The Annihilator (Dark Verse #5)
RuNyx
Author’s Note
This is the fifth book in the Dark Verse series. Although the book deals with a new couple, there are characters and events from the previous books that heavily influence the plot in this. Reading the series in order (The Predator, The Reaper, The Emperor, The Finisher, in that order) is recommended for the best reading experience. This is NOT a standalone.
Please note that this book ends on a semi-cliffhanger, and the entire series will be wrapped up in the final book coming in 2022. More on that at the end.
If you have read the previous books, this one is the darkest of them. Truly, heed these trigger warnings. Being inside the head of these characters is a truly dark place to be in—one is borderline sociopathic/psychopathic and the other is intensely traumatized. This book includes graphic violence, foul language, and sexual content recommended only for 18+. Like a lot of sexual content. This might be the book I’ve written with most sex scenes. Sexual trauma is a part of this story, and so sex is also used in healing, and it works between these characters for development and growth.
Content warnings: This book contains scenes of light somnophilia, light breath play, light knife play, voyeurism, power play, light spanking, consensual non-consent, psychopathic behavior, stalking, blood, human trafficking, sexual slavery, sexual assault on a minor, child abuse, skin trade, murder, arson, assassination, torture, rape, forced drug abuse, mentions of organ trade, mentions of suicide, suicide ideation, depressive episodes, post-traumatic stress disorder, Stockholm syndrome, BDSM.
If reading about any of these is in any way detrimental to your mental health, I sincerely urge you to pause.
If you continue with the book, I hope you enjoy the journey.
Thank you.
To everyone who cannot find themselves in a world full of people,
Being lost is a hard prologue, but a much beautiful story awaits you.
Find the courage, and turn the page.
The moon
Alone.
Silent.
Locked in.
Hands around her knees.
Shivers wracked her slight frame.
Locks of hair hanging limp over her shoulders.
She took a deep breath in, resisting the urge to look around herself.
She’d been shoved in the little closet for hours, each hour becoming more and more unbearable.
The dark, which had been oppressing her little mind, gradually became familiar. The blackness that had been a stranger, now a new friend, enfolding her in its arms.
Her own arms relaxed as her legs folded, crisscrossing on the cold ground, and her fingers started playing.
Playing with the locks of her hair, over and over, again and again.
To see, she stopped trying to blink.
She just breathed easy now.
Three was her age.
Locked in.
Silent.
Alone.
The Shadow
Fire.
Heat, warmth, and light.
Heat, destruction, and death.
The nature of fire had always fascinated him, the colors even more so. He liked watching the blue flickering in the heart of a blaze, turning into a yellow so white it could blind a man, deepening into oranges and reds like the sun setting over the sky.
Yeah, he liked fire. He always had.
He remembered the first time he had become fascinated by the flames. A boy in the orphanage with him constantly complained about burning under his skin all the time. The idea of it had fascinated him. Then he had seen the flames, colors searing into his vision. The rest of the world, the rest of the colors, never appeared quite right to him. The caretaker of the orphanage had said it was because he had demon eyes, because he was a demon child. He had named him after death too.
Maybe he was, because that very week he had set the man alight and smiled as the sparks danced over his body, the sound of his screams the only irritant in the picture. He didn’t like it when they screamed. The noise fell sharply on his ears, tasted sour on his tongue. He didn’t understand why he could taste sounds, but it wasn’t pleasant with the screams. No, he rather enjoyed they be quiet while he came out of nowhere, the split-second look of something visceral on their faces before he mastered their death.
He hadn’t always understood what that look had been. Emotions escaped him. He saw them, and could recognize them afterward, but he didn’t understand what that terror felt like, or how the pain was experience. How others laughed and cried and empathized and he felt nothing.
Perhaps that was why she caught his attention.
Maybe it was because she emoted more than he had ever seen anyone emote. Maybe it was the flame in her hair. Or maybe it was because she had bound them with something she couldn’t take back.
Whatever it was, from the moment her fire had found his, her fate was sealed.
He sat in the shadows watching her.
The strobing lights in the auction club went over the stage, three women in translucent robes standing in the center. He didn’t look at the ones on the sides, his heterochromatic eyes on the one in the middle. He studied her, the way she blinked at her feet, her face dead to the world. The only sign of her life remained her hair, hair that had grabbed his attention since that first time.
He pretended to sip on his drink, wondering who there was going to die by his hands tonight. They all knew never to bid on her, a trail of bodies of her suitors sending a loud message. Yet, someone always did. Someone always tempted their fates. And someone always died. Last time, it had been a sniper bullet through the brain, the poor shit’s blood splattering across her pale skin. This time, he’d make it more personal. Maybe douse them in gasoline while she watched.
As though feeling his gaze, she looked up. Her eyes swept the crowd of well-dressed men, going straight to the shadowed corners, knowing that’s where he stayed. He liked that.