Page 181 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

I was free. Or at least, I used to be.

The pain blurred the edges of my already scrambled mind. I fought to stay sharp, to think my way out of this. I hadn’t realized I’d started to sob until something deep and guttural was working its way out of my system. The emotion was violent, as heavy a downpour as the day I’d conjured a storm over Etherdale. The day Kylo had first brushed my hair and told me I was worthy of all the love in the world.

My legs went numb. My head hit the bed frame, cuffs digging into my wrists as I made myself small and limp.

New footsteps approached. “Get out of here,” a man hissed.

Through the blur, I saw Aster, sleeves rolled up as he stared down at me. Instead of rage, his features were soft.

In a quick movement, he uncuffed me from the bedframe but kept me bound. He loosened my restraints—not enough to allow me to wiggle free, but so they weren’t cutting off my circulation.

He pulled me into his arms and smoothed my hair as I shook violently.

I was tense in his arms, unable to relax. He picked each grain of rice out of my skin.

“There, there,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

The words were a direct contradiction to everything I felt inside, everything I knew to be true. Nothing made sense.

With a hand stroking my hair, Aster reached for my necklace, my discreet collar. The symbol of mine and Kylo’s unending devotion. He unclasped it.

I reached out a hand to stop him, my fingers closing around his wrist.

“I’ll keep your pretty necklace somewhere safe. Be a good girl so I can uncuff you.”

I let go of him. He removed my necklace as I struggled for air, cheek pressed against his chest. I’d regressed to a vulnerable version of myself—a version I thought I’d overcome.

When he uncuffed me, I needed to act quickly and efficiently.

He set my collar on the floor. But a new piece of metal closed around my throat, one with a familiar magickal signature.

When he removed my cuffs, I knew I was as trapped as I’d been before.

“Behave, or they go back on.”

It wasn’t a collar. It was more magickal bondage. That didn’t stop the next sob from leaving my lips.

I was in another vampire’s lap, powerless and triggered, Kylo’s symbol of ownership replaced by Aster’s.

“Juliette is stable,” Aster said. He’d gone back to holding me tight, consoling me with his touch.

The strong part of me knew what was happening. The crafty psychological warfare. He knew how I’d been abused, and he recreated it. He let someone else punish me so he could swoop in and be my savior.

Yet, my body was just happy to be free of pain. And for my mother’s voice to have receded back into a haunting whisper.

“I didn’t stab her. She stabbed herself,” I said, voice shaking.

Aster didn’t respond.

My skin was hot with shame and embarrassment. When I attempted to crawl out of his arms, his hold tightened.

“Skittish little thing,” he murmured, the inflection of his voice mimicking how one speaks to a child. He inhaled deeply.

My every muscle tensed.

“She was the same when we first met. Attention-seeking outbursts, anxiety, and fear. You were born afraid, weren’t you Evie?”

His voice was a dark rumble, his lust leaking out into his faux compassion. It was all so sick and wrong, a perversion and poor imitation of love.