Page 34 of Sinister Devotion

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JULIAN

Idon't want Claire walking into a relationship with me wearing rose-colored glasses. I need her to understand the darkness inside of me is more than my fucked-up childhood. The pleasure I get from inflicting pain, sensual pain, and receiving it, comes from a place of desire.

Sometimes the line blurs between desire and hate. Hatred makes me take pain and turn it on myself. There's never been anyone to fully understand the depths of my turmoil as it blends with joy, purpose, and focus to be the man my father never wanted me to become.

When Claire slides into the bed beside me, my mind doesn't immediately go to sex. I pull her in close, wrapping my arm around her waist but quickly remember my promise. The swiftness of me removing it spurs her to turn over and face me.

"You can touch me, Julian. Just no sex, right?" she asks.

"No sex," I tell her as sleep slows my blinking. I don't think I have enough energy for sex right now anyway. She turns back around to face away from me, letting me pull her into my body for us to finally let this day end.

The reins of my sanity are held tightly by my regimen of control. My routine is exacting, difficult, and thorough, because I have to restrain the monsters which scare the youngest parts of my inner child I still carry inside of me. However, the softness of Claire by my side lets me relax. She eases parts of me into feeling safe.

There lies the problem.

The pain erupts out of the darkness of my nightmares. It's like someone holding a blowtorch to the tips of my fingers and toes. I can never truly sleep because he'd barrel into my room like a fucking tornado and then toss me around it like one, too. My body shakes and the fear swallows me to the point where I realize I'm big enough to fight back.

Sleep doesn't allow my fucked-up brain to function or shut off. It stays in a state of purgatory, obligatory because my body needs rest, but my past won't let it. My mind wants to convince the piece of eleven-year-old Julian cowering in the recesses of my mind that what's happening isn't real.

Blackwell Manor morphs into a torture chamber I can't escape. Tears stream down my face as I catch a glimpse of the boy inside who barely survived.

The sound of his voice, Charleston's, looms over me. Blow after bone breaking blow, he shouts in my dreams. "Get up, Julian! Fight me like a man. No son of mine…"

"Get up, Julian, please…" whimpers come from somewhere in the distance. I have to protect him.

"Eddie, leave… Don't—" I cry out as the eleven-year-old version of me spurts into the sixteen-year-old Julian, still being belted by his old man, but now he can fight back.

"Julian, wake up." Another voice, unfamiliar to my past, but very much a part of my present.

"Don't touch me!" I snap, sweating profusely with sleep holding firmly onto me like a bear trap. I turn toward the voice urging me to get up and see Dr. Malia Mescal. Her image fades as quickly as it appears, like a ghost haunting me to fall back on the work we've done to stop this from happening. But again, my brain won't separate my night terror from reality. I shout at her. "You can't fix me!"

I stumble out of bed. The alcohol doing little to ease my nerves. My nightmares only fuel my drunkenness. The room spins as I anchor my palm against the wall. I can smell her, the sweet aroma of her vanilla shampoo.

Flashes of her blonde hair float by me in a blur. My hand swats at her like a gnat.

I hear her pleas, but struggle to break free. Claire calls out to me. "Julian, you have to wake up. Please, open your eyes. It's Claire."

"Get away from me! Get out of here! He'll kill us both." I warn her. My nightmares drift into reality, desperately trying to release me from my mental prison.

She finally listens, getting away from me. The firm grip of massively strong hands takes me by the shoulders and holds me against the wall.

"Jules, it's Eddie," his voice is like a dose of melatonin. It relaxes me because I don't have to think about being safe with Edward. My body instantly knows he's here to protect me. Everything relaxes as he moves me away from the wall and positions himself behind me to ease me onto the floor.

Finally awake, I hear her whimpers as she leaves the room.

"Claire," I whisper, knowing I fucked up. I wanted her to understand, but not like this, not when I can't control the demon and fear raging inside of me. "Did I? Did I hurt her?"

"No," he says in a low tone, sitting beside me. Both of our heads tip upward and back. A gesture so inherent we don't realize we mimic each other when it happens.

"This is why I stopped trying, way before Claire got here," I mumble in the silence of my bedroom. The lights in the room are still off. Beams of moonlight give me just enough light to see Edward burying his face in his hands.

"What's going on with you, Julian?" Edward says. "This was a bad one."

"I got too comfortable. That's what happens, remember?" I ask him, the tears unable to stop. I let them fall without a whimper, without a sniffle. The wetness marks the grief of young Julian who got too comfortable letting his homeless friend spend the night.

"Comfort means death, but only when Charleston Blackwell is Lord of the Manor." Edward sighs, elbowing me to get my shit together.

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