Redeeming Rhys (22 page)

He had her all along. He knew how to break her, but he wanted to hurt her instead. It was a game to him. A sick and twisted game.

“You never loved me. This was a game to you. To make me hurt. Humiliate me.”

Wren, despite her recent revelation, couldn’t help herself. She brought her arm above her head to slap him, however her movements were far too sluggish to come out victorious. He caught her by the wrist, shoving her down on the bed. The wind left her lungs and, again, she was at his clemency.

Wren gulped hard as she looked at his unpainted face, ruggedly handsome, but also brutal. His cheeks were dusted with stubble and his eyes seemed brighter without a painted mask. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and every part of his body screamed her name.

“If there is ever such a thing as love, I do believe that I feel it with you. Love is never constant or stable. Hate must keep it in check, my darling. Love and hate are equally as appealing, both of which I feel for you.”

“Why do you hurt me then?”

“Pain reminds us of importance. It also puts us in our place. You needed to understand who you are and who you
were.
It wasn’t me who killed our parents that night. You my sweet Wren. You took that knife to their throats. You ceased their worthless hearts. I have kept your secrets close all this time. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”

“No. No, I didn’t kill them…” Wren stuttered.

“You took the knife to your Daddy’s throat to save me. I jumped on his back when he went after you. So, I guess a part of me thought that maybe you loved me too.”

Wren started to cry again, but at what expense? The truth had been set free. Was love the result?

“I did kill them.”

Good guys always win, don’t they?

CONSTANTINE AMBROSIA HAD
been with the Kentucky State Police Department for several years. He was a seasoned officer who specialized in crimes that involved special victims. That is where he met his new love interest, Wren Sorenson, at the local women’s shelter. He didn’t normally allow himself to become attached to women, but there was something mysterious about her, and after they had been intimate, he knew he wouldn’t get better pussy than that for a long time. He enjoyed being a little rough around the edges.

He had recently gotten a call from Fort County Police Department about a grisly crime at a church and a dead priest. Motives pointed to an act of passion, so they called him in thinking that the person who committed it could be a survivor of a violent crime.

Constantine drove up to a small town outside of Louisville, it’s bushes and flowering shrubs that lined Main Street painted the perfect picture of Mayberry, but he was about to understand that it was no Mayberry. Little bits of hell had existed and thrived in the cracks, making their way through everyone’s lives until it was just a way of life.

When he entered St. Anthony’s, he parked his black, unmarked Crown Vic and got out. Something seemed eerie about that place to him, something violently familiar, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Rule of thumb, always scan the outside of the facility and its parameters first. He nodded to the local police chief, who held a look of depravity on his face. It appeared that they had run this kind of show before, which made him slightly uneasy for being in such a small town. He felt his Chiappa MC27 on his broad hip, feeling a small amount of relief as his steps made their way around the back of the church. The parking lot was lit by the parking lamps above, which occasionally flickered on and off in the sticky summer night.

He didn’t like the feeling that he felt, but it was his job. He had run and helped run countless murder and rape cases. This one in Po-dunk, America shouldn’t have felt any different to him.

After he walked around the church while pointing his flashlight into the bushes and around the lot, he came up empty handed. He met the local police chief back at the front of the church and he tipped his hat to him again. Constantine walked up to him, deciding he would ask him why he felt such an odd presence.

“Evening, Chief. My name is Sgt. Ambrosia. KSPD sent me. I’m from the Special Victims Unit. Anything I should know around here?” Constantine asked the chief.

Constantine rested his hands on his hips, looking intently on the sixty-something-year-old police chief that appeared to have worn many more years than that. Deep wrinkles planted themselves across his face as a thick white mustache fanned over his top lip.

“This here town is known for bad things, son. You’re about to walk in on a reminder of that.”

Constantine furrowed his brows, confused by his statement. He decided to nod his head yes instead of getting into a conversation about the town’s history, which he didn’t have time for. He was already pissed off that he had to miss a night of prime pussy fucking with his new girlfriend. He gloved his hands and walked up the steps before opening the main door. Stale blood and incense assaulted his senses and made him weak at the knees.

Constantine took one step in to see the heap of a man lying on top of the church altar. His eyes made their way to the wall across from it. His heart stopped beating when they read the words that were written in blood over and over again. He tried to tell himself that there were many streets called Harmony Way, but something about how he felt before along with his increased unease made him sick with worry.

990 Harmony Way

Wren’s apartment.

He turned around and ran from the church, stripping himself free of his plastic gloves. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Wren; it went to voicemail. He kept trying and trying with no success.

He knew it wasn’t going to end well.

To 990 Harmony Way he went.

The end is never the end…

RHYS STOOD THERE,
again, admiring her naked and mutilated body. He knew that he had made her realize what she had done, and hopefully made her understand that she was more like him than she ever comprehended. He knew that the end was near, but wasn’t quite sure
exactly
what that meant. He counted her shallow breaths as she lay atop the bed in a blackened slumber, wondering if he could ever be worthy enough of love. He liked how his words sounded, how love and hate are made for one another, but he didn’t know if he was capable of embracing either one.

