Badlands: Next Generation Collection, page 52
“What’s with the dudes?” I asked, biting down to see if I could still feel my tongue.
Two acolytes approached us and took gentle hold of me.
“You’ll be fine, queenie,” Cam encouraged, releasing my hand.
My heart began to beat faster as I realized he wasn’t coming with us.
I forced myself to relax, going with the flow of the evening.
They led me up onto the dais and eased my body down. Each arm and leg was secured with a rope, my body directly in the center of the pentacle. They cut my clothes off, leaving me in nothing but my underwear.
I breathed through it, looking straight up at the sky and ignoring the people around me. I felt oddly relaxed, watching the stars swirl. This was the initiation, right? It had to be.
Another acolyte stepped forward, this one holding a black goat in his hands. He held it above me so another could slit its throat. When the blood first hit, all I could do was blink, pressing my lips into a firm line so it stayed out of my mouth. It ran from my chest and down my stomach, spilling over either side of my hips.
The acolytes moved back, and Luce took their place.
“So beautiful,” he intoned as he stared down at me, covering my body with his, a thin metal blade in his hand. He gripped my thigh and I felt two pinches, then a sting. Blood and arousal both gathered between my legs. I sucked in a breath when he did the other thigh.
His lips were at my neck, kissing and nipping at the sensitive flesh. I couldn’t touch him, or ease him between my legs, so I shut my eyes.
He cut my underwear off, lining his cock up and shoving inside me all in a span of minutes.
My pussy gripped him, arousal flooding his dick down to the base. I moaned, lifting my hips. His lips found mine.
One hand wrapped around my throat as he fucked me savagely, our bodies sliding together in a mess of blood and carnal pleasure.
I blissfully took every inch of him, sweat breaking out along my brow as my climax caused black to cloud my vision. The acolytes and the crowd around us began to quietly chant Ave Satanas.
At some point we went from the dais to the shower, winding up in his bed. He placed me on top of him and helped me ride his cock, taking over when my body turned to mush.
When I opened my eyes, sunlight was filtering into the room and a consistent pounding was in my head. My entire body ached like I’d gone diving off a cliff. I sat up and looked down at myself, seeing a patch of gauze where my barcode tattoo was.
An array of Luce-sized bruises painted my skin. I replayed back the entire night, unable to recall how many times he made me come. Or all the places we’d wound up.
As if I conjured him, he entered the room carrying a silver tray.
“Thought you’d be hungry,” he said, setting the food down on the nightstand.
“Do you know what Cam gave me last night?”
“Something to take off the edge.”
I noted the scratch marks on his neck, frowning. “Did I hurt you?”
He raised his brows. “You’ve successfully drained my dick for a week, if that counts.”
“I was referring to the scratches on your neck.”
He touched them with his fingers. “I know, you gave me these between rounds three and seven.”
I reached for what looked like coffee, testing the temperature before taking a sip. “No wonder I’m so sore.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he replied, grinning proudly. “Eat and get dressed, I want to take you somewhere.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise.” He stood as if to leave the room again.
“Wait!” A memory of a black goat flashed through my head, causing me to spill some of my coffee.
“What’s wrong?”
I tightened my grip around the mug. “Did you kill Phillip?”
He started to laugh. “Dove, chill. There’s a whole pen of goats at the end of the yard. I wouldn’t kill the equivalent of yours and Bella’s dog.”
“If you say so…” I trailed off, wiping the coffee off my fingers.
“Get dressed,” he repeated.
He left the room without answering me about what he wanted to show me. Luce and that word didn’t mix unless he was going to surprise me with my death. Seeing as we’d been nearly inseparable, and he’d just made it as official as we could be without offering a ring, I didn’t think he was planning to kill me.
I ate a few things from the tray and then slid from bed, padding first to the closet and then the bathroom to get dressed. I peeked beneath my gauze to see my mark, smiling at the new insignia now completely covering the old one.
It was just the two of us.
Wherever we were going, he wanted to be alone. I took guesses the whole way there, getting no answers or irritating smirks in response. I was pleasantly surprised when we reached our destination.
“What’s this?” I asked, following him out of the Jeep.
“Come here.” He lingered by the hood and offered me his hand.
I took it, allowing him to walk me towards a peak. We stopped a few feet back from the ledge, him positioning himself behind me, both arms wrapping around my front.
A gentle breeze offset the heat.
“Look,” he urged unnecessarily.
I was looking the second I got out of the car. I could see for miles ahead of us. Sand strewn rock, pinkish, ribbon-like fissures. Pure white plains in the radiating sunlight. There were empty roads with trees and saplings lining the sides. Chunks of green and small ponds.
“This is the Badlands,” he mused. “One side of it, anyway.”
I countered, leaning back into his embrace. “It’s beautiful.”
“It can be. It can be vicious and cruel too, but it’s ours.”
“I like that.”
He slid a hand down to my hip, tracing the outline of where my tattoo had been placed. “You know what this means?”
