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The guy in love with my girl.
The one man who had the power to rip out my heart if Ily ever chose him.
“You’re not allowed to give up yet,” I whispered, my voice rough.
He laughed under his breath, trying to hide his despair. His brown eyes met mine as he flashed his gloved palms in a sad shrug. “When?”
Fuck.
That one word.
It cut me.
Stepping into him, all those urges to protect my siblings when I was younger surged. I fought the very real need to hug the bastard. “I don’t know. But not yet.”
He sniffed and nodded.
It took him a moment, but his shoulders straightened. “I did not mean to say any of that. What the hell?”
“It’s fine.”
He narrowed his eyes with a flash of rage. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.”
“Good at what?”
“Making people hope.”
I flinched.
“You tortured Ily with that hope when you first arrived. I hated you for that. I still do. Hope is the worst fucking emotion in here and I was perfectly fine before Ily infected me with that disease. She gave me hope. And God, it’s ruined me.” A deeper flush of anger on his face. “You know, I was coping just fine before she came along. Of course, for the first year, I fought. I got my ass handed to me over and over again. But by the time I realised I couldn’t win, Victor started rewarding me. Trusting me. Making me do things I can never undo.”
He shook his head, unable to stop now he’d started. “But the thing about hope is…it’s too fucking powerful to stop once someone dangles it in front of you. It spreads like the flu. It kills the weak and weakens the strong. So I hope to fucking God you’re going to see this through with us, because if you don’t? If you decide the darkness is easier and keeping Ily collared is better than all the other shit that might follow, then you might as well just kill us now because we won’t survive. Not after this.”
His words hovered in the air between us.
I swallowed hard.
I had no idea what to say.
For a moment, I wanted to run again but then I found myself saying, “I get that asking you to trust me when I’m a Master and you’re a slave isn’t easy. But we’re more similar than you think.”
“Yeah, okay.” His rolled his eyes. “Sure.”
“I have shit in my past that I can’t undo as well. The things I’ve participated in…” I shuddered. “I’ll take most of them to my grave.”
“What could you have possibly done to say we’re similar?”
I stiffened. I didn’t want to tell him, but words tumbled anyway. “There was no one to protect me either. No one to stop him. I cried as I hurt women who’d only ever been nice to me. I had to live with those same women afterward and rightly deserved their hate. Not one of them dared look in my direction. No one talked to me, hugged me. The loneliness of being ostracised—” I cut myself off with a sneer. “Fuck. That’s not important. What is important is—”
“You were raised in a place like this?” Peter sniffed, his face guarded.
“Not as grand or with lots of guests, but yes.”
“So you admit it’s not just a desire but in your fucking genes? And you think you can ride off into the sunset with Ily and what? Forget who you are? Put aside all that shit? All this power?”
“I know enough of my needs that I never want to break her. I need her to fight back—”
“Wow, you truly are sick.” He almost spat on my feet. “I hope she leaves you. She deserves better.”
