Dark Desires (The Desecration of Innocence Book 2)

  Dark Desires

  The Desecration of Innocence: Book Two

  Candace Wondrak

  © 2021 Candace Wondrak

  All Rights Reserved.

  Book cover by Victoria Schaefer at EVE’s Garden of Eden – A Cover Group

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  Books by Candace Wondrak are only available at Amazon. If you are reading elsewhere, please note it is an illegal, pirated copy, uploaded without my permission. I, the author, nor the distributor received payment for the copy, and if prosecuted violation comes with a fine of up to $250,000. Please do not pirate books.

  Chapter One – Juliet

  Chapter Two – Jaxon

  Chapter Three – Juliet

  Chapter Four – Markus

  Chapter Five – Juliet

  Chapter Six – Will

  Chapter Seven – Juliet

  Chapter Eight – Markus

  Chapter Nine – Juliet

  Chapter Ten – Jaxon

  Chapter Eleven – Juliet

  Chapter Twelve – Will

  Chapter Thirteen – Juliet

  Chapter Fourteen – Juliet

  Chapter Fifteen – Markus

  Author’s note:

  Again, this series contains many dark, triggering things that might make you uncomfortable. Violence, kidnapping, noncom, gore, murder, assault, the works. DO NOT read if you cannot handle love interests who are not nice. These guys are cruel. They take what they want. You've been warned multiple times.

  Also, in case you haven’t already realized, this is a SERIES. Meaning, it won’t be wrapped up nicely in a bow until the very end… and even then, the bow might not be so nice for everyone involved. If you can’t handle that, don’t pick up the book.

  Chapter One – Juliet

  Sometimes it felt like the world closed in on me, pressing against me, stifling me. Choking me. Some days I wondered what it was like to have a normal life, a normal family: a mother and a father who cared for me but let me live, like I saw in all those TV shows. Some nights I lay awake wondering if I’d ever be free.

  But did I want to be? After all, being free meant every decision would be mine. I would have no one looking out for me, no one doing what they could to keep me safe; that’s all Daddy was doing when he punished me.

  At least, that’s what I believed.

  I had to, for if I believed something else, where would I be? Lost and scared, nothing more than a little girl trying to play adult.

  For the first time in what felt like forever, I was out of the house with Daddy; we’d gone to a party of some sort in a place called Midpark, and I’d been bad. I’d wandered away from his side even though he’d told me not to. I’d met a man named Markus, and even though I hadn’t seen his face, I couldn’t stop picturing my imaginary prince in the car with me instead of Daddy, his suit snug on his tall, strong body.

  Oh, I knew Markus was a stranger to me, but so was everyone else in the world. When you were locked away for your own good, I think you tended to be a bit more idealistic than most. I felt so much older than I was, and I didn’t know whether I should blame Daddy or myself for that.

  Daddy’s jaw was tense the whole ride home, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. When I’d wandered back to his side at the party, I’d known it right then: he was angry with me. Beyond angry. Even though his face had been hidden by a mask, he’d wanted to yell at me. Just barely the man had held back, probably because there were strangers around.

  He’d excused himself, walked over to me, and took me by the arm, dragging me out of the mansion and away from the man who’d taken off my mask to see my face. Away from Markus and any hope I had that I’d meet the prince who would save me from my own existence. He’d stuffed me into the car, and we began the long drive home in silence.

  Not for the first time, I turned my head to look at Daddy, an ache in my heart. I did so hate disappointing him, but what did he honestly expect? To bring me out into the world and somehow keep me tucked under his wing like a baby bird? I was old enough to know there was so much more out there, waiting for me.

  But I also knew it was a dangerous place, and if you weren’t careful, it could swallow you up and never spit you out. You could lose yourself, everything you were, in the world and its vices. I never wanted to know what that felt like. I didn’t want to be devoured by darkness.

  “Daddy,” I spoke, breaking the silence of the car, “I’m sorry—” Anything else I might’ve said died in my throat when he refused to look at me. It was as if I’d disappointed him to the core, almost like he hated me right now.

  I hated myself for making him feel like that. I should never have left his side. The thought shouldn’t have ever crossed my mind, let alone the courage to actually do it. Daddy was all I had in this world; I shouldn’t want to find my prince and leave him. What would he do without me?

  When I realized he wasn’t going to respond to me, I settled back in my seat, my eyes on my lap. The dress I wore felt strange. I felt out of place wearing it, especially now that I was back in the car. Don’t get me started on how Daddy looked in his suit; as much as I shouldn’t want to think of that man again, Markus had looked so much more handsome wearing a suit than Daddy did.

  Markus. Even though I knew it was wrong, I also knew that man and his masked face would haunt my dreams. Everything he’d said, how he’d touched my own mask, studying me as if I was the most wonderful, innocent thing he’d ever seen. Almost precious, but curious at the same time.

  I thought I’d liked it, but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure. How could you be sure of something you’d never felt before?

