Page 79 of Conquered (Highgate Preparatory Academ:y Compendium)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

LILLY

I wake with a start as the front door slams open, jolting upright with a squeak. The hot bodies on either side of me leap up, fists clenched up in front of them, and face the door where we see Ash storming past us, heading up the stairs.

Seconds later, we hear the crash of a door upstairs, shortly followed by the sounds of loud pounding music.

“For fuck’s sake!” Loki exclaims, running both hands over his face and through his hair, grimacing.

“Must have been bad if he's back early,” Kai muses from his place on the other sofa, his face troubled as he looks after Ash.

Jax grunts at this, but his hands are still curled into fists, although down by his sides now, and his chest is heaving.

“What's going on?” I ask, looking at them each in turn, my brow pulling down in concern.

They all release a sigh, almost at the same time.

“It's not our story to tell, Pretty Girl,” Loki tells me, looking torn and eyes pleading for me to understand that they can’t tell me everything.

“Ash's father is CEO of Black Knight Corporation,” Kai begins, and I see Jax and Loki stiffen.

“So he expects Ash to follow in his footsteps. To prepare him for the role, his training has... been the most ruthless.” His amber eyes have a haunted look in them.

“Go to him, Lilly. He needs you more than he'll ever say,” Kai urges me.

His words set off a panic inside me, like he's lit a fuse, and it's only a matter of time before the whole world blows the fuck up.

With hurrying steps, I head straight up the twisting staircase and down the corridor towards the door on the end.

I can hear the song better now, it's Popular Monster by Falling In Reverse, and I press my forehead against the cool wooden door, my heart lurching in pain at the thought that this is how he feels.

Oh, Ash.

Taking a deep breath in a bid to steady myself and to give me courage for what’s on the other side of the wood, I wrap my hands around the brass doorknob and twist, pushing it open and stepping into the room.

There’s just a single lamp lit next to the bed.

The rest of the room is in complete darkness, the curtains shut.

My eyes alight on Ash, the light from the lamp highlighting his hunched over position, as he's sat on the bed wearing black boxer briefs and a white vest. He's stripped out of the suit he was wearing when he stormed in, it’s cast all over the floor, which is so unlike him that warning bells ring inside my head. He’s facing away from me, and I realise that he hasn't heard me come in because the music is so loud.

W alking towards him, I come around the bed, seeing something glinting silver in his hand, leaving a red trail in its wake as he slices it across his thigh. It takes a second for my brain to make sense of what my eyes see. To compute that Ash is using a razor blade to cut himself.

“Ash?” I whisper, my voice sounding distant and broken in my ears, my body tingles all over and there’s a slight rushing in my ears.

The song stops at that moment, and his head whips up, his face full of agony, alongside sweet release, and an edge of panic at seeing me here.

“Lilly...I–I…” he stutters, so unlike his usual arrogant self. “You shouldn’t be in here,” he sighs, but there’s no heat to his voice. No anger or hardness. Only, perhaps, a resigned sadness. And maybe a touch of relief at being caught?

“Oh, Ash, my darling,” a sob catches in my throat as hot tears fill my eyes and spill over. I furiously wipe them away.

Now is not the time to break down, Lilly. Pull your fucking self together!

“Can I see, please?” I ask gently, taking a step towards him, and indicating his leg.

He just nods his head, so I take another step until I'm in front of him, between his legs, and I go down on my knees, taking a look at the cuts. They’re bleeding, but are not too deep, and it’s then that I notice that underneath so much of his beautiful ink, are the raised lines of hundreds of scars.

They're all over his body, he's covered in them, and I can't believe that I haven't noticed before now.

I can hardly breathe through the pain that these marks, his scars, cause me. He must have felt so alone, and full of so much hurt for years.

It takes a couple of tries, but I clear my throat enough to ask, “Do you have a first aid kit in here?”

He nods and reaches over to the bedside drawer, pulling out a red bag with a white cross on the front and handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I whisper as I open it and get out antiseptic wipes, bandages, and tape.

I set about my task, wiping the cuts with the wipes and bandaging them up. I sit back on my knees for a moment, just trying to breathe, and failing to stop the tears from falling down my cheeks.

“Please, don’t cry, Princess,” he asks in a pained voice, his hand reaching out and lifting my chin. His grip pulls me up so that I’m raised up on my knees, our faces close together. Both hands come up to cup my face, bringing us closer still. “I’m not worth your tears.”

