Page 137 of Conquered

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.

Walking 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 takesa 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.