  I didn’t know how much longer it took us to reach our home. I stopped looking at the clock on the center dashboard, instead fixated on the hands in my lap. My own hands, and yet they looked strange, foreign, as if they were not my hands at all.

  Daddy pulled the car into the garage, parking it and turning it off without a single word to me. He pressed the button on the visor and the garage door jolted to life, closing behind us. A vein in his forehead popped as he unclicked his seatbelt and got out of the car, slamming his door behind him. Still, I did not move. I couldn’t.

  He came around the front of the car, to the passenger side door, my door. He flung it open, leaned inside and unbuckled my seatbelt for me. Daddy’s hand curled around my upper arm, and he dragged me out of the car, rougher than he’d ever been with me before. Just went to show how much I’d angered him by wandering off—the exact thing he’d told me not to do.

  I was meant to stay by his side. Why couldn’t I listen to him? Why did I want to go off on my own? Stupid, stupid. Something could’ve happened to me. That Markus could’ve been crazy or something. How was I supposed to know? It wasn’t like I spent any time around other people, not like I knew how to read them or even interact with them. Watching TV was one thing, but actually being in a room full of other people and knowing what to say and how to act was another entirely.

  I wasn’t ready for it. I shouldn’t have gone with him.

  But then… even though I’d begged him to let me tag along, the decision had always been Daddy’s. He’d willingly brought me to that party. Surely he’d known I would want a little taste of freedom? I’d been so good for years now, sticking to the house like a good girl; I hadn’t left the house while he was gone again because I couldn’t stand to know how much my actions caused him grief.

  Daddy held onto my arm so roughly I winced as he dragged me through the garage, around the car and to the door to the house. He practically kicked it down to get us inside, and within another moment, he dragged me up the stairs. I tripped as I tried to follow him, but with the way he held onto my arm, holding it a bit too high, fingers curled a bit too hard around my flesh, I felt like a dog that didn’t know how to walk on a leash.

  I felt stupid. But I guessed that was because I was stupid. Stupid for leaving his side, stupid for not listening to him. I was old enough now to know this was the only place I was safe, and Daddy was the only person in the whole world who cared about me.

  Daddy said nothing, not even as we finally came to the hall upstairs. He didn’t have to. Anything he could’ve said had already raced through my mind. Any words from him would’ve only reinforced what I already knew: I’d been bad, and bad girls got punished. Bad girls got locked away until they thought about what they did and why their actions were so awful.

  My bedroom door hung open, and as we walked through it, my eyes lingered on the lock. I’d watched enough shows to know the way Daddy had my room set up was unconventional. The lock to my door was on the outside, as was the light switch. When I was bad, he locked me inside, leaving me with no power and my only light from the sun during the day.

  Daddy released me, finally, but he released me by shoving me away from him. I tripped on my own feet, tumbling to the floor. I looked up at him, eyes watering, and I opened my mouth to say something, but he shook his head at me, as if he could spit on me, and turned, walking away.

  I heard the lock bolt on the door in the hall, shut in my bedroom with nothing but the sound of my racing heart and the light coming in from the moon outside. Hardly any light at
all, really, but as I stared at the shadow of my door in the darkness, my eyes adjusted.

  A single tear cascaded down my cheek, and I resisted my urge to fling myself at the door and cry for him, whimper and call for Daddy to let me out of here. He wouldn’t come back. He would only let me out when he believed I’d learned my lesson.

  But the thing was, I already had, which was exactly why I didn’t bother going to the door and shouting for him, telling him over and over how sorry I was for doing what I’d done. I knew I’d done wrong, knew I never should’ve left Daddy’s side. I knew all this, so whining for him to let me out was pointless.

  He’d let me out in time. I just had to get through it.

  Time was a funny thing when you had nothing to occupy yourself with. When there was no TV, no games, and the world was too dark for books, what did you have besides your mind? I tried not to think too much, not as I changed out of the dress, not as I found my pajamas in the dark and went to my closet, curling myself in its corner, on the floor, my legs pulled in close to my chest.

  Did I have some books in here? Yes, but passing the time with something I found pleasurable seemed like an insult to Daddy, and I tried not to do it, even when I had ample light. When he finally calmed down, when he would come in here and let me out, he’d find me right where I was. My body would ache and be sore from being so curled up, but it was a habit now.

  And, even so, beyond being a habit, the utter darkness of my closet was the closest thing to true freedom I could get in here. My mind was the only safe place.

  How could I hate disappointing Daddy so much, but also want something for myself at the same time? It seemed like a ridiculous paradox, something that couldn’t exist, but here I was, alone with my mind and a whole world I’d built inside of it.

  In my head, the world out there wasn’t dark. It wasn’t full of people that would hurt me the first chance they had. It was full of good men and women, families who loved each other, friends who laughed and joked around at all times, and boys who were more like princes than anything else.

  Only now, when I imagined my prince charming, I found myself picturing a man in a suit. A man whose height made my neck crane back anytime I wanted to look at him. A man whose face I couldn’t exactly see but knew in my heart: he was handsome. Handsome and gorgeous and warm. His name happened to be Markus, but beyond that, he had no similarities to the Markus I’d met at the party.

