Dubious – MMMF – Darkly Ever After Read Online Mila Crawford

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Forbidden Tags Authors: Mila Crawford Advertisement

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“I’m not leaving, Asher.” Ella’s voice burst through the cloud of doom hanging over my head. “I’m not leaving. I’ll sleep outside your door if I have to, but I’m not leaving.”

With three large strides, I swung open the door. My face was directly in front of hers, my teeth bared like a wolf facing off with a small woodland creature. “You have no self-preservation, do you, Ella?”

She didn’t back down. Squaring her shoulders, she stuck out her chest and faced me. It didn’t matter that she was craning her neck back even as I bent forward, lowering my massive height to her level.

I stepped forward to make her retreat, but other than a slight wobble, she didn’t budge.

I laughed as I gripped her neck and raised her from the floor, not with joy but with the urge to frighten her. Her eyes morphed from concern to horror as she finally clued into what I was capable of. Little Miss Perfect thought she could tame the beast, and now she regretted her foolishness. “You should’ve left well enough alone, Pup, but you barked up the wrong tree.”

“Ash—” Her clawing slowed as my fingers tightened around her throat.

I could end her right now. Squeeze until her final breath escaped from her lips. Revel in the wave of satisfaction as her lifeless body fell to the floor.

But the desperate look in her eyes froze me. There was no reason the terror in her eyes should captivate me, but their silent plea forced me to abandon my grasp and watch as her body crashed to the floor. “Stay. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me.”

Turning my back on her, I was about to return to my prison in this mausoleum of a house when her soft voice punched me directly in the gut.

There were moments when people believed you had an angel with you. A small sign from a divinity roaming in the heavens trying to reach you. Save you. Perhaps even heal you. I’d never given much weight to idiot notions of the divine. Fictional concepts in a world where redemption and salvation were possible invoked deep-rooted feelings of manipulation.

But this pure girl with her bright eyes clouded with concern forced me to stop because I saw the innocence that was ripped so violently from me in Ella. But there was something else. Shame. The anchor that had held me down for most of my life, causing my anger and violence to fester and grow.

I stood in the hall, shrouded by shadows and ambiguity. The powerful man I’d convinced myself I’d become suddenly seemed like a delusion. The only notion rattling in my brain, like a ship tossed on the murky waters of an angry, turbulent ocean, was that I was lost and frightened. Just like that little boy many years ago who’d wanted nothing more than to be cradled in his mother’s arms while she told him everything would be okay.

Turning in horror, I witnessed the irrefutable proof of my handiwork on Ella’s delicate neck. Red marks viciously highlighted her flesh.

I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to erase my savagery. Intrusive voices whispered from the past, deeming me an animal, a piece of meat to be manipulated and discarded. The words echoed with disdain and venom, eroding my self-worth, and painting me as something inhuman.

I forced myself to remember that things had changed. How the days of being less than nothing had forged my resolution to own the brutality forced upon me. The realization that my oppressors' hatred had created a man who would not slither into the void without a volcanic explosion of redemption, stripping the wrongdoers of their violence and harm.

The retribution I sought, my desire to ensure the offenders suffered the same fate as so many innocent people, could not equate to me becoming one of them. That was why I’d turned the corrupt darkness into the hollow parts of my soul unto myself. Every fiber of my being contained a conflicting war, a confrontation between good and evil. The truth glared at me like a reflection in shimmering water. If I harmed Ella, I’d become what I hated the most.

Celeste.

Ella tucked her legs under her arms, shrinking away from me. The same thing I’d done many years ago. An irrational impulse to make yourself smaller so you’d become invisible to those who wanted to hurt you. It never worked because, for demons, those moments of fear and desperation heightened their vampiric desire. It was an aphrodisiac—a twisted game of foreplay. But Ella was far more fortunate than I’d been. She hadn’t faced a monster who’d subjected her to unknown torture for its pleasure. I was a broken man trying to find my way.

I bent, forcing myself to appear less threatening, more vulnerable. “I’m not going to hurt you, Ella.” I raised my empty hands in the air, hoping she believed me. I couldn’t begrudge her if she didn’t. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I meant those words more than anything I’d ever said.

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