SWNOVELS Touched By Sin: Chapter 7
I find them outside one of the classrooms, surrounded by throngs of girls. Jealously instantly grabs me by the throat and shakes me, growling, “Just fucking beg!”
I won’t.
I don’t care what it takes.
“Look who it is.” Alaric grins, both arms wrapped around a set of twin girls, with tits that nearly spill out of their minuscule dresses. “You found us.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t easy. This place is a maze and every corridor looks the same.”
Ronan has his tongue down a girl’s throat, but it’s Daemon who narrows his eyes and says, “What’s that on your neck?”
I stiffen but keep my mask in place. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He shoves the girl hanging off his arm, and she stumbles back with a shriek. The satisfaction I feel when he strides up to me and clasps my jaw in a bruising grip should worry me. But it’s quickly becoming evident that I want his undivided attention, and I’ll act like a child if it gets him to hurt me sweetly like this.
“Who fed on you?” His voice drips with delicious danger as his angry eyes flash with a warning.
I’m skating on thin ice, and when he leans close and breathes me in, it cracks.
“You smell of pussy.”
Alaric laughs behind us. A drawn-out, lazy sound that goes on and on.
“Not just any pussy—Dari’s.”
I glare up at him but keep my lips shut.
“I’ve licked that cunt enough times to know her scent like the back of my hand.”
His words evoke the reaction he wanted as I bare my teeth.
A blinding smile spreads over his lips and he flicks his eyes behind me. “Thought you could get one on me?”
Dariana shrugs as she walks past us into the classroom. “It was worth a try.”
The amused glint in his eyes annoys me enough to huff a breath and shoulder past him, but he seizes my arm and pulls me back. “Thought you could outsmart me, little angel?”
“You think too highly of yourself. You didn’t once enter my mind while I was tongue deep in her cunt.”
His eyebrows fly up. I thought my comment would make him angry, but he laughs instead, which transforms his face and steals my breath.
“Your rebellious side gets me hard.”
“Or mad. Next time, it’ll be someone else.”
Now that gets me the reaction I want. His rough touch is back, marking and hurting me.
“You love to push my buttons, don’t you?” he growls, wrapping his fingers around my neck. Students watch us curiously. I finally have his fire burning into me, and it gets me high.
“One day, you’ll push the wrong one, and then you’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” I whisper, unfolding my wings in a display of defiance.
Gasps ring out around us, and Daemon tightens his grip on my throat. “Close your wings!”
“Or what?!”
Leaning down, he brushes his lips over my ear, eliciting shivers and a zap of pleasure that shoots straight to my core. “Your wings—like you—belong to me. Close them!”
It’s so tempting to give in to him and be the good little girl he wants me to be. I’m not a good girl. I’m a very, very bad girl who doesn’t listen to Daddy. He’ll need to spank the defiance out of me if he wants me to do as he says. Until then, I’ll continue behaving like a little brat.
The air shifts behind me as my wings move in long, powerful sweeps. There’s no denying I have big wings, especially for a female angel. I don’t know why or what it means, but the urge to unfold them when I feel threatened is as instinctual as the need to fight back when I’m cornered.
“Do you think my wings turn them on? The boys watching?”
A fierce, animalistic snarl sounds deep in his chest. He’s just about to react and give me what I need when someone clears their throat next to us.
“It’s strictly prohibited to spread your wings in the hallway, miss. Close them at once!”
I blink and look at the teacher beside us. When I don’t immediately listen, his mustache twitches with annoyance. Daemon still has his hand on my throat. We must look like quite the pair. My wings snap shut, and I shoulder past Daemon into the classroom.
Ronan chuckles behind me. “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
“Nope.”
“He’ll hurt you one day.”
I pull out a chair. “I’m counting on it.”
Sitting down beside me, Ronan balances on the back legs of his chair, leaning so far that it’s a miracle he doesn’t fall. “I like you, little angel.”
It’s a strange feeling to blossom like a flower in spring when a boy praises you.
“You don’t know me,” I point out, and Ronan sits forward with his elbows on the desk.
“I know you better than you think.”
“Yeah? How so? Tell me one thing about me.”
“You’re an angel with a dark side.”
“It’s an observation and doesn’t count.”
Daemon and Alaric plop down onto the seats in front of us. I try not to drag my eyes over their broad shoulders and the dark curls at the nape of their necks between their large wings.
“Your name is Aurelia.”
With an eye roll, I turn in my seat to face him. “Tell me something real.”
His lips twitch. “Something real?”
“What are my dreams, Ronan? What scares me? Why did I venture into the woods that night? You must be curious. Why did an angel sneak out of Eden to venture into the deep, dark woods where dangers lurk? I knew the risks.”
His eyes linger on mine for a long moment, searching my blue depths. “You never felt at home in Eden. You were an outcast, smiling when you were supposed to, but your heart always yearned for something outside of those tall gates. A craving you couldn’t place. You were the good little angel who would sit down for class but crane her neck to look back at the gates and listen to the whisper of the woods.”
I’ve stopped breathing.
Ronan leans in and whispers, “Only a few hear the calling of the woods. Did you know that? It coaxes them home. You never belonged in Eden. Your wings are white like God’s blinding light, but the woods know you. From the moment of your birth, the moment you took your first steps, your feet have led you to the gates.” He leans back and spreads his arms. “Is that real enough?”
