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And I love being surrounded by him, even when he’s not here. Even when he fucking shackled me.

The shirt I’m wearing—I raise the collar to my nose, moaning at the delicious scent of his cologne. It’s a reminder of his harsh touch. Of his arms around me.

I close my eyes and imagine the mark he branded on my back. The barbaric, wonderful mark has been healing nicely beneath the bandages that he changes twice a day.

Just the thought of it has my lips curving up.

“No,” I scold myself. “Wipe that smile off your face. He betrayed you. You share his bed. He shouldn’t have chained you.”

The me in the mirror nods.

Hmm.

I wonder how much of my sanity I’ve lost here. If I’m ever going to get it back.

Strangely, the idea doesn’t bother me as much as it ought to. Being possessed and owned by a man who sings to my soul isn’t terrifying. It isn’t awful.

He’s my everything.

Dark and mysterious. Someone who’s willing to burn the world for me. Do the craziest things just so I can be his.

He paid thirty million dollars to have me here.

He can be controlling, cruel, and detached. He can pretend he doesn’t mind disposing of me as if I were a chair or an old shirt.

Doesn’t change the fact that he’s mine. That I’m his.

That he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Not because of the branding, the cell, this goddamn chain. Not because of the power that reverberates from him like nothing and no one else I’ve ever met.

Because of him.

Half-defeated, half-madly in love, I stroll back to the living room. The chain drags behind me, clattering on the floor with my every step.

My eyes roam around the house as I remember the things I like—no,love—about James. His hugs late at night. His lipson my forehead. His scruff grazing my skin. His groans and my name on his lips when he comes.

He calls me property, pet, Sonnet, and Ophelia. Slut and whore andmine.

His eyes light up differently throughout the hours of the day. Depending on his mood. On how conflicted he is by me. By what I do to his heart.

Every time I look at him, I peel off another layer of this multifaceted man.

My sigh is loud in the otherwise quiet house.

James puts so much work into pretending he’s a bad man. In a way, he is.

He can lock his emotions down faster than I can snap my fingers sometimes. Murderers, rapists, filthy fucking human beings—he defends them for a living.

And yet.

He’s not the awful man he makes himself out to be.

I’m the living proof. The other girls are too.

I reach the end of the living room, about to take a step into the hallway that leads to the rest of the mansion, and?—

I’m stopped.