  The true Markus would only be a disappointment. He’d want to hurt me. I couldn’t trust anyone out there in the world, and yet that truth did not stop my heart from beating a little faster as I imagined it.

  The feel of his hand on my cheek. The pressure I felt beneath those eyes. Those things might lead a girl to imagine some inappropriate scenarios—but I was a good girl, and every time my imagination danced closer to a scene like that, I pushed it away. I would not let the world outside stain me. I was better than that.

  At least, that’s what I told myself, but as the night turned into morning and Daddy had still not come to let me out, I found my mind drifting off, wondering if it would really be so bad—if it was immoral to want a man’s arms around me, to want to feel his skin against mine, to breathe him in and know he would do anything in the world to protect me.

  Even though I doubted I would ever find one, I wanted my own prince.

  Little did I know at that time I’d already met him… only his armor was not the sparkling white I thought it would be. It was black, as black as his eyes and his soul. My prince was no prince, you see, but the devil in disguise.

  I knew that now. As I cradled myself in the pitch-blackness of the room, I knew that with unwavering certainty. To call Markus Scott a prince would be to insult all princes everywhere—and, by extension, all demons and devils.

  He was the worst of the worst. Vile and vicious, the kind of man who didn’t care if he stained his hands with the blood of innocents. All because of me, to prove a point.

  No, I could not forget the air in this room smelled awful, thick with metal and piss, because of me. It was all because of me, because I’d tried to run.

  Stupid, stupid girl. There was no running. Once you were in the devil’s embrace, he didn’t let you go. He dragged you down to his level, tortured you, made you as miserable as you could possibly be, and then kept picking at you until there was nothing left.

  And there would be nothing left of me by the time it was over.

  I knew that. I knew it in my heart of hearts, the deepest, darkest part of me. I knew there would be no escape from him, from this house, from these men and their dark fascinations and fantasies. No running from whatever Daddy did or didn’t do; none of it mattered. You couldn’t rewind time. I was stuck here, hope dwindling inside me with each passing moment.

  You know, I’d forgotten what it was like, being locked up. I’d been such a good, agreeable girl since the night after the party. I’d avoided getting locked inside my own room, steered clear of sitting in my closet like a frightened child trying to hide away from the world and its terrors. It was amazing how much you could regress, and how quickly, too.

  For instance, I banged on the door, tried to call out to someone, anyone. To Markus, to Will, to anyone who could hear me; but no one could. The light in the hall stayed off, telling me no one was nearby. I was alone, as alone as I could ever be, trapped with a dead body and blood so thick and plentiful it stained my feet and my legs when I collapsed against the wall.

  I’d cried. I’d rocked back and forth. I’d lost all sense of logical thought. In here, it was true darkness. Not a shred of light anywhere. No window to the outside world, no moon or sun telling me if hours or days had passed.

  Time was impossible to keep, and I knew each minute gone by felt more like an hour, and each hour felt like a day.

  I shouldn’t have run. I should’ve known, just like I should’ve known that night at the party not to leave Daddy’s side. It was a bad idea, and I wasn’t a bad girl. I was a good girl, someone who did what she was told. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.

  I felt like I was losing my mind. Slowly but surely, every bit of sanity in my body leaving me as time went on. My mind could not stop picturing the man who was now nothing but a corpse, how he’d looked with his guts spilled out, all that blood… the feeling of it on my hands, in between my toes.

  It was not a good feeling, and even when I tried to picture it was something else, imagined it was just oddly thick water, my mind wouldn’t have it. I knew it was blood covering me, knew what the room would look like the moment the lights flickered on. I knew, and I was terrified to see it again.

  All that blood. All that bright red, sticky blood. There was no way I’d be able to get it out of my pajamas—my clothes, the only ones I had with me that reminded me of home. I loved these fuzzy pajamas, and getting rid of them was the absolute last thing I wanted to do.

  I supposed, then, it was a good thing I’d be forced to. If I got rid of the only thing that reminded me of home, maybe I’d stop thinking about it. Maybe I’d be forced to face the fact I might not ever leave this place alive. Markus Scott and his band of psychos had me by the throat, by the heart, by each and every part of me, and I would never be let go.

  This house… I would die in it. I would die here, never knowing true freedom. Never knowing what it was Daddy did to anger Markus. I would meet my end here, and the worst part of it was I’d seen it coming.

  I’d seen it coming, and I didn’t fight harder, didn’t try to run immediately. I’d known from the very beginning, deep down, I could never escape Markus and his reach. I was a fool for even trying to get out of this miserable place.

  You would think the worst part was knowing. Knowledge itself was a scary thing, after all. Sometimes the mind simply could not handle knowing what it knew, and it broke. Minds were such fragile things, and even though there were some people out there who dedicated their entire lives to studying them, there was no definitive answer. Everyone was different. Every person in this world had a different breaking point.