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Before—Fannie Caldwell
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Fannie Caldwell was born Jaqueline Richards. She’d had entertainment while it lasted—murdering whores, slicing and dicing into their luscious flesh. She may have been a whore herself, but she’d yearned for the blood—the warm, red liquid that she loved to lick off her tools after a murder.
She would have never been found out. Her intelligence was beyond anyone’s thinking capacity, and that laughable police force would never have been able to discover her.
A common cold turned into bronchitis that led to pneumonia was what had ended her killing spree. Something as simple as that. She would have preferred to be taken down with her skin peeled off—something painful, yet pleasurable. A simple cut was all it would take to light up all her nerve endings. Alas, Jack the Ripper was only a mortal.
Jaqueline had wanted a new name when she returned from the Underworld. She would become immortal, and nothing would take her down this time. Fannie Caldwell was the name that rolled off her tongue.
“I went over the plan with your son,” Fannie said, focusing on her master—her real master. She only truly wanted him. Not Vale.
“Does he approve?” Vale’s father still lay in bed naked, and Fannie thought of all the delicious things she had done with him earlier. Sucking him, riding him. The things she would do again once this conversation was over.
“Yes.” She smiled, licking her lips. “With his abilities, he is going to build a barrier of sorts. It is to resemble a museum, and there will be different boxes that will trap individual souls. Those souls will be able to perish inside their box and become indestructible, and they will bring more souls into its walls once released.”
Master ran his wet tongue across his white teeth, tempting Fannie to obliterate the conversation.
“You did not tell him I will eventually be released once enough souls are pulled from the earth, did you?” His black eyes narrowed into thin slits as if he believed she could be tempted by another. Impossible.
“No, Master.” When she was pulled from her cage on her first day in the Underworld, after Vale cut into her repeatedly, Master found her. He could see she was not fearful like the others but enjoyed every minute of her torment, so he confiscated her. She told him about the days of her own joy above, and he was astonished she could remember. He relished it, relished her.
He knew she had a purpose, and Vale would be their personal little marionette. Master would hold the strings, but Fannie would keep them from unraveling. That frail, miserable young male she’d watched from her cage, her first day in the Underworld, had been undeserving of the powers he held in his possession. He still was. Those powers were waiting to be fully unleashed, and Fannie and her master would have it all.
“Good. His heart seems to have been permanently stopped, but if it ever beats again, he cannot know this.” A deep crease settled in between Master’s blond brows.
“As you wish.” She took a sultry step toward him.
“Vale must believe you serve him up there.” Master leaned forward, staring hard at her. “Do not make a single mistake for him to believe you want this for yourself. He can only believe I want this for him, to help him grow stronger, and he will grow stronger. But then his powers will come to me as my insides drain him of all he has.”
Fannie nodded, peeling off her dress and letting it drop to the floor. She took another step in his direction, heat pooling at her core, lust filling her.
“When I’m released, you will stand by my side.” He held up a finger. “But if this fails, I will find you, and the things you did above ground, the torture Vale presented to you, are minuscule to what I will do. I will shred every part of you there is.” Master stuck the end of his index finger in between his teeth and lightly bit it.
Fannie closed her eyes and let those sentences flow through her. Those words were a delicacy she wished to taste. Either way sounded like a triumph to her. She wanted to be ripped into by her master with her weapon of choice. If they were above ground, she would still make him do so, with the new power he would possess. That was a true dessert she craved. Her nipples hardened at the thought.
She sauntered to the bed and closed the distance between them. Master’s eyes roamed over her naked body hungrily, as if knowing what she wanted from him. And she was going to have him begin now.
