Chapter 1
Scarlett
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“Scar!” His protestsare literally torn from his throat, blood spraying over my face a moment later.
Face buried in Daniel’s collar, I pull my fangs free of his mangled flesh to latch onto his wound. The warm rush of blood flows over my tongue as he struggles, but the attempts grow more pitiful by the moment until the weak smacks at my shoulders and cheek cease all together. Flicking my tongue over the flecks of blood on his skin one final time, I drop his lifeless corpse at my feet.
Heart beating wildly in my chest, I run my fingers over my cheek, stained red when I pull my hand away. While glassy, unseeing eyes stare up at me, memories tease my consciousness. The faint sounds of his laughter, the mischievous glint in his dark eyes as he tried to coax me into ducking out of work early with him. Never again though. He’s gone, his life destroyed as completely as mine is. But unlike me, he gets to escape while I’m stuck standing here, doomed to repeat the endless cycle.
The tingling in the back of my mind intensifies and I choke on the desperate scream that’ll never escape my throat as more than an inhuman snarl before my feet automatically start dragging me back towards the filthy hovel we’re currently shacked up in.
“Scarlett.”
Only a few more minutes separate me from the disgusting feeling of that creature sinking his teeth into my shoulder, roaming hands keeping me pinned against his body while he drains the stolen blood from my veins and-
“Scarlett. Wake up, love.”
Malcolm’s words finally break through my nightmare and I snap awake, teeth bared in a hiss as my sprinting heart threatens to drown out his voice with every thundering beat. He’s kneeling beside the bed, hands raised in surrender, and frustration shining in his hazel eyes. After the first few times when I reacted without thinking, tearing deep grooves into his chest or biting his arm, he always waits to touch me until I’m fully conscious. His fingers twitch before he curls them into a fist, like it’s taking all of his restraint not to reach out and smooth my tangled blonde hair from my face.
“I’m sorry,” I croak, throat raw enough it’s clear I’ve been screaming for a while.
How long was he stuck listening to me, calling my name?
Still, he didn’t touch me; not after the way I broke down sobbing for hurting him last time. I swear, he couldn’t care less about getting hurt, that I could easily kill him. He just looked so damn defeated when he realized what it was doing to me, making everything worse, that he’s warring with his instincts and keeping his hands to himself.
“Nothing to apologize for, gorgeous, you know that.” As I start to calm down, he releases a soft sigh of relief, rising to sit beside me on the mattress and tenderly tucking my hair behind my ear.
The familiar static crackles across my skin as it always does when he touches me, like an electric caress. Closing my eyes, I lean into his touch, a soft sound of matching contentment escaping my lips.
“Want to talk about it?” he quietly offers, working his fingers through my hair to brush out the knots.
“What’s there to talk about?” I croak, having to clear my throat. “The nightmares are always the same; it’s just a matter of who and where.” Self-loathing colors my tone and I sigh, reining in my irritation so I don’t lash out at him. I’m just soangryat the entire situation and struggling to cope. But I owe Malcolm everything for saving me, so the least I can do is an explanation after waking him up for the second time this week.
“They’re getting clearer,” I whisper. “Usually they’re just a blurry haze; more feelings than anything. Fear, confusion, hunger.” Bringing my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around my legs over the blanket. “This one; I knew him. Worked with him. He was a friend instead of some random, nameless person.”
My stomach turns as he simply continues to stare at me without an ounce of judgment or condemnation. It’s the best and worst part of everything that happened. My entire life was ripped away from me, saved from my sire, only to be used as a human battery by some twisted mages with a God complex until Malcolm showed up.
Malcolm; my mate that I never would have crossed paths with otherwise.
To him, it doesn’t matter that I killed hundreds of people before someone slaughtered my sire, breaking his hold on my mind and body. He spends every waking moment trying to find a way to help me come to terms with the fact that one second I was human, walking home from work, and the next, a year had passed, and I woke up in a cage with no idea what happened and barely able to recognize myself. He forgives my sins as if compelled by the bond, and the thought brings on another wave of self-loathing and horrific memories. I know firsthand what being compelled is like, and I’d never wish that on another soul, much less someone as genuinely kind as Malcolm.
Voice low, he soothingly states, “You can’t change the past, love, and clinging to it will only put you through unnecessary torture. It won’t bring anyone back and punishing yourself doesn’t even some cosmic scale. The only person to blame here is the asshole that had you turned. You’re a victim, Scarlett, and you weren’t in control of your actions. Once you start accepting that none of it was your fault, you can start looking forward.”
Pulling his fingers free of my hair, he risks pushing a little farther than usual, cupping my jaw and stroking his thumb over my cheek. “The nightmares might be clearer, but they’re already less frequent than they used to be a few months ago. And the not knowing was eating away at you more than anything, so as awful as it is to remember, try to think of it as a good thing. It might hurt for a while, but at least you’ll know what happened to you during that year so you can start healing from it. Time might not heal all wounds, but it does help dull the pain the memories bring. Let me help you. Please, Scarlett, stop pushing me away.”
Struggling not to burst into tears, my throat bobs as I swallow, trapped in his unyielding gaze. It’s sweet agony being around Malcolm, but recent weeks have started to make things between us lean into the more torturous side of the spectrum. He draws me to him on an instinctive level, and I find myself unconsciously leaning towards him whenever we’re in the same room... and promptly jerking away when I realize I’m doing it.
Because it scares the shit out of me that I’m finally free of the man that manipulated my body, only to have it betraying me yet again.
Add in the sweet scent of his blood that nearly makes me come every time he lets me feed off of him, that threatens my remaining sensibilities? Makes me want to throw caution to the wind and lose myself in him and everything he’s offering? Unlike my sire, I can hurt Malcolm, could kill him. Even if I were able to magically do what he wanted, to simply forgive myself and decide to start moving on, I’d still say that the gods have a fucked up sense of humor for rewarding my suffering with such a backhanded gift as a fated mate.
Swallowing down my tumultuous emotions, I close my eyes and lean into his touch so he knows I’m not ignoring him, just need a few minutes to get my head on straight before I risk speaking.
Wading through the overwhelming onslaught, I try to find what it even is that I want anymore. I’m not mad that I can’t go back to the life I had before I was attacked and turned; it was, quite frankly, miserable. Lonely, dull, and meaningless, just a routine of going through the motions. I’d love it if the nightmares could stop, but Malcolm’s right; I’d rather know what all happened to me during that year because the sort of things I imagine when trying to fill in the gaps makes me want to puke.
I’m my own worst enemy, and I’m succeeding in destroying what’s left of myself. I’m punishing myself like it’s my penance, like if I’m miserable enough it counteracts the awful things that I did, the people that I killed. But it’s not making anything better, or even more manageable. And worse, I’m dragging Malcolm down with me, seeing the way it’s killing him to watch me implode.
