Opaque Melodies (Coveting Delirium Book 1) Page 11

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  We were there together again.

  My nipples were rock solid due to the intense chill in the air, goose-pimples covered every inch of my bare skin.

  I surveyed the office area, making my way to the operating portion of the room. Something about the act rang as familiar, as if I’d done this same thing multiple times.

  Alaric was waiting for me, dressed in his whitecoat.

  He watched me without saying a word. I approached the naked brunette he had restrained on the OR table, reaching out to stroke her tear-stained cheek.

  “This feels familiar.”

  “It should. You’ve been here before,” Alaric replied, pulling over his tray of goodies.

  “Isn’t this a dream?”

  He grinned, showcasing his dimple.

  “It’s whatever you want it to be.”

  “Then who is she?”

  “She’s not important. This…” he lifted a scalpel, allowing the shiny blade to reflect in the light angled over the OR table. “This is. This is your final trial.”

  The air seemed to thin for a moment, so much so that I swallowed and raised a hand to my chest.

  “What is it?” Alaric asked placing the surgical tool down immediately.

  “I don’t feel like me. Like I’m here, but I’m not. And it’s a little hard to breathe.”

  “Come here,” he commanded.

  I moved around the table, bare feet moving over the cold floor. He took hold of my shoulders and maneuvered me so that I was standing in front of him, my back to his chest.

  “We have a few things to do, and then you can wake up,” he spoke softly, reaching for his scalpel once more.

  I nodded, accepting the surgical scissors he picked up next.

  “Just follow my lead.” He reached around me and pressed the tip of the scalpel to the brunette’s chest, a little above her left breast.

  The instant he began to cut, she started to writhe.

  As he made wide sweeping motions, the blade cutting through her flesh like softened butter, she started to scream at should have been a nerve fraying decimal. Neither Alaric nor I reacted.

  I wasn’t shocked to find I didn’t care. Not even a little. She was insignificant to my life. Blood welled up, seeping from the incisions in endless rivulets.

  “Cut where I’ve made my marks,” Alaric commanded, speaking right into my ear to be heard over what had become endless wails.

  Placing the scissors between my lips for a second, I burrowed my fingers down into the slit nearest me, curling them beneath the underside of her flesh. I pulled it back as if I were removing a sheet of adhesive, slow and careful.

  When I had a nice little flap lifted, I removed the scissors from my mouth and started to cut along the seams Alaric had made.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured once we’d opened everything up.

  I stared down at her lungs, watching them rise and fall in rapid succession.

  “Can you remember what all of this is?”

  I nodded, listing as many of the parts as I could recognize until my tongue grew heavy.

  “You’ve gotten much better at this.”

  I nodded again instead of trying to form a response.

  “Now.” He moved from behind me. “Let’s take everything out.”

  In silence, we worked together, dismantling the brunette while her heartbeat erratically between us.

  You could see it pumping harder with every part of her she lost but didn’t technically need.

  A kidney.

  The appendix.

  Gallbladder.

  Spleen.

  It wasn’t until Alaric tore out bits of her right lung that her heart began to falter. She was cold and dead by the time we finished. Her body like an egg that lost all its yolk, various organs and trimmings on the floor. I stared at the mess unable to remember why we had done this. I felt as if he’d explained it to me. So why couldn’t I remember?

  Both covered from our elbows to our knuckles in bodily fluids and blood, Alaric attempted to wipe his hands on his jacket as he came back to my side of the table. It was rather pointless.

  “We don’t have much time left.”

  He lifted me up onto the table opposite of our dissection project, mouth crashing into mine.

  His bloodied hands moved over the fabric of nightgown to grip my legs and spread them apart, I reached for his pants, unbuttoning and unzipping them.

  Wasting not a single second, he gripped his base and guided the head of his cock to my entrance, forcing his way inside my pussy. The pain of his brutal intrusion brought on an immediate rush of wetness.

  He grabbed either side of my throat to keep us both grounded. I locked my legs beneath his ass, holding onto him as tightly as I could.

  I delayed opening my eyes due to the pounding in my head and the pain between my legs.

  It took a moment for me to realize I was no longer in my bed. Something smooth and solid was beneath my back. I could feel the sun on my face.

  Popping one eye open, I swiveled my head to the right. Why the hell was I in the tub? I blinked and used my forearms to push myself up. As images assaulted my brain, I scanned over my body trying to make sense of them.

  I was in the same nightgown Alaric had put on me the previous evening.

  There was not a speck of blood in sight, but one look at my thighs told a different story. My stomach dipped as I examined myself. My skin was bruised, nearly blue. The lips of my pussy were swollen as if it’d been pounded into for hours on end. There was no way I could have done this to myself…right?

  Lifting myself over the side of the tub, I winced as I lowered my legs down to the floor. Something about this wasn’t right. I’d never spiraled so severely in all my life.

  There was one constant at the center of my chaos.

  Alaric.

  None of this started until I’d slept beneath his roof.

