The sound of his shoes softened as he crossed the room. Then a pause. My body knew before my mind did. I felt the heat of him at my back. A shadow folded over me, and he crouched, loweringhimself until I could feel his breath stir the stray strands of hair against my temple.
“Dolcezza…” he purred, softened by intoxication, almost childish as his arms wrapped and slipped around me, and in one sudden pull and a gasp, I was lifted and rearranged onto his lap.
I stiffened. My limbs screamed to resist, but my body betrayed me, sagging into him as though I were stitched from the same fabric as his need. He buried his face against my neck, murmuring against my skin. “I missed you.”
My throat closed. I swallowed the knife of my anger. “Where were you?”
His chest rose against my back; he was breathing slow, inhaling whatever I had to offer. “Out.”
“Out,” I repeated with a scoff. My nails dug into my palm, carving half-moons. “Out where? Business or…” I let my words falter because I wanted to know where he was. With whom? Was there a woman? Or was it just my imagination? It shouldn’t matter, but why was I so restless? “Or was it someone else?”
He stilled. A silence before it breaks. His face lifted from my shoulder, and when I dared glance sideways, his expression was nonchalant, stoic, almost cruel in its refusal to be moved.
“Do you want me to lie?”
I shook my head, tears dancing in my eyes as my heart buckled beneath the weight of it. “Why lie? Is it that easy for you to lie every time?”
“Because lies don’t hurt you.” As if lies wouldn’t hurt?
My mind clawed at words but found only jagged questions, and I turned around subtly, masking my tears.
“Why did you marry me, Zagreus?” My voice cracked as I tried to gather myself. “Why did you kill Adrian? Why do you know more about me than I know about myself?”
He shifted, pulling me tighter against him. His body was heavy and suffocating around mine. His half-lidded eyes burned and met mine. “Dolcezza…” Trembling lips ghosted the shell of my ear as if he was trying to gather himself too. “I decide what belongs to me. And I keep it. Whether you beg, bleed, or burn. All of you is mine. And I’m yours.”
I didn’t believe him. The photographs I saw said something else. He was married prior to me, and that burned something in me. I was ash, I was fire, and moreover, I was just air. Invisible and everywhere. He wouldn’t care about me. Why would he? I was just another woman, but he was the only man I let claim me. I was his claim. His dark claim.
My throat trembled, but I pressed on. Rage clawing through despair. Anger was something I couldn’t control. I felt like losing myself entirely. There was so much going on and I had no idea where I was, or what I truly was. Everything felt like a lie and I wondered if I was ever real.
Being done with my emotions, I swallowed hard. “Have you ever… loved someone, Zagreus? Ever… ever once felt something that wasn’t ownership, wasn’t this endless cycle of ruin you drag me through?”
Something shifted, and I felt it in my bones. I slightly turned my head only to find his jaw clenched tight and breath hissed between his teeth. His eyes flickered, stormy greys turned intopits of darkness. Guilt, anger, despair, frustration, loss… and gain.
But the emotions disappeared as soon as they came, and his hold tightened painfully. “Don’t do this.”
I hissed through the discomfort. But I could not stop. I wanted to wound him, to dig until he bled. To pull out the buried box and make him watch those photos. “You don’t deserve love, anyway. Never will. And I hope… god, I hope…” I swallowed the tears as I held his gaze. “I hope you never get that person, Zagreus. I hope they tear free from your grasp and leave you rotting with the truth of what you are.”
The storm broke. His calm shattered, rage lighting the hollow spaces of his face. His hands tightened around me as he turned me to face him, and his eyes reflected raw and shuddering pain, burning against fury that could gut a world.
He gripped me hard enough that I gasped, his voice ragged, almost breaking, and furious. “Don’t.”
But I already had. I realised I had never been closer to his heart, or to my ruin.
I was never afraid of storms, though. Maybe I never encountered them. But the one in front of me was deadlier than any. And I was foolish enough to stand at the centre of him.
He reduced my world to him only. But I wouldn’t let him have his way with my thoughts and head. So, I did the only thing I was capable of. I pushed him. And surprisingly, with him intoxicated, I easily pulled away from his grip and crawled away from him to the door.
But like I said, I was foolish.
His hand shot out, rough fingers circled my ankle, and I was dragged back beneath him as the air punched out of my lungs in a startled gasp. My body betrayed me, part surrender, part resistance.
“I don’t deserve love?” he snarled, his breath hot and whiskey-laced. “You’re my fucking wife, Celestine.” His Italian accent was as thick as smoke and curled around vowels. This was the first time he ever called me by my name. “You belong to me. Your love belongs to me.”
I wanted to spit at him, to claw my way free, but his grip on my jaw left me trapped, his calloused fingers digging crescents into my soft skin. Anger flared in me, but beneath it, treacherous warmth ignited. The warmth of recognition of his touch, of being held captive by his gaze, even in cruelty.
“Stop this fucking nonsense.” I twisted in his hold, but he wouldn’t budge. He pressed his body unapologetically closer.
“Stop this fucking nonsense, huh?” he snarled. “This is not nonsense. This is my way of claiming you. You hate me, don’t you? You’ll hate me more today.”
