Page 46 of Wicked Salvation

My whole body is shaking, pain blooming near my hip bones. “I’m a person, Silas. An individual. I’m not something to be owned.”

“No, you’re something to be loved.” His voice is mocking. “That’s what he said to you.”

He grips my throat.

“Alright.” He says with a note of finality. “If he’s stained you with his touch, I’ll just have to make sure you don’t remember it.”

I don’t even get a chance to think about what he means. His grip on my throat cuts off my breath, then he pushes my bodyaway so harshly, I stumble—but he grabs me by my hair, forcing me upright.

Pain slices my scalp. “Silas, please.”

His free hand starts to unzip my dress. “The time for begging has passed, my love. We could have had a wonderful dinner. A menu curated with your favorite foods. I have a room booked where we were going to have a beautiful candlelit night. I even tracked down that elusive Hermés bag you were after.” My dress falls in a pool at my feet. “Now, look at what you’re making me do.”

He pulls my head forward, forcing me to look at myself in the mirror.

“You let that heretic defile you,” he hisses. “Now, I need to make you Holy again.”

“Silas, I told you that?—”

“Shut up!” he screams, yanking my hair even harder. “The more you talk, the worse you make it for yourself.”

In the mirror, his icy eyes have melted into pools of boiling water I’m in my bra and stockings, the shadow of my black underwear visible through them. My face is streaked with tears even though I don’t remember crying.

This is what my life has come to.

Silas slams my head down against the marble countertop, pressing one hand against my cheek to keep me in place against the cold slab. I writhe and scratch at his arms, at anything I can find, but it’s no use.

My tights rip.

Then, my underwear.

“Silas, please…stop.”

He laughs again. The sound of a zipper.

I squeeze my eyes shut, a sob dying in my throat.

“You need to remember that you’re mine,” is all he says before he sinks himself into me.

It burns from the dry friction, and I feel myself stretching to accommodate him.

“Silas, please?—”

His hand slams my head against the marble again. The words die in my throat as pain blooms across my forehead. Another thrust has my hips chafing against the counter top. His grip on my hair tightens.

“You’re mine,” he hisses. “I’m going to make you forget him.”

Another thrust. My insides feel like they’re being rubbed raw, his shaft scraping against me like sandpaper. He keeps going until the pain has my feet shaking, my body going slack against his.

How did things get like this?

I’m lost somewhere in my head, trying to escape the present, wishing I was somewhere else—in my bed back at home, sitting in the rose garden reading a book,sitting in Lucian’s cottage sipping a cup of tea in front of the fireplace.

A scream rips through me when he buries himself completely. My body finally starts responding, making it all a little less painful because of the wetness. Trying to help me endure.

“You like that, love? I can feel how wet you are,” he says, leaning over. His breath against my skin has my hair standing on edge for all the wrong reasons. “Admit it. You like it when I treat you like this—in fact, I think youloveit.”

I don’t have a voice.