When my wrists are secured, I don’t fight, I don’t cry, I square my shoulders and lift my chin. Stillness is power.
Roman’s dad speaks again, but I tune him out. Keeping my gaze ahead, I notice Felix’s ashen face as he takes me in. The blade comes towards me, and I brace for the pain. I welcome it. This type of pain is better than the other blade I was dealt in the past.
Betrayal stings worse than any cut could. The knowledge that the man who helps orchestrate this is the same man who tucked me into bed when I was small.
A sharp sting hits my wrist. I don’t flinch; I refuse.
Warmth slides down my skin, sticky and hot as the room watches on. The pain burns as they keep carving. I hear the squelch, I feel it, but my body remains impassive. My breathing turns shallow despite myself. Not from pain, from the knowledge that my blood is being used as currency.
My vision swims and my head pounds from the loss of blood. Nausea rolls in my stomach as I try not to gag. Breathing in deeply through my nose and out through my mouth, I try to focus on anything but the pain.
I feel the shift when the IV is put in. Medicine, he called it, but to me it will always feel like an invasion, like theft. For a split second, fear crawls up my spine.
What if something is wrong? What if my body rejects it? What if this is the moment it stops being a ritual and starts becoming fatal?
I swallow it down. I won’t give them the satisfaction of fear. Steeling my shoulders, I lift my heavy head. We are forced to Roman’s feet as I take him in again. His eyes have darkened toalmost pitch black as he looks at me. Not from horror, but from a promise.
This will end, that look says. Not tonight. Not loudly. But someday. And honestly, that is all I can hope for.
When it’s my time to speak, I clear my throat and look at the man who has become my safe space. With everything in me, I lift my bowl to him as an offering, not ashamed that I am on my knees for him like I should be.
“I bleed for you,” I say, the words that last time tasted like ash now feel freeing in my mouth.
Roman gives me a look of adoration and love as he licks his lips. His eyes move over my body, not even taking in Quinn, who is to the left of me when she speaks.
“You bleed for me,” he responds, his chest heaving as his muscles tense.
It’s then I realise that those words may have made me. They may have broken me. But this is the last time I let them define me.
CHAPTER 29
ROMAN
Ihave seen blood before. I’ve caused it, studied it, engineered the chemistry that keeps it moving when it should have stopped. But watching hers spill, watching the blade bite into her skin while she didn’t scream or beg, did something violent to my restraint.
She was like a goddess in that room and I know it took all of her strength, yet she didn’t falter. She lifted her chin and offered herself like it was nothing, like somehow I was worth bleeding for.
The Swallow carved on her wrist was clean and precise. I hated that I noticed that. I hated that a part of me catalogued the depth, the angle, and the way it would scar. And when her blood mixed with mine, I hated how much it turned me on.
‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye’pushes through the concrete chamber, the sound slightly warped by the damp but still pronounced enough to keep me focused. His voice pulls me back from the memory of crimson on pale skin to the present. Back to the man tied to the chair in the centre of our dungeon.
His head lolls forward, blood dripping from his nose to the floor in slow, rhythmic drops. I let the song play. I like thecontrast. Old soul music and screaming rarely sit well together. It unsettles people, and I love it even more because of that.
“For fuck’s sake,” Victor mutters from behind me, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. “Do you have to play that shit while we work?”
Case in point.
I don’t look at him as I adjust the cuff around our guest’s wrists instead, tightening until the prick hisses out a rotten breath.
“You can fuck off back home if it offends your delicate ears,” I drawl.
“They’re not delicate,” Victor scoffs. “I just don’t fancy torturing someone to a love song.”
“It’s motivational,” I glance at him slowly, unimpressed. Victor rolls his eyes but doesn’t move. “Are you leaving?” I ask flatly.
“No,” he grumbles under his breath, shuffling further into the dungeon.
I half want to call him a good boy just to piss him off and half want to keep ignoring him. The fat slob groans again though, so my focus shifts to him. He is a canvas of blood and bruises. We left him here to rot for nearly twenty-four hours and yet, I can tell he still has fight left.