swirls and cords along his taut muscles as he crosses his arms, disappearing beneath the short sleeves of his shirt.

Due to the lack of light, I can’t tell what the tattoos are about, but they add a hint of mysterious danger.

He’s watching me, but he might as well be looking through me.

It didn’t take him long to flip my world upside down, to unlock a part of me even I was scared of, but he doesn’t look affected in the least.

His face is hard, cold, detached.

A true devil of the night.

There’s no light in his gray eyes and they could easily blend in with our somber surroundings.

Dispassionate. Unforgiving.

If I didn’t know this guy, I would say he’s mad about something. But then again, he always appears to be angry at the world and disapproving of the people in it.

“Why…?” My trembling word trails off. I don’t recognize the hoarseness in my voice and I hate the weakness in it.

“Why what?” He slides his gaze over the length of me.

I clumsily pull up my jeans and scoot my arse until my back hits a tree. His impassive expression doesn’t falter, but he doesn’t look away from me, not even for a moment.

“It shouldn’t have been you,” I whisper.

“Let me guess, it was supposed to be Landon?”

I don’t say anything, but he doesn’t need me to.

He lifts his glistening fingers under the moon and I wish I could dig a hole and die in it. “Landon isn’t the one you begged to fuck you while you soaked his fingers as you came apart, now, is he?”

“I…would’ve never gone along with it if I’d known it was you.” My words are an attempt to regain my dignity—or what remains of it, but I immediately think it was a mistake.

Jeremy’s eyes darken and his whole body stiffens. I’ve always seen him as cold and merciless, but this is the first time I’ve witnessed this savage part of him.

It’s like he’s on a mission to destroy anything in his path.

“And yet you didn’t use your safe word.”

My lips part. He’s right. I…didn’t.

“I…forgot about it,” I say, refusing to think it’s because of something else.

“I think you didn’t. Deep down, you didn’t want me to stop. You looked awfully disappointed when I did.”

“That’s not true!”

He reaches me in two steps and I try to crawl back, but I only end up pressed further against the tree as he stands in front of me and wraps his fingers around my jaw.

His touch is callous, untrained. He’s a beast of a man, a savage who probably doesn’t know how to touch anything without the ruthless energy that emanates off him in waves.

I brace myself for whatever violent threats or acts he’ll commit, but he hauls me to a standing position then releases me. “Follow me.”

“To where?” I stare at the stiff muscles of his back through his shirt.

“Do you know the way back to the house?”

“No.”

“Then walk.”

Oh.

I don’t know why a part of me thought he’d leave me in the middle of nowhere to fend for myself.

Once again, I wait for the panic attack that doesn’t come.

But I know I screwed up tonight.

I didn’t only trespass on private property. I might have trespassed into the devil’s lair.

My thoughts are confirmed when he stares at me over his shoulder, his eyes still in tune with the night, tapering and shimmering with that mystic darkness. If anything, they appear more unhinged. “Come back when you’re ready to be fucked properly.”