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If I weren’t so scared, I’d be angry. The nerve of him! He’s the one who was busy wooing and shielding me from all this and wrapping everything up in luxury and gifts and charm. If I lied to myself about him, he’s the one who set the stage to make that so easy.
I feel the tears moving down my cheeks, but I do look at him. He’s covered in blood as well. The man is dead. It was quick, so quick. The blood continues to pour out of him, spilling onto the table and dripping down to stain the hardwood floor.
“I don’t love you,” I practically snarl. How could I ever love a monster like this? But these words ring hollow. I may be too ruined, too far gone to ever walk back the things I was starting to feel for this man. Against my own judgment, against our history, against even our present. He is not a good man, and I’ve known it from the beginning.
His hard gaze refuses to allow mine to drift from him again.
“Don’t you?”
“I hate you!” It’s probably an unwise thing to say, but I cannot let myself love this monster, and I find myself grateful that he’s pulled away the illusion finally.
“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”
He climbs up off the man he just killed, wipes the blade down with a cloth breakfast napkin, and sheathes and holsters it.
“Take care of this,” he says with the imperial command of a king. He’s still looking at me, but he’s speaking to his guards. Aidan wipes his hands on the napkin before dropping it on the table. He straightens his suit.
The guards spring into action and carry the body out.
We’re alone now. I take this opportunity to get out of my chair and run for the door, but Aidan is faster. He grips me by the arm, pulls me back, and presses me against the wall where one of the guards stood only a few minutes ago. I can still feel the warmth of body heat.
He pins me, his hand closing around my throat. He doesn’t squeeze or apply any pressure.
“I control the air you breathe.” When he directs these words at me, his voice is softer, and I hate my body for responding… to the seductive purr of it, to his touch, to the way he smells even while covered in death… that green woody scent, like something magic from the forest and something expensive from the city all at the same time.
“Please, Aidan. You’re scaring me.”
“Am I? Or are you scared of yourself? You aren’t a wilting violet, Maddie. You have fire to match mine, and we both know it. You may be the sun, but let’s not forget the sun is a giant ball of fire in the sky.”
I want to sneer at this impromptu poetry. Is it an echo of something he would have written for me when we were children? Is he reciting it now that I’m no longer in a position to laugh at him?
I pretend I don’t know what he means, but I am scared of myself. I’m scared of how my body responds to him, how I just watched him kill a man, and still, I crave him. Every nerve ending is lit up by his voice, his touch, his smell, the way he consumes me with only a look. He surrounds me like a fog in a dark forest that I can’t find my way out of… and every time I try to move away, I just get sucked deeper and deeper into the darkness, becoming more and more lost.
I hate him. He’s the weird kid. He stalked me and forced me into this. He’s a killer, something I’ve tried desperately to deny. On paper I’m his wife, but in reality I’m his prisoner with no chance of parole.
In the eyes of his church are we even really married? There has been no consummation. I’ve berated myself wondering if he even really wants me. How can a man who kills without mercy have this much self-control? Maybe he has buyer’s remorse. Maybe he was just about the chase, and now that he has me, it’s not the same. Maybe it’s that rush of adrenaline he craves, and my slow somewhat willing descent has taken away all the thrill. Maybe he doesn’t want a rabbit that wants to be consumed.
He strokes the side of my throat, and my breathing calms. “Beg me, Maddie,” he says quietly.
I close my eyes and think please let me go, please let me go, please let me go. But my words...those evil fucking traitors say, “Please fuck me.”
And now I’ve done it. I’ve fucked up. I lost the one power I held—the power to deny him my desire.
These are the words he’s been waiting for. The words I’ve resisted no matter how much pleasure he’s wrung from my body. No matter how uneven the exchange, I’ve fought these words. I kept wanting to see if his word was good… if he would truly honor what he said… If I really had the power, if I had to actually say the words for him to take my virginity.
And now that I’ve said them, I can’t unsay them. I can’t gather them up from the air they’ve dissipated into, to put them back in the bottle. I can’t make myself safe from his invasion any longer.
This war is now upon me and there’s nowhere left to run.
The smug look of triumph on his face enrages me. “I hate you,” I say, again. I have to hold onto my hatred. It’s the only thing preventing me from coming completely undone, losing the last thread of sanity and normality still anchoring me to the world. “You’re a monster.”
“Maybe, but I’m your monster. I think that counts for something, don’t you?”
I don’t reply. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of thinking of himself as “My Monster”. Even though I know it’s true. I believe it now. He would burn down the world if it was threatening me. He would protect me from anything and anyone except himself.
For a moment I think nothing will happen. He’ll back off, and I’ll awkwardly extricate myself from this situation. But he’s not done.
He leans in close to my ear, his breath fluttering out in a warm puff of air on the side of my cheek. “Say it again,” he whispers, “… beg me.”