Page 34

Boone

He visits me every day, three times without fail, and I’ve started measuring time by the sound of the lock turning. There’s nothing else in this room to tell me whether it’s morning, afternoon, or evening. I judge what I can by the rising and setting sun, but the castle towers block so much of the sky that even that has become unreliable.

He brings me food, sets it down, and watches me with that unnerving intensity for several minutes before leaving again. As much as I hate those visits, I’ve learned to tolerate them because watching is all he does during the day. It’s nighttime that scares me the most.

At night, he doesn’t just watch me. He holds me down before I even have a chance to understand what’s happening or how I ended up flat on my back. Then he takes what he wants from me again. For him, my body exists solely to satisfy something years of isolation have left starving inside him. At least he brings oil now. It dulls the pain enough that I can endure what happens, though I hate myself for finding even the smallest amount of relief in something that has become part of the routine.

It doesn’t matter that I beg him not to. It doesn’t matter that I cry until my throat aches or scream for him to stop until I can barely speak afterward. He never does. Sometimes I think he doesn’t even hear me anymore, that my pleading has become nothing more than background noise while he uses me to compensate for all the years he spent alone.

I’m no match for him. I’m not entirely sure anyone would be. He’s tall and powerful, broad enough that once he has me pinned, there’s nowhere I can move that he can’t immediately stop. Muscles shift under his shirt whenever he reaches for me. I’ve gripped those shoulders and clung to his arms more times than I care to admit. Not because I want to hold him, but because sometimes I don’t know what else to do with my hands or how else to endure the moments when he refuses to let me go.

Sometimes, though, he touches me gently enough that the difference is worse. His hand will cup my cheek while his thumb brushes away the tears he caused. The touch so careful that for a few confusing seconds I can almost forget those same hands are the reason I’m crying. Other times, his fingers close around my wrists with enough force that the bones ache, leaving me to wonder whether this will be the night he finally squeezes hard enough to snap one.

Even tonight, when he enters carrying a tray, I find myself wondering what the evening will bring. The tears come automatically the moment he steps into the room. I don’t decide to cry anymore. It simply happens. My body already preparing for something my mind desperately wants to believe might be different this time. I’m afraid of him, desperately so, and I want to go home badly enough that sometimes I can think of nothing else.

He sets the tray down without saying anything before looking at me. I immediately step backward. I put the table between us, relying on something as simple as solid wood to stop him from taking what he wants even though we both know it couldn’t. I don’t think an army could prevent this man from coming for me once he’s decided he wanted me. There’s something terrifying about knowing that no matter where I stand in this room or how hard I fight him, eventually his hands will close around me and I’ll be exactly where he wants me again.

He’s possessive in a way I’ve never experienced before. Keeping me locked inside this castle isn’t enough for him. He needs control over every part of me while I’m here. I’ve never had anyone touch me the way he does or seem so completely certain that he has a right to my body simply because he wants it. I don’t understand whether that possessiveness is why he controls me so relentlessly or whether the control itself is what satisfies him. All I know is that when he looks at me, I never feel like he’s looking at another person.

I feel like he’s looking at something that belongs to him.

My eyes dart toward the bed before returning to him. When he sets the tray down mere feet from me, I already know what he expects without him having to say a word. Sit. Eat. Stay healthy. I wipe the tears from my face with the heels of my hands and stare down at the food instead. Cut fruit, thick slices of cheese, fresh bread still warm enough that I can smell it from where I’m standing, and roasted meat arranged across the plate.

It’s so much food, more than I’ve seen at one time in the past year. Instead of making me hungry, the sight immediately brings Dad to mind. While this man is feeding me more than I could possibly manage, my father is somewhere down the mountain, probably hungry and wondering whether I’m ever coming home. I stare at the bread and think about all the nights we divided portions that were already too small, each of us pretending not to notice when the other took less.

“Eat,” he growls.

I don’t want to. The guilt has already ruined whatever appetite I might have had, but I’m too afraid of him not to do as I’m told. I drop into the chair closest to me and farthest from him, keeping as much distance between us as the table allows. He slides the tray in front of me, then remains exactly where he is while I reach for the cup of glacial water.

My hands are shaking so violently that the water sloshes against the rim before I can even lift it to my lips. I set it back down before I spill it.

The man says nothing.

He simply watches me shake.

13

Rhys

“Please, let me out of here!”

Every day for the last two weeks has been the same, beginning with him begging me to let him out of his room and ending with me refusing to give him what he wants. Every night, I visit him whether he wants me to or not, and judging by the way he looks at me whenever I step through the door, he usually doesn’t. But after being alone for so long, after having nothing but these empty halls and endless years for company, I can’t seem to get enough of him.

Even when Étoile returned, my companion all these years, it didn’t stifle the fire that rages for Boone.

I set the tray of food down on the table and take a step back, watching as his attention flickers briefly toward it before returning to me.

“Please,” he says again, desperation roughening his voice. “I’m losing my mind. You have to let me out of here.”

As I’ve done every other time he’s asked, I ignore him and gesture toward the tray. “Eat.”

His expression darkens, and before I can say anything else, he snatches up the bowl of stew and launches it in my direction. I shift aside as it sails past me and slams into the far wall, splattering venison, vegetables, and broth across the stone before the bowl hits the floor and shatters.

I look at the mess for a moment before stepping carefully over the shards. “If you don’t want to eat, I won’t bring you food.”

The anger drains from his face so quickly that his skin pales, and when I take another step toward him, his gaze darts uneasily toward the remains of the tray.

“It matters little to me whether or not you’re fed.”