Marked By The Devil's Heir
Trigger Warning: This book is extremely dark, containing themes of obsession, strong sexual content, abuse, and psychological manipulation. Read at your own risk.
"I'll delete the pictures depending on how obedient you are. You have to do everything I say. If I want you to become a dog, you get on your knees and bark. Do we have a deal?"
Pierce leans down to Malakai's height, his lips brushing the shell of his ear, close enough to taste his fear.
"You don't want her to know what a dirty little creep you are, do you?"
Malakai Kreston is the preacher's perfect son. Quiet. Obedient. The kind of boy no one looks at twice.
But Malakai has a filthy secret. And he'll do anything-anything-to keep it buried.
Enter Pierce Masterson.
Wealthy. Attractive. Pierce doesn't just want Malakai's secret. He wants Malakai. All of him. His fear. His obedience. His body. His mind.
Pierce wants to own it, and lock it away where no one else can ever touch it.
Kai has always been the hunter-watching from the shadows, obsessing in silence, taking what doesn't belong to him.
Now someone is hunting him.
And Pierce doesn't play fair. He plays dirty.
How far can you run when the devil already knows every dark corner of your soul?
In a game of predator and prey, the lines blur. The roles reverse. And the most dangerous thing isn't the boy who holds the blackmail-
It's the moment Malakai stops wanting to be free.
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Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
MALAKAI
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The whole week has been so draining.
The best part about weekends for me isn't just about not going to school but also the fact that my parents aren't around. They have to attend several church programs. Their absence is a symbol of peace and freedom.
This time around, I am ecstatic that I won't have to see that lunatic.
Every time I close my eyes, I still feel his hand around my throat. Around my-
I shake my head violently. Stop thinking about it.
A knock sounds on my door. I look up to see my brother. He enters my room, and I can't help but notice his flashy attire. Ripped jeans, a chain around his neck, dark eyeliner smudged beneath his eyes. He looks like a completely different person from the boy who used to follow me around as a kid.
"You didn't come to school today," I say.
Ezra's expression hardens instantly. "Why? Are you going to report to Dad?" He leans against my doorframe, arms crossed, jaw tight. "Not everyone can be a great son like you. Perfect attendance, top of the class. I can't even compete with you." His voice drips with sarcasm. "You're so annoying, you know that?"
How long has he been waiting to say these words to me?
I can't even blame him. Our father is the root cause. Every comparison, every beating Ezra took while I stood in the corner, every time Dad held me up as the golden standard. The wedge between us has been growing for years.
Skipping school isn't just the problem. I'm more concerned about the friends he's been hanging around with lately. They smoke and drink. I've heard rumors about worse things. I'm afraid of Ezra being influenced. He's just sixteen. He doesn't believe it, but I do care about him.
"Don't blame me for last time," I say. "I didn't snitch to anyone. It isn't my fault that you left your business carelessly for Dad to see."
"Are you telling me that you're just better at not being caught?" Ezra pushes off the doorframe and takes a step into my room. His eyes narrow, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. "It makes me wonder the sort of things you do..."
I grow uncomfortable under Ezra's sudden interested stare. He's looking at me like he's trying to crack open my skull and peer inside.
"You don't look like you have a single bad bone in you." He takes another step closer. "You don't have a girlfriend either because I've never seen you even look in any girl's direction." His head tilts. "So what secret are you hiding, big brother?"
My laptop suddenly feels like a ticking bomb on my desk. My collection. My photos. My stolen treasures.
"I don't hide things." My voice comes out too defensive. Too quick. "If you're done, then get out of my room!"
My heart is starting to race. I don't like being so carefully observed like this. Ezra has always been perceptive, even as a kid. He notices things.
"Seeing how skittish you are..." A slow smile spreads across his face. "Are you really hiding something?" He pauses, letting the silence stretch. "Can it be that you like boys instead? Are you gay?"
"What?!" I scream.
Why would he even ask that?
Pierce's face flashes in my mind. His hand grabbing me in that shower. The way my body had-
No. No.
"You're not even denying it." Ezra's smile widens.
"Hell no! I like girls! Why the hell would I be gay?" I flare defensively and start to push him towards the door. "Now get out!"
"Why did you get so aggressive?" He laughs, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "Anyway, I'm just here to tell you that I'll be attending John's party tonight. Remember to lock the doors after me, and if our parents call, just tell them that I fell asleep."
He starts to leave, but I stop him.
"Why are you hanging out with those junkies again? They're violent and always in trouble with the police. Sooner or later, you'll get in trouble because of them!"
