Page 46 of House of Darkness (The Fallen Star #1)

ESTRELLA

Something snapped inside me, clear as a bone breaking. Property theft—that's all it was. That’s all I was. No one cared how Codran had defiled me. No one cared about the other girls. We were merely toys to be broken.

After the meeting, I returned to my bedroom and sat at my tea table for hours. Now, I stood before the mirror, seething at the reflection staring back at me—the bruises and cuts wrapping around my body. Damaged goods, that’s all I was. An acolyte doll too weak to protect herself or anyone else.

I screamed and hurled my fist into the mirror.

The glass exploded, shards embedding themselves in my knuckles and spilling blood.

I barely felt the pain. At least I couldn’t see her anymore, though she would likely haunt me for the rest of my life.

In every mirror, it would be her looking back at me—somewhere between a person and a plaything, and how could a toy do anything?

A hand brushed my shoulder, and I spun around to see Roman’s face, taut with concern.

“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, yanking away from him.

Roman looked as if I had slapped him, tugging at my heartstrings. None of this was his fault. He had done right by me, saving me and those girls. I gulped, trying to release some of the anger built up inside me before I hurt him more.

“Why?” he asked, holding his hand out to me.

Reluctantly, I placed my hand in his. Roman began expertly removing each shard from my knuckles with his sharp nails. It should have hurt, but I felt nothing.

With my free hand, I pointed at the spot where the mirror had once stood. “She needed to go. She was too weak.”

He tugged a piece of glass from my pinky. “You’re wrong. She’s the strongest girl I know.”

I watched in vague interest as he disappeared into the washroom, then returned with a towel. He wrapped it around my hand to stifle the bleeding, though his eyes glittered at the scent.

“I’m not strong.”

“I saw everything in Codran’s mind, Estrella. You protected those girls every chance you could.” There was a pause as I gaped at him, horrified. “So, I disagree. You are a warrior—braver than most.”

He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles, sending shivers down my spine. I stared at the wall where the mirror had been. One small shard still hung from the nail, clinging to the faint hope that it might be rebuilt.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked gently.

I took a deep breath and released it through my teeth.

Tearing my eyes from that meager shard, I looked at Roman.

The words erupted from my mouth before I could stop them.

“When do I get to be a person? I’ve been a piece of property my entire life!

When does it stop? What happens when you get bored of me, huh?

You can throw me away like trash, and no one would do a fucking thing! ”

Roman’s eyes glimmered with some hidden joke. “I would never get bored of you.”

I glared at him. That wasn’t the point, and he knew it. “What?”

“I’ve never heard you curse before. I like it.” I looked at him incredulously. I hadn’t even noticed.

He took my hand and pressed it to his chest. “You are your own person. I believe that with every fiber of my being. You deserve to set this world ablaze for what it’s done to you, and I promise to help you do it.”

A strange feeling intertwined with my anger, making my heartbeat rise. Roman always had my back. We could do it—rebuild something better, so no girl would ever have to live in fear again. We could make my pain mean something.

I leaned up and pressed my lips to his urgently. I needed him—the man who always had my back, who had always let me choose. I wanted to choose this. For a few blissful moments, he kissed back, but it ended as quickly as it started. He pulled back, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Estrella, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

I went rigid. “Why?”

“Emotions are high, and I don’t want you to regret this.”

“I’m not going to regret it. This is what I want. Please, just let me have this.” I sounded pathetic, but I didn’t care.

Roman still held back, his posture tense.

Rejection built inside me, tearing at my insides.

Codran was right. Roman had always been possessive, but now that I was damaged, he wouldn’t want me.

I stared up at the man who couldn’t stop touching me before, now stepping back as if I were diseased—his doll, broken by another man.

“He was right. He knew you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

An icy silence hung between us as he stared down at me, aghast. Then his face twisted with anger. His hand shot out and twisted into the fabric of my gown, yanking me to him.

“You want to run that by me again?”

I gritted my teeth, refusing to break eye contact. “You don’t want me anymore. That’s what this is, right? You look at me and see something broken.”

“Is that what you think?” Roman asked incredulously. “You think I don’t want you anymore?”

I nodded, and his jaw set. Without another word, he practically dragged me along, only releasing me once we reached the bed. He sat down on the edge, facing me. When he spoke, his voice was cold and deadly. “Face the mirror.”

Confused, I spun around to confront the full-length mirror across from my bed. I barely had time to take in my ghastly face before he pulled me into his lap, his touches rough but controlled. “I thought you said this was a bad idea,” I gasped.

“I thought you said you wanted this. Which is it, Estrella? Because if you want me to stop, I will—no questions asked. But I will tell you this, either way, I’m not walking away this time.”

I let out a shaky breath. I could see his intense, burning gaze fixed in the mirror, pinned on our reflection. “I want this,” I whispered like I was confessing my sins.

“Good, because I’m going to set the record straight.”

Without warning, his nail slid down my gown’s front, cutting through it like wet paper. He pushed the sleeves down my battered arms and threw the fabric gracelessly against the wall.

“I hate that gown. It’s too dark, and you’re supposed to be light itself,” he muttered against my cheek.

“Look in the mirror.”

I did as instructed, staring at our reflection.

I immediately cringed. In my vanity mirror, I could only see my face and neck, but now I could see all of it.

My skin was more green than pink, and bite marks covered me.

At each hip were nasty gashes where Codran’s nails had dug in.

I recoiled, but Roman’s hand immediately found my jaw, forcing me to stare.