I swallow, unable to look away from his dark eyes that glimmer with a hint of masculine pride and amusement. My heart aches in my chest at the truth in his words. “If I don’t belong in Eden, where do I belong? Here? In Hell?”
“Hell is only a name invented by your elders. Your fairytales were designed to keep you shackled. If not for them, what would stop you from escaping Eden? As to where you belong, that’s for you to find out.”
Surprised by the wisdom behind his words, I flick my eyes between his, and he laughs.
“Don’t look so shocked. I’m not just a pretty face.”
Alaric snorts, throwing a crumpled-up piece of paper at Ronan. “You smooth fucker.”
“Watch and learn. I’ll get her to beg me first.”
This time, it’s me who snorts. “You think a few smooth words will have me begging?”
Leaning in close, he places a kiss on the corner of my lips, then smirks. “I think it’s only a matter of time.”
My heart is beating with a staccato rhythm in my chest. It’s difficult to breathe when he drugs me with his spicy scent and the desire he stirs in me. How do they get anything done here in the underworld? I’ve been horny since the moment I arrived. It hasn’t stopped.
His lips brush mine and his smile grows. “Pretty girls like you always beg, sooner or later. Just think, Aurelia, how I could make you feel. Imagine me driving into you hard and fast, claiming your virgin cunt, while you claw your nails down my back.”
His warm breath fans my lips, heating my insides, and I gasp when he skims his nose over my neck. The sensation he evokes in me is so overwhelming and powerful that I sink below his waves.
“Students, eyes forward,” the teacher, Mr. Kozlov, with the mustache, orders us.
I resurface, gasping for air. Ronan laughs when I shove him away before facing forward in my seat.
“Today, we’ll dive deep into ourselves to find our center. Can anyone tell me what resides in our core?”
A girl with a dark bob lifts her hand in the air, waving eagerly.
Mr. Mustache doesn’t look her way when he says, “Yes, Liliya.”
“Your powers reside in your center.”
I sit up straighter, ignoring Ronan’s chuckle next to me.
“That’s right. Very good, Liliya. I would appreciate it if everyone else bothered to do their homework too,” Mr. Mustache grumbles as he walks down the aisle.
“She wants his dick,” Alaric coughs under his breath, and Ronan shakes with laughter next to me.
“Who knew you were so immature?” I whisper.
Alaric winks at me and nudges Daemon’s shoulder with his.
Looking up from the phone in his hand, Daemon frowns. “What?”
“Didn’t you fuck her once?”
“Who?”
Alaric lifts his chin toward Liliya. “Her, the teacher’s pet.”
Daemon follows his line of sight. I don’t like him looking at her. Not with those eyes that flash with memories I wish he didn’t have.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I fight the urge to strike the back of his head. I’m so sick of being a virgin while they’ve fucked every girl in the vicinity. It leaves a bad taste on my tongue to think the girls in here have had them when I haven’t. Not fully.
“Close your eyes,” Mr. Mustache says in a soft, soothing voice, unlike the sharp tone he used outside in the hallway earlier. “Imagine yourself walking through the forest. The damp moss beneath your feet, the bird song in the trees, the smell of earth in your nostrils. Somewhere in the distance, a twig snaps.”
I sink back in my chair and let his soothing voice carry me away, deeper into myself. My muscles relax and my wings slump, grazing the stone floor.
“There’s an old and weathered red door suspended in the air. It hovers just above the ground, slightly ajar, as if to urge you to peek inside. Twigs snap and damp leaves stick to the soles of your bare feet as you move closer. Whatever is beyond that door wants you to see it. It wants you to interact with it.”
Silence reigns inside me, supreme and powerful. I inch closer to the door. Whispers urge me to look inside, to see what it hides.
Come, child. Come closer.
Branches cut my skin, but the sting barely registers.
So close.
My hand lands on the door and I apply pressure to the weathered wood. It slowly creaks open, inch by inch, while I hold my breath.
Just then, the bell rings, causing me to startle and open my eyes.
The door is gone.
Mr. Kozlov’s voice rings out over the sound of chairs scraping on the floor. “Now you’ve had a taste of guided meditation. We’ll continue exploring your center next time.”
It takes me a moment to realize that I’m supposed to move. It doesn’t register until Ronan slaps me on the back of the head. It’s only gentle, but I whirl in my seat and bare my teeth like a feral animal. The boys laugh, but I don’t. I was seconds away from finding out what hid behind that door. It was something big and powerful, and it had waited a long time for me to find it.
“Come on, little angel. Let’s go.”
As I scoot my chair back, Daemon seizes my arm and hauls me to my feet.
“What the fuck is this?”
Confused, I look down.
Scratches line my arms. Fresh cuts that ooze with droplets of blood.
“I-I cut myself on the branches as I approached the door.”
“What?”
“The trees,” I start, but he shakes his head.
“The meditation wasn’t real. There’s no way your vision could harm you like this.”
“Well, it did,” I say, wrenching my arm free. Now that I’ve seen the cuts, they sting as I walk away, leaving the boys to exchange worried glances.