“I do.”
“It’s not me collaring you. I don’t need a mark to tell me you’re mine.”
“I know that, and I know what it means. I’ve fully accepted my role, you know that.”
“I wasn’t going to give you any other choice.”
He wasn’t joking.
“This wasn’t my surprise, by the way.”
I looked back at him. “Then what is it?”
“I’ll show you later. I want to stay like this a little longer. This is as calm a place to tell you I love you as I’ll ever get.”
I slightly turned. “Did you just say you loved me?”
He smirked. “You were too much of a chicken-shit to say it if I didn’t say it first.”
“That’s—” I laughed. “That’s actually true. You didn’t have to bring me up here to tell me that.”
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to, and if you can’t say it back, I might have to toss your ass over the canyon.”
“But you already know I love you,” I sassed.
“Little smartass. I needed to hear it from your mouth.”
I settled back into his arms, happily taking in this view. There was a whole world I’d been cut off from, and he was right, this was only one side of it. As cruel and vicious as it was, the Badlands had an unmatched beauty.
I glanced down and smiled, watching him stroke my Savage insignia. He was right about this too.
This wasn’t a symbol of ownership. It was a permanent sign that I belonged somewhere.
He didn’t need to brand my body when he’d already made his mark on my soul.
I hadn’t run away looking for any kind of salvation, but I found it anyway. Who knew it would come in the form of a devil? That it could be anything like this? Salvation was immoral and hauntingly beautiful.
EPILOGUE
For the time being, things had worked out pretty well.
For the time being.
That would last maybe a week in my world.
I leaned back in my chair, watching my Star and the surprise I’d been keeping from her interact with my family.
Mom fucking adored my dove, which wasn’t surprising because I loved her.
Blue was there too, smiling like her whole world wasn’t still burning and she hadn’t just found out her husband had a psychotic bitch as a daughter. As if that psycho wasn’t helping keep Lilith with Samael.
“Have you told her yet?” My dad spoke from beside me, watching the same scene I was.
Tell Star the man who fathered her was the one responsible for her scars and her pain?
That he hid behind his own father, an old man, because he couldn’t face her?
No.
She’d stopped asking me about who was behind A.R.C only days ago.
I don’t know who it was that raised her, but he’d done his best.
Correction.
He’d done his best up until he allowed himself to be lured to the one place he’d been told not to go. Dumb motherfucker.
I’d just gotten her to focus on something else. It would come up again eventually, and I’d deal with it then. Right now, at least she had Claire back. Asmodeus had their father. He’d taken him that very night, and whatever he did to him wasn’t my concern.
“No. I haven’t decided if I want to.”
“He really is your son,” Uncle Grimm joked, passing a drink to Ice.
“He’s turned out exactly as he should’ve,” Dad replied proudly. “And you got the girl you were meant to get.”
“That sounds like you knew this would happen,” Cam remarked.
Cobra chuckled at Dad’s ensuing silence.
Sometimes I wondered if he sat around with little figurines and decided exactly how the fuck our lives would go.
Dad knew that peace and pain went hand in hand. He knew that we’d never survive without the OG Savages unless we got through shit most people could never come back from and relied on each other when the time was right. For those of us that didn’t make it, we wouldn’t have stood a chance in the long run.
I glanced over at Cam, following his stare to the girl sitting on the other side of his mom.
“What’s she doing here?”
“She’s the one who brought in Claire,” Grimm answered.
I caught a smirk on my dad’s face and shook my head. I knew exactly where this was going.
“Has Claire said anything?” Ice questioned.
“Oh, she’s said a lot. That’s why she’s alive. Pixie made it clear to keep her fuckin mouth shut about what she told us.”
Of course, he used my mother to make the girl talk. Fuck, I would talk too if left alone in a room with her. Getting in trouble when we were kids fucking sucked. More so for Addy.
“Are you going to tell us, or are you going to make us guess?” Cam asked.
“I’ll tell you everything eventually. Not tonight. Tonight, they’re happy.” He nodded to where everyone sat around the fire. “I will tell you this much: you’ve won one small battle, but there’s about to be a war.”
I strummed my fingers on my knee, already working out what that meant in my head.
Star turned her head and caught my eye, offering a smile before Claire pulled her attention away.
With Dad’s very recent revelation, I was more grateful to Satanas than ever for placing her at that shitty farmhouse.
Like the nickname I’d given her, she brought me peace. She helped soothe the demons in Cam’s mind. With what was coming, we’d need her.
I hadn’t searched for this. I wasn’t prepared for whatever this was, but who the fuck could be ready for someone like her?
I knew from the day she looked at me from behind that fence, there was something about her.
She was different.
She was Savage.
The girl had a heart of gold and a pitch-black soul that aligned perfectly with mine.
BONUS #1
Grimm + Arlen
Grimm
No matter how quiet it was, my mind never seemed to settle. I’d spent countless nights like this, lying awake and asking questions that couldn’t be answered. I kept falling into the same repetitive, shitty cycle, always when the sun set.
