Sinners' Kingdom #1: The Book of Lust (Complete)

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Author's Note: Thank you for all your votes, comments, and adds! I was having a terribly down week and when I logged on to update, I was blown away and honestly emotional. It'll take me a bit to reply to comments, but I'll be doing that ASAP since I love hearing from you! In the meantime, here's the next chapter — but be forewarned, things are getting darker a little at a time...

***

That Lust was so agreeable and left me with no argument was wholly suspicious. My guess? He didn't go too far at all. Wasn't like I could check, though. Until he returned, I had to sit here by the smooth boulders on the lakeside with nothing but the lapping water and the bird calls that filled up the island for company.

On that note, the aggressive, nonstop, raucous bird calls were getting increasingly louder. What was their problem? I'd been glad to escape the jungle patch where the noises of the animals prowling and flying around had been bad enough, but now that I was out in the open, it was even worse. All right, maybe that was the norm here, and I'd spent my share of mornings ignoring the screaming of blackbirds outside my window, but something felt unhinged. These birds already had the energy of a seagull horde crowding a beach about to fight kids for their french fries, and they were getting more violent still. What were they being so loud for? By now, they threatened to drown out everything else.

Something didn't feel right. As chaotic as they were, the bird calls sounded strangely pointed, like they were communicating intelligently, not just screaming at each other territorially. Goosebumps prickled down my back when one bird called from exceptionally close, breaking out into vicious song and nearly making me bolt.

... A bird. I was getting scared of a bird.

None of this would be happening if I weren't fumbling around blind. All of my remaining senses had become oversensitive and wrung tight, and I kept imagining sensations that weren't there — insects running up my legs and back, spiders skittering across my neck, itches on my scalp like I'd collected bugs in my hair while Lust carried me through the jungle. It was senseless paranoia and I was sabotaging myself by indulging it, but being alone was somehow worse than being trapped between two looming Princes. Maybe I shouldn't have told both of them to get lost. Even if they were lurking close by, if something jumped me with no warning, and there was no time to intercept it...

Fuck. I was doing it again. I had been silently chanting my mantra over and over, you don't need him, you don't need him, you are in control, but I kept catching myself wishing Lust was here. Every time, my stomach churned harder, dark nausea crawling up my gut and burned my throat. But again, again, and again...

I swallowed back the bile and steeled myself — you don't need him, you are in control, you are the master — but there was no denying it anymore. Something was wrong with me, and it was only getting worse.

He had just tried to force himself on me. No debate. That was what it was. It hadn't even been like the other times when he used his aura to make my body submit first, drawing out pleasure so overwhelming that I could no longer endure it, that I even begged for it. Those had been bad enough, each time more humiliating than the last when I came down from the high and realized I'd fallen for it yet again, but this was different. This had been — brutal. Uncontrolled. No seduction, only hunger. If Mammon hadn't knocked him off of me in time...

But even after that, what he had done to me...

I was afraid. Of being without Lust.

Now that I was alone, everything felt like danger. Even the wind made me jump. I couldn't see, but my mind conjured images of dark things crawling toward me in the grass, things my rational mind knew weren't really there. It was stupid. Senseless. Not to mention I was still certain Lust hadn't gone far in the first place, that he kept me in sight just in case even after I demanded he leave — but I still waited on pins and needles for his return. It was like having having my clothes ripped off, no warning, while I stood in a blizzard. I hated him, couldn't stand being near him — but could hardly endure being without him.