Vincent stood there, gaze flicking over the book in my lap.
“Interesting choice,” he murmured, voice low and unreadable. “Why this one?”
I hesitated. “It’s something I haven’t learned,” I answered. A lot of the unknown things interested me
Well, sort of. I’d been trained in most of what the book covered. How to pose. How to serve. How to follow rules without hesitation.
That was my life.
To please the Alphas.
But submission, real submission, was different. This book said it was earned. Not demanded. Not forced.
And that was harder to understand than anything else. Because no one had ever asked me to give it freely. They’d just taken.
“Submission isn’t obedience,” he said softly in a matter-of-fact way. “It’s trust.”
The words settled in my chest like something unfamiliar. He didn’t sound like the handlers. Didn’t sound like anyone who’d ever taught me how to serve.
“It’s not about rules or posture or saying ‘yes, Sir’ at the right time,” he continued. “It’s about choosing to let someone in. Choosing to let go, not because you’re forced to, but because you believe they’ll catch you.”
I swallowed hard. That felt impossible. And yet… He said it like it was simple. Like it was mine to give.
“Your choice,” he added, voice quieter now. “Always.”
I didn’t know what to say. But I kept the book open, eyes still on the pages before me.
“Trust.” I read about that, it was the first thing, after the introduction about what the four letters meant.
“Trust,” he repeated, the word soft but weighted. He knelt, bending his knees and resting his hands between his thighs. “Hard to earn. Easier to lose. And the one thing that has to exist before anything else can.”
I stared at the floor, letting the word settle.
It wasn’t something I knew how to give. Or take. It felt too big, too full of things I didn’t understand.
It held more than rules, more than obedience.
It held choice.
And that made it heavier than anything I’d ever carried.
I stared at the book, but the words blurred.
Trust.
Vincent said it was a choice. Said it was earned. Said it was mine to give. But I didn’t know what that felt like.Maybe it’s when your body doesn’t flinch before your mind catches up. Maybe it’s when silence doesn’t mean danger. Maybe it’s when someone reaches for you, and you don’t brace.
I didn’t know.
But I wanted to.
I swallowed hard, voice barely above a whisper. “Is it something you can learn?”
He didn’t answer right away. And I didn’t look at him.
If he said no, I wasn’t sure what that would mean for me. For the way I’d been built. For the way I’d survived.
But I needed to ask. Because somewhere in me, buried deep beneath the rules and the bruises and the silence, I wanted to know if I could be more than what Lockswell made me.
