Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(16)

For the week I kept Eve confined to the cabin, the week that I took an innocent, hopeful girl and turned her into exactly what she needed to be to pull my brother out from beneath the lies he told himself about his faith, I'd used every means to my disposal.

She was already so close when I chased her out here, already so conflicted that it was easy enough to get inside her head, but keeping her there was another story altogether. Whereas other women in the family were blind in their devotion, this particular woman still had questions, still harbored doubts. I could read them as clearly as if they'd been written on a billboard and I knew that warping her enough would take more than a few carefully spoken words.

Sedatives during the day while I kept her awake. Amphetamines at night while I left her alone to pace inside her cage. Always keeping an eye on her, I never let her wander far enough outside of my sphere that she would become lost, but just far enough that she became lost to her insanity, that she truly believed nothing else besides me existed in her world.

The sex - fuck - the sex was phenomenal. She gave as much as she took after a while. Shy at first, Eve developed a hunger that almost eclipsed my own. A few more drugs had her writhing and begging, just the feel of my fingertips sliding across her skin enough to send her careening into an orgasm that screamed from between her full, soft lips. The cocktails and blends of the drugs would have altered any sane person to the point of utter insanity. But not her. Not as much as I'd believed.

Although the effects would have worn off hours after her last dose, the damage should have lasted through the week she spent with Jacob.

The brain can only take so much. Lack of sleep, lack of food, hallucinogens, and the pleasure that comes with pain, she'd been immersed in it all, walking out of this place as the perfect specimen, the perfect tool of submission and empty thought. I'd fried her mind with the concoctions, stealing her questions and doubts and replacing them with everything I needed her to believe.

And yet, she still saw the difference between Jacob and me, and somewhere, trapped deep inside her subconscious, the girl she'd been before that week peeked out, whispering truth and perceptions to the woman I created. I had to kill that girl once and for all, and do it in a way that didn't alter the woman she'd become.

"What will you do with her now?" Weaved within Richard's voice was a rancid hunger that made my skin crawl. In ways, his thirst for violence sickened the civilized beast inside me. There was no art to his darkness, no polished surfaces to the acts he committed against women powerless to fight him off - and Eve, he'd wanted her for so long. "Leave her here and I'll take care of her."

"The rules haven't changed, Richard. She's still off limits." Twisting so I could pin him with the seriousness of my words, I reminded him, "She is my wife, after all."

Rolling his eyes, he fidgeted in place, scuffing the toe of his boot over the worn floorboard beneath him. “You let your brother have a taste. That’s all I’m asking.”

Violence slithered through me, just beneath the skin. Although I’d known Richard for many years, could rely on him to keep his mouth shut and do as he was told, there were still aspects of him that drove me to a killing edge, moments when the satisfaction of jamming a blade into that fat belly of his was just out of reach.

“She was created for that purpose. Or have you forgotten? The moment I saw her face, saw what it would become and how it could be used, I knew what I would do with her. But that doesn’t mean she’ll be passed around from man to man. What has she done to deserve such a fate?”

He would have been smart to hear the warning in my tone, but Richard was too much of a brute to understand subtlety. “Why do you even care? She served her purpose. Why keep her around?”

Now that was a question I wouldn’t answer him only because I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Leading him down a different path of conversation, I changed the subject. “You’ve had plenty of tastes of many women. If I’m not mistaken you’ve made good use of our arrangement for your idea of a good time.”

"Yeah, except, lately, you've been the only one having fun. I'm bored. You promised me more than this bullshit when we originally agreed to starting the family."

My eyes narrowed. "Haven't you had that fun? For years if I'm not mistaken?"

"Not for the last few months. Not while you've been shacked up with Sedra in the church pretending to be a fucking priest. When does shit get good again?"

Breathing out in order to maintain my cool, I smiled. "Well, now you've brought me to the reason I called you out here. We have a show to put on tonight. An important one."

Expression brightening with the excitement of the tasks he knew I'd assign him, Richard straightened his posture. "Tell me."

"Gentry Holmes is coming out to the compound tonight. He's important because his brother is the sheriff, and thus the law around these parts. If I can convince them both to take part in the war we're starting, I'll have no concerns about any person reporting what occurs in this sleepy town."

"What do you need me to do?"

Eve stirred beneath me, a small moan escaping her lips that told me she was returning to consciousness. The tea I'd given her worked well to knock her out, but would have made her sick with no food in her stomach. The pain must have been immense to cause her to groan in sleep. It was too bad I wouldn't be able to feed her before the next special brew - one that would have her crawling up me like a cat in heat, presenting every bit of herself and mewling to feel fingers brush her skin.