He didn’t know if he could not kill her, but he was certain of one thing, he couldn’t go on without her. Maybe it was love. Perchance it was an obsession. Whatever the title, he knew he couldn’t turn the page and move on without her. He had spent the past ten years in isolation, the only kind of people that came into his life were unwilling ones. Though their encounter was not conventional, Rhys believed that Wren’s purpose was to understand her past, and she had to endure everything he had given her.

His tastes were dark and deep. They were part of who he was and they would never go away. He would always needed that deep seeded depravity to survive. To breathe. Could she be enough?

Rhys felt the urge to hurt skulk up his back, scratching him with the impulse to bask in the abyss of any sadomasochist’s nightmare. He clenched his jaw as he watched her naked breasts rise and fall, bruised and bloodied from his hands. Her thighs were stained with blood, already changing to another shade from the palate he knew so well. Rhys told himself before they said their farewell to their past, once and for all, he had to delve back into the pitch black nightmare that claimed them both.

He had to hurt her, then love her.

He freed himself from his towel and walked across the room to his jeans pocket until he retrieved his knife.

Just one more time
, he told himself. It was always just one more time. He promised himself.

He took the blade out, appreciating its shine and deadliness. Rhys started to worship her body with grace, which would soon be replaced with repulsion. Was he right? Would she survive? Would the love he had for her be enough? He still never heard the words spoken from her mouth that he so desperately needed.

You aren’t a bad boy, Rhys. It isn’t your fault, Rhys
.

He placed the tip of the blade beneath her chin to wake her. Her eyes opened, but she wasn’t surprised. Wren had accepted her fate. She was done with the fight. Her cunt was mauled on the inside, yet it still craved him. Her heart was shattered to shreds as she was shown the truth of all the lives she took and the lies she believed, her mind clouded by the trauma that she put herself through.
Was it really his fault
, she wondered. Wren thought maybe he was right; that love and hate were supposed to be belong together.

She lazily cocked an eyebrow at him, her strength leaving her quickly. She pushed her chin down onto the pointy blade until it made a small puncture wound. Rhys’ mouth went agape. He wasn’t expecting her to revel in his crazy. He wasn’t sure if that good or bad, but he decided he would embrace it.

“I want to hear you say it, Wren. Say the words I asked you to say all those years ago. Now.”

The knife made its way down to Wren’s pink, peaked nipple. She ached for his touch, though dysfunctional in all ways, she needed it more than her next breath. She knew exactly what he was speaking of.

“You aren’t a bad boy, Rhys. You aren’t a bad boy!” Wren sobbed.

He finally believed her. Truth again, it was there. He pressed the blade down slightly to induce the smallest cut beneath her nipple. He was proud when she didn’t cry out in pain. There she was on top of a bed covered in piss and blood, still aching for his touch as he knifed her up.

Finally, she had submitted to him. Rhys dragged the knife along her stomach, stopping intermittently and making little cuts to mark her as his forever.

“Break me, Rhys. Fucking break me,” Wren begged, rubbing her hands over her bleeding torso. Rhys knew he had met his mate for life. They were meant to be together. He clutched the knife harder while he eased his hard dick inside of her cut-up cunt.

She furrowed her brows in response to the ever present pain, but with each thrust of his hips, pleasure made its way to the forefront and won. Her tight cunt hugged his cock as an orgasm threatened to escape and leave her as nothing more than the breathing version of who she used to be. She needed to feel alive more.

Wren slapped Rhys’ face, knowing that would make him snap. He fucked her harder, deeper, until she came around his cock in perfect unison with him bringing the shiny vane to her throat, threatening to take her life away with one slice and a little more pressure. Wren never thought that she would turn into a woman who enjoyed such disgusting acts. She was a sinner, capable just like Rhys, of taking lives.

Rhys came inside of her with the knife still at her throat, stilling and reveling in the wondrous acts he had just participated in. He hadn’t ever had sex like that in his life, and he had made women partake in gruesome and bloody actions. Rhys was certain he couldn’t let her go. Not after an experience like that and all the fucked up things they had shared.

He pulled himself out of her, looking at the place between her thighs that was getting wetter by the second. Blood started to ooze more, and he became worried. Rhys never worried because he didn’t care. You can’t care when you don’t love. You don’t have to worry about loving when all you do is kill.

But it was at that second when he came to the conclusion that her life hung in the balance and he didn’t want it pushed over the edge. He wanted her by his side, always. He couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t hurt her again, but he would do his best not to fuck her up as bad as he just did.

Wren was high, post-coital and rejoicing in the discomfort as waves that hung around like a welcome friend, pulsating through her body. Every blink of her eyes became harder and harder to do.

“Wren? Get up. Get up. It’s time to go,” Rhys stated, trying to hide the panic in his voice.

Wren tried to sit up on her elbows, but she was far too weak. Rhys slapped her across the face in an effort to rouse her, but she looked at him through tired eyes.

“I hate you, but I think I love you, too.”