God of Ruin (Legacy of Gods #4) by Rina Kent

Now, this is a territory I can play in. Whatever that look was has to be eradicated and not revived for a lifetime.

“I thought I told you what would happen if you flipped me off again.” I grab her hand and then thrust that middle finger inside her with my own middle finger.

Poetic justice of sorts.

“You’re going to come for me again and then you’ll use this same energy to choke on my cock, little muse.”

Once I’m done with Mia Sokolov, there will be no pieces left to pick up.

What a pity.





17





MIA





Hope is the worst emotion to experience when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

You wait.

You pray.

You even try to delude yourself that it’s not happening to you. That it just can’t be you.

But that’s the problem with hope.

The false positive. The feeling that the horrible situation can end any moment, when that’s far from the truth.

It’s the falsification of reality.

The yearning for a different dream.

A feeling of being on the cloud that can’t be reached in real time.

Once again, I’m back in the pitch-darkness. Tendrils of black slither across my hands and feet, swallowing me deeper into the clutches of nothingness.

My lungs choke on the dying hope of ever seeing light again.

“Mom…Dad…” My haunted whisper echoes in the dark silence like an eerie lullaby.

My limbs tremble and my heart shrivels. Tears sting my eyes again and I sniffle as quietly as possible.

If I trigger the monster’s wrath, he’ll throw me against the wall and laugh at my loud crying.

He laughs when I say Mom and Dad will come to get me.

He laughs the hardest when he unleashes the weight of his wrath on me. When he kicks and throws me against the wall as if I’m the punching bag in our home gym.

Again and again.

And again.

Until I wish it would end already.

It doesn’t, though.

The monster is here again, his fangs visible through his sardonic smile. His eyes are as dead as the boogeyman from Dad’s bedtime stories.

I crouch further, eyes squeezed shut, and I cover my ears with my sweaty palms.

Don’t touch me.

Please.

Daddy! Mommy! Help!

“You’ll never escape me, you little rascal.”

No!

I startle awake, sweat soaking my whole body and my hair sticking to my neck. My breathing comes in long, chopped inhales and my heart palpitates in my chest.

No, no, I can’t be back there, I can’t—

“Welcome back to the world of the living, sleepyhead.”

My attention swings to the source of the voice, and it’s none other than the second monster in my life.

The one who barged in without knocking or even announcing his presence.

Landon sits on the half-torn chair opposite me, working on a medium-sized statue. Only, it’s not made of stone. Judging by the dark material that’s seeping between his fingers like butter, he’s using clay.

The scene slowly comes into focus. We’re in the haunted house that could be used to scare misbehaving children. Some of the candles have gone out, and the remaining ones surround me as if I were the object of a satanic ritual.

Considering Landon’s extremely unhinged nature, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Earlier, he showed me a part of myself I didn’t know existed. Yes, I suspected it, but I never dared to try it. And maybe, if the psycho hadn’t forced me, I never would have.

All I know is that I enjoyed it more than I’d like to admit. I enjoyed it to the point that I’m completely ashamed.

But another part of me, the part that fell apart due to his rough touch and psychopathic tendencies, is still humming at the recent memory of his and my fingers inside me.

As if that wasn’t crazy enough, Landon pushed me to the edge of the fragile stairs and fucked my throat. The fact that we could have fallen at any second did nothing to diminish the pure animalistic way he touched me.

In fact, the louder the wood creaked, the harder he thrust in and out of my mouth. It didn’t matter that I’d already come twice, seeing Landon’s lusty gaze under the moonlight made me hot and bothered again.

I can still smell him—a fatal combination of cedarwood and male musk.

After he came down my throat and made me swallow every drop, he helped me down the dangerous stairs. I should’ve gone down myself, but I was too lethargic to do anything.

It’s probably why I must’ve fallen asleep after I put my dress back on. I remember thinking the sofa looked nice and mindlessly walking toward it.

Something must really be wrong with me, because I felt safe enough to fall asleep around the bastard.

A bastard who’s the definition of a life hazard.

Said bastard is now half naked as he watches me from beneath his lashes with that smirk of je ne sais quoi and blows a cloud of smoke in the air. Smudges of clay cling to his muscular abs dusted with fine hairs that lead to a place I prefer not to think about.

It doesn’t help that his pants hang low on his lithe hips, revealing the defined V-line and leaving practically nothing to the imagination.

I catch glimpses of snake tattoos slithering up his side, one of them is shaped into an infinity symbol, eating its own tail. It’s an ouroboros, I realize—dark, striking, and gives off deadly vibes.