Page 112 of The Beast's Broken Angel

He turned his head slightly, eyes glazed, voice wrecked. “Then show me. Show me everything.”

I pulled out almost completely, then slammed back in. He sobbed my name. And I came—deep inside him, cock jerking as I bit down on his shoulder, unable to stop.

We stayed like that for a moment, bodies locked together in sweat and shame and something too raw to name.

Then I pulled out, arms shaking, and caught him before he could slide to the floor.

He curled into me. Still panting. Still open.

“I didn’t mean to?—”

“I know,” he whispered, pressing his face to my chest. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

He tilted his head up. His lips were red, bitten. “Then make it okay.”

I carried him to the cot in the corner. Cleaned him with gentle hands, silent the whole time. He didn’t stop me. Just watched with those eyes that saw too much.

When he was dressed again, I slid in beside him. Held him.

“Fuck,” I said finally. “I don’t know how to be anything but this.”

“You don’t have to be anything else,” he said. “You just have tolet me stay.”

I buried my face in his hair. And for the first time in years, I let the silence mean something. Let myself be held while the world outside the east wing crumbled.

24

BEAUTIFUL MONSTERS

ADRIAN

The anatomical illustrations spread across the operations table like a map of human suffering. Dr. Edmund Thorne’s work, preserved in Harrison's private collection, detailed the systematic destruction of the human body with an artist's eye for beauty in brutality. Each diagram showed nerve clusters, pressure points, the exact angles needed to create maximum pain with minimum damage.

“Fucking hell,” Dominic muttered, favoring his right leg where shrapnel had torn through muscle. “This is proper sick stuff, boss.”

I traced a finger over one particular illustration, recognising techniques I'd seen Harrison use during interrogations. Techniques he'd taught me, claiming they were family tradition.

“These aren't just collected,” Noah said from across the room, his first real contribution to a tactical meeting since our reconciliation. The tentative peace between us still felt fragile, like spun glass that might shatter if either of us breathed wrong. “Look at the margins. Fresh annotations, cross-references tomodern pharmaceutical compounds. Someone's been updating Blackthorne's work.”

Viktor leaned closer, his face grim as he examined the pages. “Handwriting changes,” he observed with the attention to detail that made him invaluable. “Older notes in Latin—original work, yes? But these English annotations...” He pointed to neat script in the margins. “Recent. Very recent.”

“Harrison,” I confirmed, recognising his precise script. “He's been refining the techniques.”

The room fell silent as the implications sank in. My most trusted advisor hadn't just betrayed me; he'd been using me as a test subject for decades, applying systematic psychological manipulation disguised as mentorship.

“There's more,” Noah said quietly, pulling out a leather journal that had been tucked inside the main volume. His face had gone pale as he flipped through the pages. “It's... it's about children.”

My blood turned to ice. I took the journal with hands that wanted to shake, forcing them steady through sheer will. The pages detailed experiments on juvenile subjects, documenting how specific traumas at particular developmental stages could create predictable behavioural patterns in adulthood.

“Optimal age range: seven to ten years,” I read aloud, voice flat despite the rage building in my chest. “Subjects at this stage possess sufficient cognitive development to process trauma while remaining psychologically malleable. Fire exposure creates particularly useful response patterns...”

The journal slipped from my fingers as understanding crashed over me like a tidal wave. Eight years old. I'd been eight when my parents died in that fire. When Harrison had 'saved' me.

“Boss,” Viktor said carefully, “perhaps we should?—”

“He didn't just kill them,” I interrupted, the words comingout deadly quiet. “He designed it. Every detail. The fire, where it started, how it spread. Which room I was locked in. How long before 'rescue.' All of it calculated to create specific psychological damage.”