I try to scream, but the sound is trapped in my throat, a strangled sob of pure terror.
He presses the tip of the blade to my skin. It’s ice-cold. Then, with a surgeon’s precision and an artist’s steady hand, he begins to draw.
A searing, white-hot line of pain rips through me. It is a pain beyond anything I have ever known, sharp and deep and utterly consuming. A scream tears from my lungs as he carves the elegant, sharp line of his initial into my flesh. It is a single, stylized 'K'.
Tears stream down my face, my body convulsing with the agony, but he holds me fast. The scent of my own blood fills the air, coppery and sharp. It feels like an eternity, but it’s over in seconds.
He pulls the blade away. He steps back, his eyes dark with a possessive, almost religious fervor as he looks at his work. A single, perfect letter, welling with beads of crimson, is now a permanent part of me.
My legs give out, and I slide to the floor, clutching my hip, sobbing in ragged, broken gasps. The fire of my defiance has been drowned in a sea of pain.
He watches me for a moment, his chest rising and falling heavily. Then, the cold fury in his eyes softens, replaced bythat twisted, possessive tenderness that is somehow even more terrifying. He kneels before me, reaching not for the knife, but for a first-aid kit I hadn’t even seen.
He gently pushes my trembling hands away from the wound. "Shhh,cara," he murmurs, his voice a low, soothing balm that is a horrifying contrast to the agony he just inflicted. "The worst is over. Now, let me take care of you."
He begins to clean the wound, his touch now impossibly gentle. And I am trapped in a fresh hell. The monster who marked me, who carved his ownership into my very being, is now the one tending to my wound, his touch a perverse comfort in the echoing agony. He broke me. And now he is putting the pieces back together, but in a shape of his own design.
Thirty Seven
Wynter
Painismyentireworld. It is a white-hot sun that has burned away everything I was, leaving behind a hollowed-out shell. I am on the floor of his office, curled into a ball, myhands clutching the source of the agony at my hip. The fire of my escape, the cold of the blizzard—it's all gone, replaced by this singular, excruciating torment.
He is talking, his voice a low murmur, but the words don't make sense. They are just sounds, distant waves lapping at the shore of my all-consuming pain. I feel the sting of antiseptic, a fresh wave of fire that makes me cry out, a raw, wounded sound. The monster who wielded the blade is now the savior applying the balm. The paradox is a fresh layer of insanity I cannot begin to process.
My ragged sobs are the only sound I can make. Each one sends a fresh tremor of agony through me.I am broken. He wanted to break me, and he has succeeded. The fight is gone. The hope is gone. There is nothing left but this.
"It is done,cara." His voice is closer now, impossibly gentle. "The worst is over."
Then his arms are around me. He lifts me from the floor as if I am a child. My body is limp, boneless with shock and pain. I don't have the strength to fight, not even to stiffen in protest. I am utterly, completely at his mercy. He carries me out of the office, his stride long and sure, and my head lolls against his chest. I can feel the steady, triumphant beat of his heart against my cheek.
He carries me to our suite and into the bedroom, the site of my first violation, and lays me gently on the bed. The soft mattress feels alien against my rigid, pain-wracked body. He doesn't release me. Instead, he arranges my body on the bed, turning me onto my side so that the freshly bandaged wound on my hip is exposed to the air.
He sits on the edge of the bed behind me, a looming mountain of warmth and power. I can feel his gaze on the bandage, on the skin he has claimed. The silence stretches, thick and heavy, punctuated only by my hitched, painful breaths.
"Look at me, Wynter," he commands, his voice soft but absolute.
I can't. I won't. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from the corners, tracing hot paths to the pillow. It is the last, pathetic piece of defiance I have left.
A calloused finger touches my cheek, gently wiping away a tear. "Please," he whispers. The word is so unexpected, so contrary to the man who just carved his initial into my flesh, that my eyes flutter open against my will.
I slowly, stiffly, turn my head. He is leaning over me, his face inches from mine. The cold fury is gone, replaced by an intensity that is somehow more terrifying. It is an unnerving cocktail of possession, regret, and something that looks horrifyingly like adoration.
"In my world," he begins, his voice a low, hypnotic rumble, "love is not a gentle thing. It is not found in flowers and poetry. It is found in possession. It is a claim. It is the absolute, undeniable knowledge that something is yours, and you are its."
He traces the line of my jaw with his thumb. "I saw you on that screen, in the blizzard. You were magnificent. You were fighting. And you were choosing to leave me. I realized then that my methods were flawed. Comfort was not enough. Kindness was not enough. You needed to understand, in your very bones, that you are mine."
He leans closer, his lips almost brushing mine. "This," he whispers, his gaze dropping to my hip, where the pain throbs in time with my heartbeat. "This is not a punishment. This is a vow. It is my name on your skin. It is a promise that no matter where you go, no matter what happens, you belong to me. It is a brand of protection. Any man who ever sees it will know that to touch you is to declare war on me. And it is a war they will not survive."
He pulls back, his eyes searching mine, demanding I understand. "I love you, Wynter. In the only way I know how. Ilove your fire, I love your fight, and I love your soul. And I will burn the world to the ground before I ever let you go."
The confession hangs in the air, more shocking than the pain, more violating than the knife. He didn't do this out of hatred. He did it out of love. His twisted, monstrous, possessive love.
I stare at him, speechless. The woman I was just a few hours ago would have spat in his face. She would have screamed. But she is gone. He killed her in the snow and carved her tombstone with his knife. The person left in her place is someone else. Someone who has been marked, claimed, and now, confronted with the terrifying, undeniable truth of her captor's heart.
He seems to understand that I have no words left. He stands, shedding his jacket, his movements economical and precise. He doesn't remove the rest of his clothes. He simply lies down on the bed behind me, pulling the covers over us both.
His arm comes around my waist, pulling my back flush against his chest. He settles his large body around mine, cocooning me. His hand rests protectively on my stomach, his thumb stroking slow, soothing circles. The agonizing throb from my hip is a constant, screaming reminder of his brutality. But the solid, steady presence of his body behind me, the warmth seeping into my chilled bones, the rhythmic stroke of his thumb—it is an undeniable comfort.
