𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 | 𝟏𝟖+

ROYCE

036. ANALGESIC

"Where is she!?" I bristle at my cousin.

Some of the men I sent to watch over them were taken out, leaving Artemis to get Lily out of there by himself. "She's right next to me," Artemis replied.

I inhale a shuddered breath. If something happens to her, his head is mine. I clench my phone against my ear in seething white anger.

"Don't go to the hotel. Take Lily, head to the hideout in Austria, and I'll meet you there. If she needs anything, and I mean anything, give it to her. Don't ask fucking questions, just give it."

"Okay, got it."

I fling my knife, which landed straight into the man's chest, causing him to fall forward. I walk to him, taunting, watching him either in pain. I chuckle at his squirming, carefully nuzzling the phone between my ear and shoulder.

"Please let me go!" The man wails, clutching the knife embedded in his leaking skin.

"Not a chance."

I pull the man by his collar and place him on a table. Kneeling over him, I ask, "Have you ever played doctor and patient as a child?"

"No-no! Please! PLEASE!"

"Artemis."

"Yes?"

"If something happens to her," I grip the knife and pull it down the man's chest while it's still inside him. His scream filled the room, and the sound of blood pooling underneath him resonated with my blood lust.

Blood. So much fucking blood.

"I'll find you, sever your head, and put it on a stick for your mother to see on Christmas morning. Understand?" I grit.

"Yes."

I hang up and rip the knife from the cut-up flesh before me. He was still alive but barely breathing. I probed him for information about Xavier and the Russians and he said some things about Lily I didn't like. So I decided to carve him up.

"What did you call her? A whore? Or was it a slut?"

I watched blankly as the man choked on his spit and decided for him. "Let me put this in a way so you can understand." I take the knife and carve the word whore into his forehead, followed by the word slut over his heart with a lazy smirk.

"She's my slut; the only one who gets to call her that is me." I plunged the knife repeatedly into his chest and released him when I had my fill. Surprisingly he was still breathing, but not for long. With one last swing, I decapitate him. With a satisfied mind, I turned to Axel, who stood in the corner, observing.

"You look like shit," he says.

I throw my head back and laugh, feeling the blood coating my arms and fingers. "I'd rather look like shit than feel like shit. Besides, he talked bad about my woman."

He exhales a laugh himself. "Does she know that?"

I stalled. The mental image of her smiling at me with her brown eyes made my heart tremor. I felt as though I could still feel the weight of her arms enclosing my waist and her chin digging into my chest. She's so ethereal and just so unapologetically her. My flower.

"Perhaps." My lips curved so far smile lines creased my eyes, restricting my vision.

A gut-aching laugh filled the air, along with airy breaths of satisfaction. "You're fucking sick."

I smirk. "I know."

The happiness quickly disappeared when I gazed back at the bleeding body. Mother would be disappointed in the man I've become, and the thought is irksome. But at least one good thing came out of it. "Send his body as a welcoming gift. I wouldn't want them to feel left out," I say while rolling up my sleeves and walking to the car.

I sit in the car for a moment. Just a moment, and then another, and another. Royce, she said. It's okay to feel, she said. I want this, not just her, but the feeling of being wanted when I didn't even want myself. And the first time I saw her, I knew, I just fucking knew. She was going to drive me over the edge of a continuous infinity of underlying fear. But if the devil was capable of having nightmares, she could haunt me however and whenever she wanted, even if that meant I was alone.

I returned to the hotel to gather our things and walked to the car. I was about to pull out when something smelled off; gasoline.

I fling my body out of the car and run as far as I can before the car explodes. Scrap metal scraped my back and cut into my shirt.

"Dammit!" I hit the ground with my fist and phoned Axel immediately.

"Axel, something's wrong. There was a fucking bomb on the car," I grit past the pain, struggling for fresh air against the smoke. I back away and, as quickly as possible, walk away from the scene. Locals and tourists began to pile together and began to flood the scene. I lean my head back against the brick wall of the alleyway. I reach down to load my gun. "Where's Lily?"

"She's still on the train with Artemis. I can send men to follow them and meet them at the halfway point."

"They're already on the train as we speak."

"Understood. I'll keep tabs on her, and hey-you okay?" Axel voiced his concern.

"I will be when she gets to the safe house."

I wince and look down at the mass of blood swarming my white shirt. Annoyance blooms past the searing pain. "They've gotten too comfortable. We need to move faster. How long until you can reach me?" I tear the bottom half of the shirt and tie off the large open wound with a grunt.

"Ten minutes tops," he says before hanging up.

Ten minutes seemed to go by slower when you were bleeding out. Funny how these things work. One minute you're killing someone, and the next-well, you're next.

I hear an engine and see Axel rushing up to me. "I got you," he says and sits me in the passenger seat.

I look back at the backseat to see all his shit. Mountains of duffle bags, computer tech, and medical supplies. Peering back at him, I sigh, "Nice to know you're ready for emergencies."

He chuckles. "Someone has to take care of you."

I try not to let my blood seep into the leather seat, but it was pooling fast. "We need to follow the train, and we can't stop. For all we know, the train could be hijacked. If we can beat the train, we're more likely to reach her faster."

"We should really get you patched up first," Axel trails off hesitantly, pressing harder in the gas.

"Worry about getting to Lily, yeah?" I stretch a hand behind the seat and mindlessly grab a stapler from his computer bag. I didn't have the energy to grab the med kit behind Axel so I settled for the next best thing.

"In my car, really?! Hey-don't get blood on the armrest," Axel groans in disgust.

"Axel shut up," I grunt as I unwrap the makeshift bandage. I inhale sharply and press down along my skin. I heard Axel silently gagging from beside me.

The smell of metallic iron filled the car, but this piercing feeling was all too familiar. Pain felt good; it made me feel alive, but it didn't feel how it used to.

Now it just burns.