BREA POVI woke up to something heavy around my neck. Without opening my eyes, I reached to feel it. It was a round necklace - solid metal, with a foreboding weight and texture. But the weight of it resting against my throat felt almost reassuring.Without looking in the mirror, I could tell that it was a collar. A customized collar with a round ring connected to it - like those of a dog on a leash.Where the hell was I? Jerking to a sitting position made me wince in pain, my whole body aching. The memories of the night before filtered through my mind and I groaned.My mouth was dry, my throat was parched and I felt like shit.I looked around the room I was in. The room was an annoying whitish-ashy color, and the theme was maintained for all the items that surrounded me, not that they were much. Just a bed, a couch, a closet, and a nightstand. I could already tell that it was meant to drive me crazy, and I was sure it would. I got to my feet cautiously and saw that I was not shackled

BREA POV I didn't want to be left alone. Because I didn't want to confront what I'd felt when Nicolai kissed me.What the hell was wrong with me? Was I really turned on by someone who I was sure was going to kill me in the end? Or was I so touch depraved that at any slight provocation, my body ignited like a burning flame? He put a freaking shock collar on me and must have probably watched me writhe on the floor before he decided to grab me by the hair.Ryder's touch had made me feel alive, but Nicolai. It made me burn. It made my skin prickle and I didn't like it. I didn't like him either. His eyes were so cold they scared me. And I was afraid because I knew he could do worse. But you love the pain. I jerked at the voice in my head. Then I tried to deny it, but I knew it was all a lie. He'd bitten me and it had hurt like hell, but the burn and the way it still tingled even up till now made me feel alive.But I couldn't live like this. This was just like the rehab center, even th

NICOLAI POVSpots of blood swam in my vision, and I stabbed into the table in front of me, then took a drag of the cigarette I held. The rage I felt filled every pore of my skin and it was suffocating, but I basked in it, the urge to do damage, the urge to cause pain, the urge to cut something up growing until I trembled with it.I'd been so close. So close to killing Lucas, and even now, I felt the urge to look for him and cut him up until I got the rage out of my skin. The thought of violence spread all over my system and I killed the cigarette, then slowly rose from my chair.I thought I had control, and yet, seeing Lucas hold on her hair, the look of pain on her face, and his lips so close to what was mine... It made me see red. I'd always had to repress the demons that lurked inside me... The ones with the fucked-up fetishes and constant demands to satiate their desires. Sometimes, the urge was dull enough to ignore, but other times, it got to be so much that red became the only

BREA POV.The air was chillier today and I got an eerie feeling that things were not going to go right.Days had passed and I didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified of something worse happening. At least I had been left all alone to my device. No collar. No chains. But every now and then, I could still see the manic look in Nicolai's eyes at our last encounter, and the words he'd spoken as his teeth grazed my heated flesh. "I will hurt you because it pleases me to"His words... They never seemed to fade from my memory, and he was the star of all my nightmares. I couldn't stop thinking about him no matter how hard I tried, and not seeing him made me wallow in a dreadful state of anticipation. Why was he just letting me be? After all that drama. He'd dragged me off to a room, just like the one I'd left, but the new room was much larger, and it was painted a mixture of black and red. Adjusting to the new environment as much as the pain would allow, my gaze roved around the ro

NICOLAI POV.Everything was freaking slipping out of my control and it made my chest tight with apprehension. I teetered on the edge, the image of Brea on her knees replaying in my mind over and over again.I always planned everything to a T, but with Brea, every plan just went out of the window, and all I did whenever we were in the same space, just happened, and I should have known that it was going to be like that after the first time I kissed her. She was beautiful, but it wasn't just that. It was the way she stared at me, the way she really looked at me. No one has ever held my gaze the way she did, and it made my heart beat funny in my chest. Did she see me? It was absurd the effect she had on me when she wasn't supposed to matter. Brea had an innocent aura about her that called to my demons to corrupt but I knew it was all a projection. I could see her, see into her soul where the fierce twisted girl she was, resided. I still got chill when I remembered the way she'd smiled