  Shuffling from the bathroom, I saw his side of the bed was made but mine wasn’t.

  I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and checked the time. It was already noon. How had I slept so long?

  Stepping forward, a vivid image of a brown mass bleeding in my hands floated to the top of my subconscious.

  I eased myself down onto the bed and cradled my head. What the fuck was going on? It couldn’t be real. I knew it wasn’t. So why could I remember what it’d felt like?

  I debated all day what to do.

  Call my mother?

  No.

  Involving her would be a last resort. She was over dramatic enough about my small issues I couldn’t imagine how she’d react to this.

  Chloe? She would probably hop on a plane and fly here herself. I wasn’t ready to drag her into whatever this was.

  There was only one person in which I could discuss the madhouse that was my head, and he was the one responsible for waking the madness within it.

  Probably.

  I showered, diligent in how I touched the space between my thighs. When I was done, I slipped in my daisy sundress, not wanting anything to rub against me.

  Alaric still wasn’t back yet.

  Food having no appeal to me, I ventured around his house. I’d opened a few random doors before but there wasn’t anything interesting behind them. His room was one I could never access. He ensured that barrier was not crossed. I’d seen his massive bed and knew the color scheme went perfectly with his personality but that was the extent of it.

  Finding myself back inside the room that was supposed to be the main reason for me being here, I lowered myself in the center of the room with one of the lighter boxes.

  I didn’t open it right away.

  Instead I pulled up our messages and scrolled through them, going as far back as they could, obsessively noting any and all mention of the man she proclaimed to be her husband.

  Not once had she written his name. That was weird. Maybe it was just me. I swiped down again until I got to the last message, she ever sent me.
It was dated three weeks ago. I found that eerie in the sense that was so closed to when she passed. She’d said she was sorry. Often her correspondences didn’t make sense of seemed to have come out of order.

  I never thought much of it but seeing the message she’d seen two days before it had a cold chill sweeping down my spine.

  He’s taking me to the Garden.

  “The Garden,” I repeated out loud. “Dream Garden.” That was the name of Alaric’s clinic.

  He could have simply taken her there because, well, it was a medical facility.

  Reading through her erratic messages combined with his lack of emotion where she was concerned, I highly doubted that scenario was the case.

  I swallowed, looking around her room as if an answer would present itself. I didn’t know who my sister was, had no connection to her whatsoever other than the man who’d married her because of a deal of some kind, but this whole situation grew more suspicious with every detail I learned.

  I was beginning to think her death was caused by more than a simple sickness.

  If that was how she died at all.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I’d been waiting for him to arrive.

  He came in carrying a store bag with a smiley face on the side of it, the aroma of food wafting from within. Spotting me at the bottom of the stairs, he shut the door slowly.

  “What is it?”

  “Why did you take my sister to your clinic?”

  He carried the bag to the table in the center of the foyer and sat it down.

  “That question is redundant. It’s a clinic.”

  I titled my head to the side and eyed him. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  He quirked a brow at me and slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks.

  “Was there any other answer?”

  “You would know.”

  “That…mouth,” he bit his lower lip, beginning to make his way towards me.

  I used the bannister to help me stand, moving slower than usual due to the pain between my legs.

  “Did you sleep okay?” His blues pressed me; a hint of a smile rested on his lips.

  All the hair lifted on my arms and the back of my neck. I moved to the step behind me, he stepped forward.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  I shook my head side to side.

  He grinned up at me, looking every bit the beautifully insane monster, he’d always claimed to be.

  “Catalina,” he sighed. “That’s not the right answer.”

  I took another step back, then another. The sensation to flee was growing by the second. I’d never been afraid of him, but as a barrage of macabre clips flashed through my brain, things I had no recollection of doing. Things I’d witnessed him doing. I was terrified of what he could to do me.

  “I think it’s time for me to leave.”

  He clucked his tongue at me. “I’m sure you do, but that’s not possible for two reasons. One, I can see you’ve started to piece some things together. Two, I’ve paid a lot of fucking money for you.”

  I couldn’t begin to process what that meant. He pounced before I could move another inch.

  I was swept off my feet and carried up the stairs with a dread inducing quickness.

  “Put me down!” I twisted in his arms, grabbing at the walls as he carried me down the hallway. Reaching the door of the room he never allowed me to fully enter, he twisted the handle and it opened right up, as if it were never locked.

  I was tossed down on his bed, the duvet cushioning my fall. The sheer black curtains on the canopy enclosed me inside. Scooting backward towards the other side of the bed, my muscles tensed to run.

  “No.” His sharp command snaked through the air, freezing me in place.

  “Don’t ever run from me. I will catch you, and then I will destroy you.” He tugged the canopies curtains apart. “You’re not like the others, Catalina. Don’t make me treat you that way. The things I’d do to you…you’d be happy to die by the time I’m finished.”

  I watched him remove first his shirt, and then his shoes. His pants were next. Unable to meet the smoldering stare he leveled at me; I turned my head away.

