Page 16 of Reforging Onyx

Onyx screamed, a visceral sound that came from deep in his throat, and his eyes were wild as they took in Dominic. “I am not yours! You’re just some fucking psycho who thinks you can own a person, and you can’t, you can’t own me, you can’t.” His eyes grew glassy with unshed tears. “You’ll never own me. You can’t. You can’t.”

“You are mine, Onyx Rayne." For all that the words were said softly and almost soothingly, there was a finality in them as well. “You are mine, and I will never let you go.”

Chapter 8

Onyx

Onyx shattered.

The tears he’d barely been holding back began to flow, and he sobbed, one giant animalistic wail after another.

No.

No, Dominic was wrong. He was wrong. He had to be. There was no way that he actually belonged to the Bancroft witch, not… not this way. He didn’t. It was in name only; it was by law only.

But that wasn’t what Dominic meant, and Onyx knew it. Dominic had a vise grip on his mind, on his soul, and no matter what Onyx did, there was no escaping him ever again.

There would only be death, and even death wouldn’t end this because Dominic would bring him back.

Shane wasn’t wrong; Onyx was Dominic’s obsession. That wasn’t going to change, even though he needed it to. He needed Dominic to find another distraction, a new sword of Damocles, a new anything.

Then what?

Then where would he be? What would he be left with? If Dominic pursued something else and Onyx was forgotten, then what? It would be too late for him to reclaim himself, and…

And he wanted to go home. With all the desperation of a child, he wanted his parents, and he wanted to go home, and he wanted to be done with this.

He cried harder, shaking and pulling wildly at his bonds as he lost control of himself in front of the one person he’d never wanted to see him break.

Dominic stroked his skin while he wept and raged, containing him without quite pinning him down, an unwelcome but inexorable touch that he couldn’t escape.

Through it all, Onyx thrashed blindly. Tears made it impossible to see, but there was nowhere to go anyway. There was no breaking free. There was nothing he could do about any of this, no matter how hard he tried or what he did.

“Get off of me,” he sobbed. “Leave me alone, Dominic, I swear, I will fucking kill you for this, I swear it.”

“You’re not alone, Onyx. And you won’t be alone again. You’ll have everything that I can give you,” Dominic said, as though that was meant to be soothing.

A promise, not a threat.

Now that he’d started crying, Onyx didn’t know how to stop. No matter how many times he told himself that Dominic was a predator, and that you never let a predator see you vulnerable, it didn’t help. He was too lost, too desperate.

But slowly, his struggles slowed down, and his tears started to slow as well. He wept quietly, not fighting against Dominic’s touch.

Dominic made it sound like he’d have everything, but in reality, Onyx would have so little. He’d have only Dominic and what Dominic gave him, devoid of his freedom, his magic. Hell, even friends. He hadn’t been allowed to have those for so long that he shouldn’t have cared, but he wanted them. He didn’t want Dominic to be all he had.

It was so much.

It was too much.

“Everything you could want,” Dominic continued, gently wiping away Onyx’s tears from his face. “Name it, and if it is within my power, I will give it to you.”

“Sell me,” Onyx whispered, not even knowing where the words were coming from. “I want to be with anyone but you.”

There was a brief pause.

“That is not something that I can give you,” Dominic finally murmured, and Onyx could nearly feel the fury that was barely constrained within those words. “And even if I could, you would still be mine.”

The worst part of it was that Onyx knew Dominic was right. Even if Dominic sold him — and he never would, Onyx knew that, too — Onyx would always have Dominic’s voice in the back of his mind, would always remember being touched and tortured and raped and used and…