Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(69)

My heart smashed into pieces. He was right.

Q’s muscles bunched beneath me, hoisting me higher, bringing my chest to his face. He trembled as he whispered tortured words into my neck. “Your mind is not broken. Your mind is not f*cking broken.”

Somehow, I didn’t think he spoke to me.

He rambled in French. “Si vous me l’enlevez, je le jure devant Dieu je vais ... Je vais ...” If you take her from me, I swear to f*cking God I'll... I'll... He didn’t finish. Instead, he lowered me in his arms, bundled me tight, and roared at White Rodent, “Did you f*cking think you could get away with this? Rape women? Traffic them? Drug them? You’re a f*cking dead man and the only place you’re going to is hell. I guarantee your corpse will be chopped into little pieces.” Q chewed on every word. His anger was palpable, filling the room with thick tension.

I looked up, bewitched with the way his wings rustled with ferocity and he stood so rigid and unswerving. He looked toward Franco. “Bring them. The pliers, too.”

Q turned on his heel and strode out the room. I curled tighter into his body as the corridor contracted around us, making me feel like I lived in the belly of a ginormous snake. My snapped finger threatened to send me into darkness again, but I held on. More insects came to nibble on my brain and a procession of visions trailed after us. My mum, dad, and Brax all followed as Angel Q whisked me off to safety.

Q bent his head. “I’ll pay them back like for like, esclave. Mark my f*cking words, they’ll wish they were dead before I’ve finished.”

A burst of heat filled me as black wings fanned around us, entrapping us in a cocoon. His hotness was a bonfire against my chilled skin, and he carried me as if I was a feather.

A damaged and broken feather.

I didn’t trust anything anymore. This couldn’t be real. I’d done nothing to warrant such saving.

If only this was real. If only I was being taken away. Maybe I was dying. Maybe my brain created its own sense of finality. Saying goodbye to Q. Majestic Q with his raven wings and cloud of crows.

“You are dying. Confess your sins now, child, or you’ll never be welcomed into heaven.” My mother wrung her hands. “Confess how you screwed up our life. How you ruined your brother’s life. How you’ve ruined a man’s heart. Just die already.”

I choked on the intense hatred gleaming in my mother’s eyes. I couldn’t believe the pain she caused.

“I never wa—wanted to be a burden.” The tears I’d been holding all this time spilled. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop.

Q jerked to a halt. “No, esclave. Stop it. You’re not a burden. Never.”

With a shaky hand, I reached up and caught a black oily feather from his wings. They quivered as he wrapped them tighter around us like a shield. I ran my fingers over the quill. “I confess to everything. I’m worthless and want to die.”

Then I passed out.





You’re my obsession, I’m your possession. You own the deepest part of me…



Words lost all meaning.

I became a creature of suffering.

Tess wanted to die. My Tess. The woman who made my heart keep beating had resorted to the last option available.

She wants to die.

She wants to leave me permanently.

Whatever she’d lived through had been too much. Gone was the strong woman I knew, replaced with a shadow, a damaged hologram of who she used to be.

My arms tightened so hard I worried I might snap her in half. My entire body suffered jittery horror at the thought that even though I held her, I’d lost her.

I was too late.

The image of that f*cking naked bastard with his rancid cock and the pitiful blonde girl beside Tess raped my mind.

My heart combusted with horror when I saw how similar Tess and the blonde looked. Their hair colour was so alike it tore my soul into pieces at the thought that I might’ve been too late. Too late to stop Tess being raped. Too late to stop her from suffering such tragedy again.

But I checked. When Tess passed out as I wrapped her snapped finger in some sheeting, I made sure to check she hadn’t been used. It killed me to invade her privacy, but I needed to know.

I had to know. I wouldn’t live with myself if she’d been violated again. Not after Lefebvre. Not after what I put her through. No one person should ever live through as much as Tess.

I wanted to howl to the bloody moon and shed my body in favour for something vicious with claws and fangs and no f*cking conscience. I wanted to be the devil.

My mind dismembered from rational thought. I couldn’t think straight. I doubted I’d ever be sane again. The fact that Tess wasn’t bleeding between her legs helped me stay human for a little longer.

Tess weighed nothing in my arms as I carried her back the way we came. She’d lost so much weight she looked like a wraith. A blonde, delicate wraith with so many black bruises all over her she looked like a f*cking domino.

My body wouldn’t stop trembling as every emotion went on hyper-drive. I wanted to kill. Fucking kill and kill and kill.

Tess thrashed, her face scrunched up with whatever hallucination she suffered. The track marks on her arms gave a vivid story of just what she’d endured.

I kept begging over and over. Her mind isn’t broken. Her mind isn’t broken. Once she detoxed, she’d be fine. I had to believe that.