"I know my way around." He shrugs, already half out the door. "And unlike you, I actually have a social life."
I stare at him, dumbfounded. I know I'm not a saint myself, but Ezra is still a kid! He shouldn't be running with people like that.
He leaves the room, and I sigh frustratedly. If I try to stop him, he'll only get more stubborn. How do I even approach this issue?
Or maybe I'm overreacting?
I'm still a virgin at eighteen, and it gets embarrassing sometimes, especially when the boys share their experiences in the locker room. I always feel left out, sitting silently while they brag about conquests. I'm saving myself for Lana. She's the only one I want to be with.
I jump on my bed and land on my stomach.
"Fuck!" I hiss at the sore sensation in my groin region.
That lunatic had nearly broken me down there. How am I supposed to start a family with Lana if things stop working?
My hand slips beneath my waistband to check. It's still painful. Bruised.
Is it even still working? Maybe I should find out. At least just to be safe.
I ignore the soreness and try to get myself going.
It's taking a while, but I still don't feel anything.
My lips tighten in deeper concentration.
Come on. Come on.
That bastard's face is all I can see.
'How are you going to impress Lana with this...' His taunts replay loudly in my head.
Shut up!
'Or does it get bigger when you're aroused? But still... It's not enough for you to use on anyone.'
His mocking voice won't even let my body cooperate.
Or is it damaged? I stare down at myself in dismay.
No. I just need something to stimulate me and get rid of Pierce's voice in my head.
I wiggle to the side of my bed and open my drawer to pull out my newest treasure.
Lana's handkerchief.
I press it hard against my nose and inhale deeply. The fragrance of her perfume still lingers, soft and floral. I try again and imagine it's Lana's touch instead. Her soft, delicate fingers. Her sweet voice whispering my name.
I close my eyes.
But it isn't Lana's face that comes to mind.
All I can see is Pierce. Pierce. And fucking Pierce.
His dark eyes boring into mine. His hot breath on my face. His grip on me in that shower. The way he'd leaned so close our noses almost touched. The way I'd felt him hard against my thigh.
'Good boy...'
"Holy shit!" The curse slips from my mouth.
My body is reacting now.
And it's because of Pierce?
No way.
My brain and body are certainly malfunctioning. Why would thinking about Pierce ever do this to me? I'm not gay. And even if I were, I deeply despise Pierce. He's a monster. A psychopath. He humiliated me. He hurt me.
So why is my body responding to the memory?
I feel sick.
I snatch my laptop open. A picture of Lana is all I need. She'll fix this. She'll remind me of what I really want.
I open my secret gallery.
And freeze.
Panic and shock zip through my whole body like lightning.
Nothing.
The folder is empty.
It's all gone. All of Lana's pictures. Every image I'd painstakingly saved and organized.
Gone.
I sit up in disbelief, my heart hammering against my ribs. How did this happen? This laptop can only be accessed by me. There's no way I deleted it without knowing.
Is there some kind of error? A glitch? I click through folder after folder, searching desperately.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
It's like they never existed.
I'm still in a confused mess when my phone vibrates, startling me so badly I nearly drop it.
It's a message. I don't recognize the number.
My fingers tremble as I click on it.
It's a picture.
A picture of Lana.
The most recent one that I'd taken. The one where she's laughing at something, her hair catching the sunlight. I remember taking it just last week, hiding behind the bleachers.
How?
How does someone have this?
My whole body goes cold as I read the single word beneath the image. A word that ripples my whole body with ice-cold panic.
'PERVERT'
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9.2
Averie spent hours preparing a perfect third-anniversary dinner for her billionaire husband, Jarett Sharp.
Instead of celebrating, she received an anonymous photo of him intimately holding another woman.
When Jarett finally arrived, he didn't even look guilty.
"Candida. It's okay. Don't be scared. I'm on my way."
He simply took a call from his mistress, shoved Averie aside, and walked right back out the door.
That same night, Averie's father suffered a massive heart attack.
The hospital demanded a half-million-dollar deposit before they would operate.
But when Averie frantically tried to use the emergency medical trust card Jarett had given her, it was declined.
Jarett had deliberately frozen her access to the funds just hours earlier.
While she begged his assistant on the phone, Jarett refused to be disturbed, busy wrapping his expensive coat around his mistress in the hospital garden.
Averie collapsed in the hallway, realizing the man she loved was deliberately letting her father die.
In the end, a childhood friend stepped in to pay the bill and save her father's life, while her billionaire husband later pinned her to their bed, throwing a check at her and reminding her he had bought her for three million dollars.
Averie didn't shed a single tear.
