Page 100 of Reforging Onyx

“But you think that Ambrose would’ve just tortured me,” Onyx countered. “Unless you think that he’d be able to control me by hurting me.”

Dominic hummed in agreement. “He’d have tortured you until you were broken or dead. Broken, he may have realized your further worth, but he was always short-sighted and driven more by impulse than planning.” His lip curled in derision.

He could at times be beholden to his deeper drives, but he never acted without a plan — often layers of plans. He had little use for someone so enslaved to their impulses.

“And if there is some additional element involved, as I suspect there is, they may have stepped in before you were dead as well.” In such a state, the young witch would easily see someone stepping in to stop the torture as a savior. And broken that way, it would not be difficult to mold him into the weapon that would obey their every desire.

It was psychological manipulation not too terribly dissimilar from what he had done by changing the course of his treatment of Onyx. Going from tormentor to elements of a savior himself had bonded Onyx to him in ways that the Rayne witch would not consciously realize.

Onyx nibbled on his bottom lip. “What do—” he began, only to shake his head.

“In any event,” Dominic said when it became clear Onyx wasn’t going to continue, taking a last drink from his coffee cup before setting it down and standing. “I must get to work. You cannot remain in the rec room the whole day, but I give you the option of being there before or after lunch. What would you prefer?”

Onyx finished off his own juice and stood as well. “Morning."

Dominic nodded, accepting Onyx’s choice easily, and gathered his laptop and files from his desk drawer. “Come." He led the way out of the bedroom and guided Onyx to the rec room. His hand on Onyx’s shoulder prevented the young witch from darting directly into the room. “Give me a kiss."

Onyx grumbled, but he pecked him reluctantly on the lips before trying to pull away.

Dominic chuckled at the brief barely-there kiss, but he let Onyx pull away from him, locking him into the rec room before turning to head toward his office.

Once there, he alerted Shane to the fact that Onyx was in the rec room and that his instructions were to remain in the vicinity of the room for the morning and to check on him periodically. He thought about leaving explicit instructions for him not to interact with Onyx any more than was strictly necessary, but in the end chose not to even though his patience for any further issues between the two was strained nearly to breaking.

He set up the tablet to show him the video feeds from the rec room.

If something went wrong, he would make sure he knew about it immediately.

Chapter 41

Onyx

Onyx started up a game, but he only stared at the loading screen instead of actually playing. Usually, he was thrilled to be alone, but today, his thoughts felt oppressive.

He’d fucked up the day before, and he’d fucked up something fierce.

He could’ve gone with Ambrose.

He could’ve killed Dominic.

He could’ve been free.

But he also could’ve ended up in a worse situation.

As far as he knew, Dominic didn’t lie to him, but if Dominic and Ambrose hated each other so vehemently, Dominic might not have known the other witch’s ulterior motives. It was possible Ambrose could’ve been sincere and that the rescue attempt had been real.

There was also the fact that Dominic’s sister was supposed to help him if Dominic died. That wasn’t really an option, though; Onyx would’ve been on the run, and he was sure enforcers would’ve killed him on the spot upon finding him. So that hadn’t really been an out. Not in that situation, anyway.

And if he’d tried but failed to kill Dominic…

He started the game, navigating to the last area he’d been exploring as his mind continued to race.

The fact was that Dominic was a psychopath. Onyx didn’t know much of anything about psychopaths, but he didn’t think Dominic was above twisting the truth to get to him. Did it twist his thinking into paranoia? What if Ambrose had been sincere, but Dominic had only assumed that he hadn’t been?

Maybe if he got a phone or something with the internet, he’d be able to look it up and find out more, to get leverage of some kind by understanding Dominic better… But he didn’t know if Dominic would risk letting him get in touch with anyone by letting him have access to the internet. Not that he’d even know where to start to try to talk to anyone, except maybe about games or something equally low stakes.

No, that wasn’t going to happen.

Of course, he could just ask Dominic, and he was sure the witch would be happy to tell him all about psychopaths because he wasn’t ashamed of what he was. Was he?