Pepper Winters - Destroyed

Fox shoved me to the ground, tearing his fingers from me. I bounced off the carpet, my eyes flying wide as he loomed above me.

Gone was the lust and need and softness, replaced with sheer trembling rage. Cold calculation filled his eyes until he looked blind from everything else but the urge to kill.

“Fox. Wait.” I tried to scramble backward toward my discarded knife.

He fell to his knees, and with excruciatingly strong hands, flipped me onto all fours. Pushing my shoulder blades, he forced my cheek against the carpet and captured my arms behind my back. I squirmed, trying to get free, but it was impossible. “Fox. Stop. Please.”

“Shut up. To be inflicted is to inflict.” His voice was programmed—robotic. “I must obey. I must—”

My heart bolted, bringing with it terror and trepidation. His tone was military cold, remote and unfeeling. He’d relapsed and there was nothing I could do.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I begged, “Please… do—”

Then, he fucked me.

His hard cock plunged deep inside, filling me, distorting me. The wetness from my orgasm prevented searing pain, but the fierceness of every thrust made me ache instantly with bruises.

He grunted and rutted like a fucking beast. Fingers digging deep into my hips, jerking me back to meet his every surge.

I didn’t want him like this. Not again. It was like a horrible flashback of the first time. The violence, the way he seemed to hate that he needed me—hate the weakness of wanting to join.

My back bowed as he thrust deeper and deeper. My eyes leaked, adding salt to my stinging carpet-burned cheek. I hated him. Hated the brokenness inside him.

“I told you. I warned you. You didn’t fucking listen. Now look what you made me do. I can’t stop it. Goddammit, I can’t stop.” He drove into me like a monster. He was big. Too big. It wasn’t erotic or fun. It was purely punishment and nothing else. My heart broke, hating his coldness. Hating him for making me hope that he could be fixed.

Fox cursed in a foreign language. His hipbones dug into my ass, faster and faster.

I sniffed back my tears and hardened my heart. I was wrong to think we had anything special. Fox had eloquently shown me how stupid I truly was. It was over. I was done. This would be the last time he hurt me.

Shutting my emotions down, I let him fuck me. I switched off every sensation and waited for it to be over. I preferred to ignore what was happening and pretended none of this existed.

You brought this on yourself.

I told myself to shut up. I’d only done what I thought might work. I poured all my effort into him only to be thwarted in the worst possible way.

His hips thrust harder and instead of trying to get away, I pushed back, deliberately impaling him harder.

He gasped. “Fuck. Fuck. Oh, God.”

Wanting it over, I squeezed my inner muscles around him, rocking back, giving him everything I had left.

His breath came faster, harsher as he thrust again and again. He was violent and cruel, every stroke measured for pain rather than pleasure. He bumped against the top of my pussy, hurting me with urgency.

Curling over me, his back smothered mine as he sunk teeth deep into my neck. I screamed as he thrust again, filling me completely.

Then he came.

Hot, wet streams spurt deep inside. On and on and on.

His hands on my hips clenched hard and teeth bit down on the sinew between my neck and collarbone.

And then it was over and his ragged pants turned to agonized curses. “Fuck.”

He pulled out, stumbling to his feet in a rush. The sound of his zipper and belt were the only noises apart from our harsh breathing. Everything ached. Bruises throbbed.

“Fuck!” he roared, prowling around me with his trousers undone and desolation in his voice. I didn’t dare move, but I did flip onto my side and curl up into a little ball. Hiding my nakedness, nursing my shame.

Fox dropped to his haunches in front of me. The veins in his neck stood out as he breathed hard through flared nostrils. He reached out to touch me, but then stopped. His groan held every sadness and regret in the world. “I’m so fucking sorry, Hazel.”

I didn’t say a word. I had nothing to say.

I was done.

Fox stood up and moved away. Looking back at me, I knew without a doubt he would find some way to fuck himself up with pain. He looked lost and terrified. He looked like a man ready for death.

I tried to make myself care. I tried to find compassion deep inside but I was empty.

