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)
Forgive me.
God…please, please forgive me.
I sat there sobbing as Victor gently unbuckled Henri’s ball gag and waited as Henri winced and moaned, working his jaw from its stiffness from being spread all night. “Your voice belongs to me now,” Victor murmured, massaging Henri’s cheeks with sick kindness. “You don’t speak unless it’s to me, do you understand?” Pressing a kiss to Henri’s sweat-drenched cheek, he murmured, “Your every sense is mine now. Test me if you must, but Ilyana will pay the price.”
Sucking in a tattered breath, Henri hung in his binds.
Peter gave him a heartbreaking look.
I held my bleeding soul in my hands.
And Henri delivered himself straight to the devil, sacrificing himself for me, for Paavak, for love.
“I understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That my senses belong to you.”
“Belong to me…what?”
Henri gulped. “Belong to you…Sir V.”
“Good boy.” Victor smiled as if Henri had agreed to a lazy afternoon of poker. “Think about what you’ve learned this morning. I’ll be back this afternoon with your next lesson.”
He left just like he had last night.
The ballroom doors closed.
Leaving the three of us bound and dying.
None of us spoke.
Not one of us looked at the other.
Exactly as Victor commanded.
Chapter Seven
………………………….
Henri
I SANK INSIDE MYSELF AND surrendered.
I shut off all my humanity and became that shadowy beast within.
A beast that’d been collared by a new Master. A Master who told me when to eat, drink, and sleep. I didn’t question him. I didn’t bite back. I let him steal every ounce of dignity all because I loved another far more than I loved myself.
Days turned into weeks.
Evenings into nightmares.
The things he did pushed me to the brink of madness.
Things I erased immediately. Things I refused to accept were happening.
And through every one of his lessons, I didn’t look at her.
I didn’t seek out her gorgeous golden eyes.
Didn’t have the strength to be selfish enough to look at her even though every part of me was dying.
I needed to see her.
Needed to hear her.
Touch her.
Hold her.
But…we were kept apart.
Once his taunting and schooling finished for the day, I was thrown into that beige and black chamber. I was given just enough rations to stay alive. Told to stay clean and presentable for my owner. Ordered to kneel and bow and yield.
Ily and Peter were kept elsewhere, and most nights, I woke up screaming, begging to return to the dungeon where at least we faded together.
That had been hell, but this…this was fucking purgatory.
* * * * *
I huddled on the ground as Victor stood over me, watching his guards kick me like they had in the temple. Cupping my head and curling as tight as I could, I did my best to switch off.
Pain came in bursts.
Despair clawed at my soul.
I hadn’t done anything to deserve this punishment, but…I took it.
I took every little infraction he blamed me for.
I breathed too loudly at dinner.
I didn’t leap to my feet quick enough.
I didn’t say Sir or please or thank you.
Every day, more of the same.
Every night, similar abuse.
Each time he ordered me to kneel, I fought a savage war not to snap. Not to hurt him. Kill him. But all he’d have to do was look in Ily’s direction, and all my fight would snuff out.
Behaving was the only way to protect her.
So…I behaved.
It took every ounce of courage I had left.
Every atom in my body bellowed how wrong it was. How abhorrently, grotesquely wrong to simper at this monster’s feet and not slaughter him.
I held my tongue.
I choked on my rage.
And I never once looked at her.
Fuck.
Every evening he tormented me, she was there.
I could feel her.
Sense her heart. Hear her whispers. Touch her energy.
I didn’t want her to see this.
Didn’t want her watching when I could barely watch myself.
I stopped looking at her to protect her, but I couldn’t bear to see how she looked at me in return.
Did she see a broken man who’d failed her?
A worthless beast who couldn’t save her?
I’d never forgive myself for bringing her here, but I’d never forgive her for making me this weak.
If I didn’t love her, I would’ve been free by now.
He would’ve killed me because no way in hell would I have submitted.
It was comical really. The hardest lesson I’d ever learned, and it wasn’t Victor teaching me but Ily: be careful what you wish for.
I’d longed for love and devotion my entire life.
I’d believed such gifts would free me from the black filth inside me.
Yet the opposite was true.
Love fed me to the darkness, and devotion kept me shackled.
I became nothing more than this thing kneeling at Victor’s feet.
I hated him.
I despised him.
Yet when he fed me morsels from his own plate, I was grateful.
Fucking grateful.
Those nights, I threw up.
I purged the meagre contents in my stomach and slipped into yet more nightmares where I woke up screaming.
But the next day, the sun would rise, the guards would come, and hell would demand another piece of me.