“You see brokenness, but you’re wrong. These bruises are the tattoos of a warrior who has survived nightmares and was still willing to sacrifice herself for others—braver than most and absolutely beautiful.” As he spoke, his hand trailed over my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

I had no response—my mind still digesting the brokenness that was me—but he didn’t seem to mind. The tendrils of his power spiraled up my legs and yanked them open. I gasped and struggled to cover myself, but he took my hands and placed them on his forearms.

“You say you feel inhuman, like a doll, but that’s ridiculous. That’s what they see, but who gives a fuck about them? I want to show you what I see.”

With that, his hand plunged between my thighs, and I moaned as his finger traced over my clit.

I arched against him, but the arm wrapped around my waist held me tight.

“See how your body reacts to my touch, coming to life? That’s your humanity shining through, Estrella.

No one can take that from you unless you let them. ”

His finger plunged into me, and I swear my entire world shrank to the heat of his words and his touches. My eyes closed in pleasure, my nails digging into his arms hard enough to break skin. “See how you turn that pretty pink for me? It’s fucking beautiful.”

He pressed a kiss to my jawline. “Eyes on the mirror. Don’t close them.”

I fluttered my eyes open, and immediately I understood.

My body writhed under his grip, shuddering and reacting to every touch like a livewire.

My ragged breaths made my chest heave, and my face flushed with pleasure.

I was a person with pain, pleasure, hate, and love, and no one could take that from me.

My head fell back against his chest, the sight driving my ecstasy higher.

He worked another finger in alongside the first, making my eyes roll back. A high-pitched moan tore from me.

“That’s it—you sing so pretty when I play you. Such a fucking good girl,” he purred.

Then he stopped suddenly, the loss of motion giving me whiplash. I whined, grinding against his palm in desperate search of friction. My efforts only made him laugh.

“Now, tell me what you want, Estrella.”

The sound of my name on his breath jolted through me like electricity, his voice caressing each syllable. It left me in shambles.

“You—”

“Ah-ah. No,” he interrupted, withdrawing his fingers only to push them deep down my throat. “I didn’t ask about me. I asked what you want. Not what you think I want, not what you think you should want. What do you, beautiful Estrella, truly desire? Use your words.”

His fingers released my tongue, taking hold of my jaw instead, cradling my head as he awaited my response.

My mind reeled. It was a loaded question, especially in my vulnerable state, aching for release.

I wanted so many things—most of which he couldn’t give me.

He had to know that, yet the way he spoke made it feel as if he would move mountains for me.

I longed for a different world, a different life.

I wanted safety—for myself and all the acolytes.

I wanted to save them. I wanted the memories of my past wiped away and the evil scrubbed from my body.

If anyone could understand, it would be Roman, but even he couldn’t grasp the entirety of my pain unless I showed him, and that wouldn’t help anyone.

Instead, I voiced what I knew we could both understand. “I want you to bite me, Roman. I want to remember what it feels like when it’s good. I want yours to be the only mouth I remember.”

His gaze locked onto mine in the mirror, heat, understanding, and something else entirely filling those depthless eyes. He moved agonizingly slowly, trailing kisses up my neck to my jawline and back again. He slid his tongue over the bite mark and hummed. “Your wish is my command.”

He tilted my neck to the side while his other hand returned to my body, sliding inside me once more.

Black curls spilled over my shoulder like ink, nearly obscuring his mouth on my neck.

Warmth enveloped my skin as that sinful tongue wrapped over the back of my neck like a coiled snake, holding my head in place. Then he bit down.

I gasped, the sound swallowed by Roman’s high-pitched growl, more beast than man. The pleasure was nearly unbearable. This was nothing like Codran. This was heaven, and Roman was taking me there on obsidian wings, just like the angel of death I knew he was.

My moans deepened, my eyes rolling back.

I wouldn’t last much longer in this complete, utter bliss.

He broke away, his body shuddering with restraint.

A trickle of my blood trailed down his stained lips.

He licked it away, his eyes rolling back in ecstasy.

Then his tongue met my neck, savagely lapping up the blood and sealing the wound.

“I could give up air for that taste.”

His free hand tightened around my throat, just enough to make spots dance in my vision. He paused only to press his thumb against my clit, and I saw stars.

“Tell me, Estrella, do you still think I don’t want you?” Roman hissed.

I couldn’t answer; his grip around my throat was nearly suffocating.

He tilted my head forward to ensure I was looking in the mirror, then smiled.

His teeth were stained pink with my blood, and dark tendrils of power coiled over his skin like shadows.

His eyes were pitch black, brimming with desire.

“You turn me into a savage, Estrella, and I don’t fucking care. No one will take you from me again because I’ll be your shadow for the rest of your life. If a man so much as looks at you too long, I’ll kill him, because you pull the monster out of me. That’s how much power you have over me.”

His words barely registered in my mind, overshadowed by the blackening vision closing in on me. He was relentless, his fingers razing me until nothing else mattered. I was climbing to the peak, ready to topple over the edge.

“And I know you love it. Look at how your body weeps for me, doll. You love your power, and I must be a masochist because I worship how you torture me,” he groaned.

I toppled into oblivion, my screams ragged against his merciless grip. I collapsed against him, pleasure raking through my body, pulling me to bliss and back again. His hand released my throat, allowing me to choke out desperate gasps for air.

“Such a good girl.” His arms wrapped around me, holding me with a tenderness that nearly brought me to tears. “Don’t ever question my desire for you again. I would set the world ablaze for you.”

The darkness of his words seeped calmness into me.

He was right—as I looked in the mirror, my eyes glazed with contentment and my body flush with pleasure, I could nearly see it: my humanity, hidden beneath years of abuse.

I would take what they had done to me and turn it into my weapon because there was no alternative. My eyes closed, and I curled into him.

“And I would gladly watch it burn.”