I’d already given him everything and had nothing left.

Fox stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

The instant he was gone, I sat up and let the torrents of tears run down my cheeks.

Gathering my discarded clothing, I dressed, and turned my back on Obsidian Fox for the last time.

Roan

No one knew.

No one.

Not my handler or my contact.

But it was the thing that granted me freedom.

It was nature bringing down a predator. It was life giving me a second chance.

It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly, gradually, as if the atrocities I’d done stained my eyes until they no longer wanted to witness my sins.

It took a victim to uncover my one weakness. And I would be forever grateful.

I fucked up a mission, and my target showed me I suffered a handicap.

Something I hadn’t even noticed.

The news spread, and my handlers booked me in for Lasik and other supposed miracle cures. But it was no use. The doctors said there wasn’t anything wrong with me. It was all mental.

I was going blind.

* * *

I bashed my head against the back of the bathroom door, willing away the cold lecherous orders; ignoring the overriding urges I’d never be free of.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

My mind wouldn’t stop whirling with images of Hazel on her knees while I drove manically into her. The red burn on her cheek from pressing her face into the carpet. The sounds of her cries and pleas.

I’m a bastard. No, I’m worse than that. I’m a soulless machine.

Today was not a good day. I woke to a strong wave of conditioning. The first of every month had been a special recap for operatives. A day we were made to cement our training with yet more grotesqueness.

I warned her!

I fucking warned her to keep her distance and yet she kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

I spun around and smashed my fist against the door. Gritting my teeth against the pain licking my knuckles, I glanced in the mirror.

I was fucking wild. Out of control. A rogue operative who should’ve taken the pill two years ago and ended his miserable life. The scar on my cheek itched with memories, hurtling me back to then—to a place I never wanted to return.

“Hold him down.”

My twenty-one-year old heart tore itself into pieces as my handler held up a short crescent moon blade. I’d forged it. I’d hammered the steel into creation. I was well-known for being one of the best metal smiths in the society. And now it would be used against me.

“I obeyed. I did what you said.”

My handler paused beside me, looking down with eyes devoid of emotion. “You didn’t though, did you, Fox. You think you can flaunt the rules. You can’t. You belong to us, and you kill whoever we say you will.”

The two men holding my shoulders against the table grunted as I fought. But it wasn’t any use.

The sharp tip of the knife entered my mouth, moving to rest behind the soft smoothness of my cheek.

“Every time you look in the mirror you’ll see what happens when you try to fight the control.”

His wrist flicked up and pain exploded in every crevice of my body. I screamed and choked on my own blood as my cheek gaped in two.

I hated him. I wanted to fucking kill him and every Ghost here.

Throwing the knife to the floor, he ordered, “Sew him up. No morphine.”

The bathroom swirled around me; phantom pain ached in my badly sewn up cheek. The flesh inside my mouth felt rough and foreign. Infection after infection had turned a neat line of stitches into a tattered mess.

I’d forgotten the message they’d scarred me with. My thought patterns weren’t my own; my body obeyed no one but the programmed rules and commands.

Why did I ever think I stood a chance? I wished I could rewind time and never look at Zel. I wanted to erase myself and all the pain I’d caused from her life.

My white eyes met my mirrored image.

How could you hurt her?

You’re so weak.

You’ve lost her.

You don’t deserve her.

I sighed heavily, hanging my head.

I never wanted to see Hazel again—not after hurting her so fucking much. Every time she came near me, I was the crux of every bad thing that happened to her.

It wasn’t fair. I wouldn’t do it anymore.

I wanted her gone.

Whatever progress she made the night she stabbed me had disappeared. Whatever sweetness we might’ve found in the greenhouse disintegrated. I’d hoped she’d broken through and set me on the road to recovery, but it’d just been a moment. One brittle moment that shattered the second it was over.

She’d turned me from killer to man—licking me so sweetly, giving me a gift no one had before and all I did in return was revert back to a useless miserable operative with no chance in hell of living.