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No one had ever looked at me like Mark Trevena had the night of the party, like he was right now. Like he wanted to cut me open and taste the blood that came out, and then make me taste it too.
“Honeysuckle,” Mark said softly. “My grandmother told me once that it was the symbol of a good marriage.”
Fire upon fire, painting my shoulder blades red, giving me wings made of stinging, scarlet welts.
“I am all want with you, Isolde. You think that I don’t think about you all the time? That I don’t want your scent all over my bed? You think that I don’t wish I had you under my desk with that serious little mouth available for my relief every morning? That I don’t want your snug cunt whenever I goddamn feel like it? Yes, I want you, and I want you collared, and I want you mine. That should be enough to terrify you, because I would hold nothing back until I’d eaten your very soul. I would hold nothing back until it was written on your skin and scratched into your bones how much I crave you.”
“My deadly girl, my little honeysuckle queen. Say hyssop to me, and I’ll stop the instant you say it. But I won’t break for wait, not for stop. Not even for no. Your safe word is all of those things, and more. It’s your freedom and your power too.”
“I’d like to stay,” he said finally. “I don’t know how advisable it is, but I’d like to stay.” “Thank you.” I closed my eyes again. “I wish I hurt more so that you’d have to do more aftercare.” “Aftercare is more than pain management, Isolde,” he said. “What would you like?” “I don’t know,” I said, still dizzy and tingling. Endorphins, maybe. I was high on them. “I just want you with me.”
“What happens next?” I mumbled, sleep already pulling me under. “Sir?” He let out a long exhale. He liked it when I said sir. “I figure out what to do with you, sweetheart. That’s what happens next.”
Tomorrow would begin a new chapter for us. I would be his in all the ways he’d tried to warn me away from, and maybe, just maybe, a tiny piece of this cold, deadly, hungry man would also be mine.
I was unable to stop the excitement blooming in my chest. I was his. I’d fought it for the last two years, resisting him, resisting the way he made me feel, the way crawling and being bound and held and flogged had made me feel, but no longer. I was his.
“We’ve done a commendable job of selling our engagement as real so far, and we’ve now ensured your father has no reason to doubt you. There’s no reason for us to see each other until the wedding, unless, of course, we decide to present the illusion that I’ve collared you. We’ll need to make something of the collaring, a little ceremony at the club, but I’ll make sure it’s brief and to the point.” “Illusion,” I said.
You were born guilty; you were born feeling stained and ready to suffer for it. God found you before anyone else could, and so now you’ll lay yourself on any altar you can find to atone for the sin of being alive when your mother is dead, for the sin of being mortal and therefore imperfect. For the sins you intentionally commit now in God’s holy name.”
“You are terrified that your soul will be damned to hell. And I no longer have one left at all.”
Maybe he had no soul left, but I would lock mine away, where no one could touch it ever again, and when we met again for our wedding, we’d meet as equals. I would get what I needed from him and Lyonesse’s archives; he would get nothing that mattered from me. And one day, if God granted my prayers, he would feel the same crushing humiliation and heartbreak that I felt right now, naked and sore in my bedroom on a cold winter day.
now my heart’s locked away, and my need for comfort along with it. A blade only needs sharpening, not encouragement. I don’t need his reassurances in order to keep slicing.
My breath and blood and bone, entirely under my control. It took every minute of the last two and a half years, but the Isolde who believed Mark Trevena when he said he wanted her is gone.
