“Yes,” she cried as she bucked her body against me greedily. “I need it. Please.”
Darkness bubbled in her eyes when I crushed her windpipe under my fingers, the frolic of her pulse beneath my palm making my balls jerk in delight.
“Yes!” she spat through the restriction on her voice box. “YES!”
Driving harder into her, a single tear seeped from the corner of her eye.
“My little wolf,” I growled as I slammed harder, shaking her in the ropes.
She winced and wrenched forwards, her face contorting in pain. She loved pain; it brought her to life, fed the need in her for retribution. Helped her to bury her past.
But this was different.
A shock of agony made her jaw drop and her eyes squeezed closed.
“Anderson…”
Her eyes rolled and I pulled out of her, quickly cutting the ropes. She fell into me, a fierce groan turning into a scream of pain as she doubled over. She dropped to her knees, her arms covering her fat belly as another horrific wail broke from her.
“Anderson…”
“Kloe?”
Blood. It was everywhere. Pooling over the concrete and spreading like a river around her, seeping over the pale grey floor and turning the basement into the epitome of hell it had always been.
“No!”
“I…” she choked out as vomit hurled from her, spraying me with the sickly stench. “Please…”
He’d won.
As I looked down at my wife losing consciousness in my arms and my son losing his life before me. I knew. I knew he’d won. After everything.
He’d won.
Even in death.
Seven months earlier
IT WAS DARK WHEN I woke. My body lay heavy against the softness of the mattress, the silky feel of the sheets cocooning me in their heavenly embrace.
Sighing, I languidly stretched my arms above my head.
My brain kicked into gear and yesterday came filtering back in.
“I don’t have any choice, Kloe. I need to end this. To watch the horror roll over his face when I snub out your life before him. To take from him what he always wanted.”
Fear clogged my throat and I shot upright, pressing my hand to my chest in an attempt to settle the vacuum taking my breath.
“It’s okay, you’re safe.”
Anderson’s voice broke through the blackness around me and I turned to him. “Safe? You’re joking, right?”
He chuckled, enraging me further. “Well, yes. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words.”
Ignoring him, I fell out of the bed and stormed across the room. The door refused to budge when I tugged on the handle.
“Let me go, Anderson.”
“You know I can’t do that, Kloe. Especially now you know why you’re here.”
A feral growl tore out of my mouth as I tugged at the door, my futile attempt at freedom angering me further.
“Did you just growl?” Anderson laughed. “Sweet little Kloe is a wolf underneath all that…”
His hand shot out and he grabbed my wrist when I flung my hand towards him. Nothing but darkness cloaked the room but my anger aided me in seeking out shadows.
“That’s not a good idea, little wolf.”
“Fuck you!” I hissed, yanking my arm away from him.
Another chuckle in the dark, but I refused to rise to it.
“So, what?” I seethed. “You’re just going to hold me here again? Repeat history.” I laughed with as much bitterness as I could muster. “That’s a little boring for you, isn’t it? Even if it does tend to run in your family!”
I blinked when a soft light filtered into the room from the overhead light, the dark shade overshadowing the brightness of the bulb. Anderson grinned at me from where he stood beside the light switch. “On the contrary, Kloe. Nothing with you is ever boring. And as far as family tradition goes, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Understand?” I scoffed, exhaustion riding my anger and seeing me drop to the bed. “I’ll never understand you, Anderson. You wanted me to, for so long. I yield, okay? I give in. I failed you. I don’t understand. Any of it.”
He stared at me, the fierceness of his eyes penetrating their way through my tired gaze.
When I thought he was just going to stand and stare at me all night, he sighed. Slipping a key from his trouser pocket, he turned and unlocked the door. “Come.”
My eyes widened at his blunt order. However, before I could retort, he had disappeared through the previously locked door, and the sound of his soft footfalls on the stairs faded the more he descended.