Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Now’s the time.
It might be the only time.
We would never destroy each other, but…watching each other be hurt would definitely achieve it.
“Henri…” Taking my hand off Peter’s head so I wouldn’t feed him my fear, I scrunched up the blanket in my lap. “I need…I want you to promise me…”
When I didn’t finish, Henri gave me a soft smile. “You want me to promise you that I won’t fight back. That I’ll do what he asks so he won’t—”
“No!” I sat upright, my heart drumming. “No, not at all. I-I meant…I don’t think I’ll be able to watch Victor use you. Don’t give in. Don’t give him what he wants.”
He scowled. “But if I don’t, he’ll hurt you.”
“He’s already raped me once.” I braced my shoulders with bravery I didn’t feel. “I didn’t watch then, and I won’t watch in the future. It’s just sex—”
“Just sex? What the fuck are you saying?”
“Let him have me instead of you. My body is equipped—”
“Equipped? Why? Because you’re a woman and not a man?” His voice wobbled with rage. “Of all the things you could’ve asked me, Ily.”
Before I could reply, he roared, “It’s not just fucking sex, little nightmare. It’s violence. It’s degradation. If you think I’d willingly, actively, make him hurt you instead of me.” He scoffed with a cold laugh. “Fuck, how could you even ask that of me? Of course, I’ll do what he wants if it means protecting you. Of course, I’ll give him my body if it means you go untouched. What sort of man would I be if I didn’t? What sort of monster could—”
“You’re not a monster!” I shouted over him. “That’s the point! You’ve already suffered so much. In your childhood and here and I can’t…” Stinging tears shot to my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. “I won’t be able to watch him break you, Hen. I just…I can’t do it. Let him have me instead of you. If you get strong enough, you can find a way to—”
“I’m not letting him lay another fucking finger on you, Ily! I vowed that the night he raped you. And I’m not going back on my word. Even if it kills me.”
“But don’t you see? It will kill me watching him hurt you!”
“Then do what you’re so good at and don’t watch!” Henri snarled and yanked at the chain, trying to pull it out of the wall like the countless other times he’d tried. When he didn’t succeed, he punched his pillow with enough violence to make me shiver. His rage fanned out in the small space, licking at my ankles and tainting my blood to fight.
When he’d finished losing himself to fury, he clenched his jaw and hissed, “I’ll be okay. If you need to hear that I won’t let a little sodomy break me, then fine. I can handle it. I promise you on my life, Ily, I won’t let him break me. No matter what he does. I won’t break because I have you now, and you’re worth a thousand tortures.”
I rubbed my aching heart as tears ran hotly down my cheeks.
“I mean it, mon cœur.” He smiled gently. “I can handle it. No matter how bad it gets, I will always come back to you. You have my word.”
I shuddered with his oath. “Henri…”
His violence became a benediction. “I’m yours, little nightmare. And you’re going to have to trust me because you’re trapped in this awful place because of me and while you’re here, you’re mine, just like I’m yours. My heart and body belong to you, not him. And I’ll use every piece of myself if it means I can keep him as far away from you as possible.”
My tears turned to sobs.
Our fading fight finally woke Peter.
He came to as if he’d been deep underwater and barely knew how to swim above the surface of it anymore. Groggy eyes, tussled hair, scratchy voice. “What the—” Blinking at Henri fuming with helplessness across from us, he came awake in an instant. “What the hell did you say to her, you idiot?” With a soft groan, he crawled onto my bed and wrapped me in his chilly embrace.
None of us could get warm.
And I so longed to be warm.
I’d give anything to slip into the large spa bath in the jewel quarters.
I’d give five years of my life just to take a hot shower and then crawl into a hot bed with Henri’s arms tight and hot around me.
I cried harder.
The images of Victor bending Henri over and taking him.
The mental videos of other Masters whipping him, beating him, making him do unspeakable things.
It almost broke me seeing Peter and the others having to service men they despised. But watching the man who woke everything primal inside me? The man who seemed so invincible and immortal be diminished to a piece of meat for their pleasure…I-I can’t.