  “Take off your dress,” he commanded.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Don’t give that victim bullshit. You’ve wanted this since you got here. I know your pussy is growing wetter and wetter as I speak. Now take it off, or I’ll rip it from your body.”

  I reached for the hem, pulling it over my head slowly.

  Completely naked, I hugged my knees to my chest, wincing from the pain.

  Seeing my obvious reaction Alaric reached out and parted my knees, eyeing the bruises in bemusement. “That looks like it hurts.”

  He moved onto the bed, pushing me down onto my back. His icy blues swept over my curves as he pushed down his briefs. “You never disappoint. You’re gorgeous.” His mouth covered mine, and his hands went to my hips.

  I knew then, when I parted my lips and kissed him back, I knew I should have listened to the warning I was given. I should have heeded the black label that wrapped every inch of his body, proceeded with caution. He was a hazard to my health, but it was too late to go back and undo what he’d done to me.

  He lined himself up and shoved inside me with one fluid motion. The size of him and the searing pain had my thoughts blanking. He stretched me in a painfully delicious way. A curse passed through his lips, drowned out by my scream.

  “You feel so good,” he soughed. He pinned me to the bed with a hand knotted in the top of my hair and another around my throat, constricting my air flow as he pounded into me. Pain greeted pleasure, my pussy aching even as it drenched his cock in arousal.

  My moans grew in volume, matching the force of his thrusts, my nails tore at the flesh on his back. He released the hold on my throat to grab the bruised area of my right thigh. Tears fell from my eyes, pooling in my ears. Pressure built in my core and my pussy began to contract, my legs shaking violently.

  “Alaric,” I gasped his name, barely able to breathe much less speak. I came with a soundless scream.

  He fucked me harder. The headboard of the canopy began to make rhythmic sound as hit it the wall repeatedly. His groans and my erratic breaths reverberated around us, mingling with the slapping of our skin.

  When he finally came, he released a soft curse, slowly rolling his hips as my pussy milked his cock for everything it had. He braced himself above my body, his blue eyes boring into mine.

  "Now,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to my lips, already hardening inside me. He rocked his hips forward, grinning when I dug my nails into his shoulders and whimpered. “Now, you are mine.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  My body ached with every breath I took.

  Alaric was gone.

  He’d left me in his bed to sleep when I’d passed out with him inside me. He fucked me like a demonic beast. I’d gotten what I wanted. My pussy bled for him. I came more times than I could count.

  The only thing I hadn’t done was choke on his cock. I’m sure that was coming eventually

  Moving from the bed. I made my out into the hall wearing nothing but the come dried on my skin and the bruises from being fucked so hard I couldn’t walk straight.

  Down the stairs, through the foyer, and into the great room. That’s where I found him. At least, I assumed this was him. He was staring out at the water with a drink in his hand, the sky a deep gray from the start of dawn.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” he stated, not looking at me.

  “I’m awake?”

  “Are you?” He turned to face me, his expression obscure as his gaze traveled over my nudity.

  I turned my head left to right, looking at my hands for a hint of what was going on.

  My lids fluttered with the flash of a brunette, her wails echoing in my head.

  “What have you done to me?” I whispered, rubbing my brow.

  “You’ll feel better soon. I’
ve administered the…let’s call it the antidote. Think of this as a withdrawal process.”

  “Withdrawal from what?” I choked out, moving to sit on the nearest surface.

  “Your trial runs. I’ve been giving you a special sort of two-part cocktail. Created it myself. Tested it out three weeks ago at DG.”

  “What are you talking about. What trial runs?”

  He tossed back a healthy amount of his drink.

  “None of this will make much sense right now. I haven’t been letting you remember.”

  I shook my head back and forth, gripping the sides when it felt as if my brain rocked with the motion.

  “See I don’t want to overwhelm you. Or bore you with a long villainous speech. The logistics are simple. I purchased you. You’re mine. I’ve finally figured out what it is you need.”

  “What I need…?”

  He moved from the window and offered me his drink.

  “Have some.”

  Seeing he’d drank it and was fine, I snatched the glass and took a generous sip. I nearly coughed up a lung with the first swallow.

  He laughed softly, pulling the glass away from me.

  “You don’t need pills. You don’t need therapists. You just need me.”

  Was he saying he’d taken my pills? A dull throbbing sensation began at the back of my skull.

  He reached out and ran a fingertip from the crook of my neck, down between my breast. “Turn around Catalina,” he ordered softly.

  Without questioning why even as the word along with a million different questions screamed to be voiced inside my head, I turned, sliding my legs beneath the piano.

  “We’ve got company coming tomorrow night, I want you to have a clear head. Play this piece for me.” He tapped the sheet music on the shelf, the same sheet that had been sitting there since I’d arrived. Feeling like I was living an out of body experience I read over the notes and different chords.

  My fingers began to move. He stood behind me, tracing my bare skin with his fingertips, taking his time to move lower and lower.