Page 43 of At Your Mercy

I fell back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, the cracks in the plaster swimming as my chest rose and fell too fast. My body still ached in all the ways he’d left it aching, but it wasn’t pain that had me restless. It was the memory ofwanting.

I wasn’t supposed to want.

That was the lesson drilled into me from the start. Desire wasn’t mine to have. My body didn’t belong to me—it belonged to Elias, to his plans, to whatever sick demonstration of control he decided to make out of me.

My stomach knotted, acid creeping up the back of my throat. I hated him. God, I hated him. His voice lived under my skin, the weight of his rules held me down, and the smile he wore when he broke me haunted my nights.

I could still remember the first time he proved to me just how powerless I was—not that I could ever forget. There was a room full of men, the air thick with the stench of sweat and smoke. My wrists were chafed raw from the ropes. And Elias had watched as I learned that no matter how hard I fought, no one was coming to save me.

I swallowed hard, vomit crawling up my throat as I forced the memory back into the dark where it belonged. But it never really stayed there. It leaked out at the edges, in the way my handsshook, in the way I couldn’t stand being touched unless I could convince myself it was on my terms.

And yet last night—last night was different.

Wes hadn’t broken me. He hadn’t forced me, abused me.

He’d lifted me up and made me fly, then held me like I mattered.

That was what I couldn’t stand. That was what I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Elias had spent years teaching me that I was nothing. Just flesh, just obedience, just another pawn.

And Wes, with one night, had undone it.

Fuck.

I pressed my fists into my eyes again, furious at the sting building there. I couldn’t let myself feel things too deeply.

It didn’t hurt as much when I was numb. It didn’t eat me alive.

My skin felt too tight, and every nerve was buzzing with leftover static from Wes’s hands, his mouth, his voice.

I shoved myself off the bed, pacing the length of my apartment. Back and forth. Back and forth. My reflection in the window caught me mid-stride: wild-eyed and flushed like I’d been running.

Pathetic.

I grabbed a glass from the counter, filled it with water, then hurled it at the sink. It shattered into shards, spraying across the metal and onto the floor. A fine slice opened on the side of my palm when I went to sweep the pieces together, and I hissed through my teeth.

The sting grounded me. It was sharp, quick, and honest.

I stared at the bead of blood welling up, bright crimson against the white of my skin, and something inside me twisted. I pressed my thumb into it harder, dragging the ache out just to feel it, just to remind myself what was real.

Pain was simple. Pain didn’t lie. Pain was comfortable.

I hated that Wes hadn’t given me that.

No—worse. He’d given me something I hadn’t known I was missing. Something Elias had taken from me so long ago I’d stopped believing it existed.

Pleasure. Safety. Choice.

Freedom.

My breath stuttered, and my throat burned. I dug my nails into the cut to try to chase it all away, to shove the confusion back into something I could control.

But even with the ache throbbing in my palm, I still saw him—Wes leaning over me, voice low, telling me I wasgood.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to break every glass in the damn kitchen until there was nothing left but shards. Until the memory of his touch stopped haunting me. Until Elias’s shadow didn’t feel so heavy on my back.

But nothing I did—not even my blood, my pain—was enough to silence it.