Even though her words weren’t meant for me, they were too apt—the perfect conclusion of our f**ked-up relationship.
Locking my arms, I held her close. Sliding onto my side, I tucked her back to my front, wrapping a leg around hers. Spooned and cocooned—protected by my body.
“It’s okay, esclave. I’m going to fix this. I don’t know how yet…but I will.”
Tess didn’t respond. Even with the heat of the room and warmth from the sheets, her body was ice. Worse than ice: it was dead—sucked into a dream where the only thing she wished for was to die.
Another shudder passed through her. My palm twitched with the urge to slap her awake, but I knew from experience it didn’t work. It only made me feel like shitless scum. Instead, I pressed my mouth against her soft curls, swallowing my anguish.
I wanted to f**king scream at how broken everything was. This was torture. Worst f**king crucifixion imaginable.
Don’t accept it. Don’t f**king put up with this.
I wanted to fight on her behalf. I wanted to tear her brain apart and delete what I’d done. Now she’d seen what I really wanted how could I hide? How could I ever convince her I would never raise my hand to her again—even though I would always dream of it?
Her body stiffened; I locked my arms tighter. I was ready for this part. It was the same night after night.
The nightmare came in threes: first the screams, then the pleas, and lastly the acceptance of absolute terror.
“Je suis là.” I’m here. I didn’t know if she heard—but at least she wasn’t going through this alone.
Her body seized like an epileptic. My biceps ached from holding, anchoring her to me, adrift in the storm of nightmares.
“You win. I beg. I beg you to end my life.”
The tears began. No sound, just a soft waterfall trailing her cheeks. Droplet after droplet of sadness. “Kill me!”
My stomach churned. I hated being so f**king helpless. Hated lying there unable to do anything.
Pins and needles stabbed my fingertips as I held her too hard. The protectiveness in my blood drummed with need to desecrate her demons. Her vulnerability angered me; I struggled briefly to see her as the strong fighter and not a broken slave.
Tess walked such a fine line in my life—she had to be strong, but not too strong to tempt me to break her. She had to be submissive, but not too weak that it called to the monster inside. Such a fine line where one slip meant either being shoved away in repulsion or dragged closer in poisonous obsession.
Not for the first time, I worried I was completely psychotic and in desperate need of help.
At least she wasn’t giving me mixed signals while she slept. And I no longer needed to find out the truth. I knew.
She hated pain.
Deplored pain.
The one thing that’d brought us together was the one thing driving us apart.
A flutter of her breath tickled my chest. I glanced down. The palm print from when I struck her in the hallway looked almost black in the gloom—outlined on her white thigh like a curse. The red burns from the wax on her br**sts were beautifully horrific.
My heart banged with disgust and passion.
You’re sick.
I bowed my head.
I know.
I’d wanted the truth, but Tess hid it too well. She had no idea my instincts would pick up on her tales, messing with my mind. The beast couldn’t tell what was real and what was not—driving me further into the dark.
But now she knew who I truly was. Knew what I’d kept hidden. The starkness of her lies were nothing to how black I really ran.
“You should’ve told me, Tess,” I murmured against her hair. “You helped me find my humanness but you took it away with your lies.”
My eyes flared. Was the unfixable fixable?
Maybe I had to let her hurt me again—pain for pain. Give her equal power. It worked previously, but not…completely. The research I’d done on Tess’s emotional shutdown stated she suffered symptoms of Dissociative Disorder. It wasn’t something curable overnight—if ever. Sure, I’d forced her to return to life, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to hide again. I had to go deeper than that. I had to break every chain of the disorder, changing her impulses from shutting down to believing in me.
I wouldn’t be able to repeat letting her emotionally and physically scar me—that had been a onetime deal. I’d never be able to give up control again.
Damn f**king Frederick and his ideas. It was his fault my mind was messed up. He’d made me become this…this thing.
I had to come up with something else—something chain-smashing, lie-killing, life-fixingly perfect.
My teeth ground as Tess stiffened, shaking her head against my arms. She mumbled something incomprehensible. The nightmare was coming to an end.
The bed suddenly felt too soft, too reminiscent of the mattress I lay upon while Tess coaxed me closer to death with the aid of floggers and cat o’ nine tails.
Untangling myself from her, I swung my legs over the side and dragged hands through my hair. With heavy limbs and a heavier heart, I made my way to the other side of the bed.
She looked so innocent and delicate; a blonde wraith sent to tempt and destroy me. But beneath the façade was a fighter—the same fighter who’d turned my world upside down, made me fall in love, and collared my demons.
I needed to get that fighter back.
Tess curled inward, looking like an ethereal being about to fade from this world. She was the sparrow I’d freed but never caught. The one bird who’d put me in a cage instead.
My eyes fell to my chest. I traced the red healing ‘T’ over my heart, before following the inked feathers and beady eyes of my favourite bird.
The symbol never failed to make me feel better about myself. I didn’t see a tattoo, I saw a promise; a message written on my skin, giving me faith to keep going—knowing I was better than my thoughts. Better than my f**king fantasies. I’d proven it by saving women I could so easily have broken.
My hands fell to bare skin on my right side where no clouds or barbwire existed. It wasn’t fair to leave that part unwritten. That part belonged to Tess and my future.
Tess’s body jolted as she slammed onto her back; her mouth opened in a silent scream. Sucking in greedy breaths, she cried, “No. Not again. I won’t—”
Goddammit, I couldn’t listen to this night after night. I couldn’t torture myself lying beside her when I couldn’t save her.
I would f**king save her, and in turn, I’d restore my self-worth.