I pull back slightly so that I can look deep into his stunning grey eyes, which are full of darkness and shadows tonight.

“Ash, you are worth every tear, every smile, every fucking thing, and if I need to spend my entire life making you believe that, I will do so gladly.” I will him to believe the words, to see what he means to me.

“You are too good, too pure, for the likes of me, Lilly Darling,” he says back, his voice husky, and I can see the glint of tears in his own eyes, making the steel swim.

“I am exactly right for you as you are for me, Asher Vanderbilt,” I whisper back vehemently as I place a gentle kiss on his luscious lips. Tonight, all I can taste is sadness, hopelessness. I pull back before the kiss can get deeper, and look into his eyes.

“I had a friend back in England who, when we were younger, used to self-harm. We had a code word for when she was feeling the urge, and I would help distract her until it passed. It gave her time to then feel comfortable enough to talk to me about what had triggered her.”

“What was your code word?” Ash asks me softly, and I can’t help a small grin.

“Rubber duck,” I say with a slight giggle at the incredulous look on his face.

“Rubber duck?” he repeats, brows raised, and I nod.

“Would you like to do the same thing?” I ask him seriously. He thinks for a moment and then nods, a slight smile on his face. “And do you want to talk about what happened today to trigger you?” I ask gently.

He sighs, taking his hands from my face and rubbing them over his own, looking away from me.

“My father is a sadistic asshole of the worst kind. He takes great pleasure from hurting others, he fucking gets off on it, and the thing that really gets him hard is taking control. He’s been training me to take over from him in every aspect of Black Knight, from the moment Luc was.

..gone,” he tells me, his voice tight and face full of anger, hitching painfully when he mentions his brother.

“He first needs to break me to build me back up in his image. I’m just so tired, Lilly, so exhausted from it all.

The responsibility, the lack of control, the not knowing if I’ll be enough to save my brothers. To save you.”

He looks at me as he says the last part, and my heart stops dead at the look of despair on his face.

“Why do you need to save me, Ash?” I can’t help asking, my heart pounding with dark premonition and my mouth has suddenly gone dry.

“He’s interested in you, they all are, and I don’t fucking know why, Lilly!

” he says, his voice rising with frustration and his eyes going a little wild searching the room as if he’ll find the answers in here.

His hands are flexing at his sides, like he wants to wrap them around his father’s throat.

“Hey,” I say, bringing him back to face me. “It’ll be okay. You have us to help with whatever you need. You’re not alone, Ash, we will get through this together.”

“You don’t know that, Lilly. How can you know that?” he asks, almost angrily. His grey eyes are full of fire, a fire built of a crippling lack of confidence.

“Because I love you, Ash, and I’m not leaving you,” I retort back, my own conviction matching his. “You’re mine, and I’ve claimed you, and I’ll destroy anyone who hurts any of you,” I tell him, deadly serious, my chest rapidly rising and falling with my almost panting breaths.

He stops, staring at me with an intense look over his beautiful features that makes his face sharp and savage. We're both breathing hard, and I can see in his eyes that he's not in the right place to believe me, to believe what I'm saying yet.

Before he can say another word, I cut in. “Would you like a distraction, Ash? Would you like your control back?” I ask, and I don’t miss the way his nostrils flare, and his pupils start to widen, his anger transforming into lust.

I stand up, seeing the crumpled heap of his trousers on the floor.

He really was in a state to leave them like that.

Leaning over, I pick up his phone from the nightstand, and find Use Me by PVRIS, hitting play and feeling the beat wash over me.

I walk over to his discarded trousers and bend down, taking his black leather belt out of the belt loops.

I thread the tail end through the buckle, leaving a loop big enough for one wrist before taking the tail back through creating a figure of eight. I then take the end through the buckle, framing both loops once more.

Thank you, hot guys of TikTok!

Placing my hands through the loops so that the cuffs now sit on my wrists, I look up to catch Ash’s grey molten gaze.

"Place your hands with your wrists facing each other, Princess. Wouldn't want you to get permanently damaged. Otherwise, who will jack me off later," Ash says with a smirk on his face.

I adjust my hands according to his instructions, resisting the urge to roll my eyes as I bring them up to my mouth, grasping the end with my teeth and pulling.