She slowly ripped his check into pieces, left her massive diamond ring on the dresser, and walked out into the cold New York night with nothing but her old suitcase.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her old ballet professor.
She wasn't just going to leave Jarett Sharp. She was going to destroy him.
7.5
Celine loves her lover Zack very much. It was so deep that he was willing to introduce her to his father. All he got was a wound. Zack suddenly turned cold, walked away for no reason, then had the heart to return his longing with a rude attitude.
When a status on social media reveals Zack's dark side, which is hungry for women and money, Celine's heart is broken.
What's more surprising is that none of this is a coincidence. Zack wanted to destroy it. But in the midst of the destruction, there was one person who stood silently behind Celine, Arlend. The man who had been harboring feelings, was not willing to see Celine fall too deep.
Just as Celine is about to end her life on the city bridge, Arlend arrives. He saved Celine's body and possibly her soul. From that day on, Arlend vowed never to leave Celine alone again.
But Celine's wound was not finished. When Adiwangsa was threatened with bankruptcy, his position as leader was shaken. And when he chooses to secretly marry Arlend, Zack's shadow hasn't really gone from Celine's side.
How can Celine deal with all this? Between the past, and the man who is now with her.
9.0
For three years, I wasn't a foster child. I was a living, breathing cure.
Hidden away in the attic of the Thomas mansion, my sole purpose was to keep their precious daughter alive. Every week, they drained my blood to treat her rare disease, leaving me anemic, scarred, and invisible. I was the "walking blood bag" from the wrong side of the tracks-a stray they'd reluctantly taken in.
The day Katharina was finally cured, I overheard the truth. "That walking blood bag has served her purpose," the grandmother hissed. "We are done with her."
They threw me out into a freezing rainstorm, tossing a crumpled check at my feet like a tip for a beggar. Payment, they said, for the years I'd "leeched" off their family. Payment for the six thousand milliliters of blood they'd stolen, for the chronic anemia, for the scars.
I shredded their charity in front of their faces and walked into the storm.
They laughed, screaming that I'd be back, that I'd be begging on the streets by morning. But as I stood alone on that dark road, my world shifted. A sleek, black Rolls-Royce pulled up in silence. The door opened, and my real family stepped out.
I wasn't a stray from the slums. I was their lost heiress. And the Thomases are about to learn that the girl they bled dry is now the one holding all the power.
9.0
I married him to save my family.
He married me to destroy my life.
Evelyn Hart never imagined she would become the wife of the coldest billionaire in the city especially not the man who looked at her like she was his greatest enemy.
Five years ago, she loved Lucas Blackwood with her whole heart... until he accused her of betraying him and vanished from her life.
Now he's back.
Richer. Colder. Crueler.
When her father's company collapses, Lucas offers her a deal she can't refuse:
marry him for one year... and he will erase her family's debts.
But what Evelyn doesn't know is that Lucas believes she ruined his life and this marriage is his perfect revenge plan.
Every day, he humiliates her.
Every night, he reminds her that she means nothing to him.
Every touch burns with hatred... and desire.
But the deeper Evelyn falls, the closer the truth comes out.
She never betrayed him.
She was set up.
And when Lucas finally realised he married the wrong enemy...
Will he fight for her love...
or lose her forever?
7.6
My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through.
That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister.
But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library.
They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien.
Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve.
I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen.
This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over.
"No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."
7.7
Alondra spent three hours making soup for her husband, only to find him at the hospital tenderly holding another woman's hand.
"I'm four weeks pregnant, Gerard," the woman said softly.
Gerard coldly handed Alondra a divorce agreement, claiming their three-year marriage was just a placeholder because this woman had once saved his life.
Heartbroken, Alondra fled in her car, only to realize her brakes had been completely disabled.
She spun out of control and crashed head-on into a massive delivery truck.
As she lay trapped in the mangled wreckage with her ribs crushed and blood filling her mouth, Gerard's black Maybach pulled up to the curb.
He stared at her dying body through the window with a completely blank expression.
He didn't call an ambulance or even open his door.
He simply rolled up his tinted window and drove away into the rain.
A raw, suffocating hatred burned in her chest, hotter than the pain in her shattered bones.
She couldn't understand how the man she had loved and served so devotedly could just coldly watch her die like a piece of trash.
Opening her eyes again, Alondra gasped for air.
She had returned to the exact morning two years ago, right before she was supposed to deliver that pathetic soup.
When Gerard walked in and threatened her with divorce, she didn't cry or beg.
"I agree. Let's divorce," she said calmly, packing her bags to reclaim her true identity as a billionaire heiress.