FOREVER
Poppy
“You have lived a life anything but quiet,” I say as I trail the tip of my butterfly knife over Jonas’s shoulders flecked with as many scars as pinup tattoos on his thick arms.
He doesn’t reply. He’s still out cold.
“Did you give him too much fentanyl,Petit Diable?”
I lob a scowl at Brontë beneath my pink skull mask covering half my face. “Don’t blame me.Youprepped the dose.”
“You didn’t need to use the whole damn syringe.”
“Look at him. He’s enormous.”
“He’s smaller than me.”
“Literallyeveryoneis smaller than you.”
He winks from beneath his own half-faced mask. “Good answer.”
I whip him off. He chuckles, sinking back into the shadows of the private lounge beside a solemn Jezebel.
Voodoo & Velvet has become our favorite place to torture the rats of our city. A small chunk of my inheritance went to purchasing the nightclub and keeping this room not only permanently booked but below freezing at all times.
To keep our guests…comfortable.
Jonas Ashcroft, just like the others before him, is bound to the metal chair coated in rime. His hands are cuffed, and his personalizedgag is already hanging on a thick chain around his neck: an adult-sized pacifier bejeweled with blades and barbed wire.
Fitting, for a hospital janitor who’s been suffocating newborns this past year.
Fuck, it feels good to be serving poetic justice again. Leviathan is still a threat, one we’ve been preparing to face. This war with the cult—or coven, as Brontë keeps insisting even though I'm still trying to grapple with what we saw being real—isn’t over. Upon the Morgenstern dynasty and the lives of my family lost, I will have my vengeance.
I still have nightmares about all the impossible things that happened the night my bloodline was nearly eradicated—Margot conjuring fire and performing a ritual; the ethereal being that visited and commanded me to kill her.
Tonight, though, I’m seeking solace in bloodshed with the man I chose to share my throne and spend the rest of my life with. His half-sister is a damn good therapist, but there’s nothing quite as cathartic as torture.
When my victim is awake, that is.
Huffing a steaming cloud, I draw a syringe of adrenaline from my pocket. “How soon is too soon to shoot him up with this,mon roi?”
“Patience,ma reine.That’s only for if we lose a pulse before we’re ready to let the reaper take him.”
I scoff but pocket the needle. Briefly marvel at the ring glinting on my finger. Signaling to the world that I’ve been claimed, and I’m allhis.
My blade skims over Jonas’s shoulders again. This time, his muscles twitch in response.
A corner of my mouth kicks up.Finally.
I fist his greasy bleached hair at the root, forcing his neck back and holding my knife against the edge of his…smile? Is he enjoying this?
Oh, fuck no.
My hand lifts.Snap!
Jezebel slinks forward.
Jonas’s smile vanishes.