But I could handle it.
It didn’t stop me from preferring the darkness to the sunshine. If it ever got to be too much, all I had to do was reach for the woman who was always by my side.
Begrudgingly, I slipped quietly from our bed, leaving behind the comfort of Brat’s warmth. I found my pants on the floor and peered down at her as I pulled them on. The moonlight filtering in through a partially opened panel, illuminated the ink on her golden skin. She was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Her hair was fanned out across a pillow, messed from us fucking like lust filled teens an hour or so ago.
Two kids, some good times, and some admittedly hard ones later, I was still amazed that this spitfire of a woman belonged to me. It seemed a lifetime ago since I took her away from the rundown shithole, she’d been locked up in.
I was more grateful to our dark lord than ever for bringing us together.
She was my sole constant and I hers. After all we’d gone through to be where we were today, she never let herself give in to the chaos even when she had a million reasons why she could.
Especially now.
I knew she was hurting, heartbroken for our friends. More so for our children. Nyx, our beautiful baby-girl who was forced to grow up with more trauma than we ever wanted her to.
I’d been worried about her, but she proved she was a Savage through and through.
Now she was eagerly learning to navigate the path I once walked as a reaper despite all the shit that had been thrown at her to overcome.
And then there was Samael.
I think every sensible man wants a son. The day he was born I damn near cried. If only I’d had an inkling of the path he would choose to go down. He’d slipped away from us and become a force in the Badlands all his own. I thought we’d been doing right by him but clearly that wasn’t the case.
The only bit of comfort I had anymore was that he’d learned enough from his family—from the Savages—to thrive. He was making a name for himself, ruthlessly. I reminded myself of this every time another rumor made its way to me or his mother.
We didn’t listen to any non-sensical bullshit. If it couldn’t be proven it was nothing other than bitch-ass gossip.
Reaching down, I gently pulled the duvet up to cover Brat’s naked chest, careful not to wake her. Turning, I grabbed my boots from by the nightstand and left our bedroom. For the past week I’d been going to meet up with Romero and Cobra.
With everything going on right now Rome had stepped up his efforts in gaining information. He wasn’t fucking around about sending clear-cut messages to the other factions either, picking their members off one, two at a time. I wasn’t entirely sure what the end game was or what he had going on inside his diabolical brain.
I wouldn’t know all the details until he wanted me to. That was the norm, though. I was fine with that. I’d been with him since we were both boys, growing amongst up cannibals.
He’d always done what was necessary to ensure Cobra and I were okay in more areas than one. The methods could be deemed as unconventional. That was just Rome. Plus, they worked. I never had reasons to question them.
Until now.
Being he was like a brother to me; I knew he felt unreasonably responsible for what had transpired.
It pissed me off.
I wished I could nail it through his thick ass skull that he couldn’t possibly control every goddamn outcome of life. Revered devil or not, no one man had that much power. I gave him credit, he always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone but there’s no way he knew this would happen.
I exited my family home and headed for the designated warehouse.
This late only the acolytes on patrol were out, hooded figures that blended with the shadows.
Exactly my kind of people.
I got to where I needed to be, pausing right outside the entrance. The two acolytes stationed on either side paid me no mind, remaining silent and still as statues, faces covered by their signature white masks.
I ran a hand through my beard, withholding a sigh. I wasn’t sure what my problem was lately. Maybe it was the foresight that whatever came our way this time could very well involve my own flesh and blood.
“Heading in,” I stated, taking a step back so that one of the acolytes could let me into the building.
There was slight whirring noise as the warehouse door slid on its track, light from inside spilling out.
The smell of disinfectant, blood, and fear hit all four of my senses as I entered.
Seeing as Romero and Cobra were already immersed in setting up for the night, I wondered how long they’d been here.
“I got here twenty minutes ago, he was here before me,” Cobra replied to my unspoken thought.
I nodded and took a minute to assess what was going on. Two acolytes stood on either side of the room. There was heavy iron-type contraption dead center of the room. I couldn’t recall seeing this before. I for sure didn’t know what it did. A thick piece of rope had been looped around one of the warehouses’ metal beams, the end left to freely dangle near the top of the device.
That wasn’t the most important thing to figure out right then. There was a man hog tied, with a rag that looked like it was covered in shit wedged in his mouth, on the floor in front of it.
A woman knelt beside him, her head bowed, a mass of ratted brown hair concealing her face. The continuous tremors wracking her body gave away just how afraid she was.
The corpses from the night before had already been hauled away, leaving only these pathetic souls for tonight’s entertainment.
“Where are these two from?”
“Just some lags,” Rome replied, tugging on the end of the rope as if to test it.
“Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you got?” Cobra questioned. He sounded disappointed by my lack of enthusiasm. I doubted it was from my non-interest in our newest test subjects. I didn’t need to know who they were. Once Rome made them start speaking, I’d figure it out.
Had to be the new device. Cobra was still like a kid, always excited for new toys.
