Page 102 of Taken By Touch and Torment

My body was flushed with pleasurable tingles, and I was frustrated with my inability to move, to tangle my limbs with Rune’s or tackle him to the floor.

For a frightening moment, I was back on Durian’s demented altar—screaming and fighting against the magick that held me down as he carved into my flesh with a sharp blade.

Stop. Stop.

Rune pulled back immediately. He scanned my eyes. His shadows began to recede.

“Why?” I rasped, trying to catch my breath.

“Little Flame,” he said softly. “You stopped kissing me back. I felt the change in your body.”

“It was only for a second,” I said, frustration in my voice. “I’m fine. It was just a memory, but I pushed it down. I’m still in my body, and I still want you.”

Rune moved closer to me, his shadows gone, but his hands still holding my face. “Baby, I will not hurt you. Not like that.”

I took a step away, out of his grasp, as his hands fell slowly back down to his sides. “So because evil people did evil things to me, I can never again have sex or experience pleasure and desire? How is that fair? Am I to become a Helianic nun so I never get hurt again?”

That would be a pretty funny life choice for a succubus, but I didn’t currently have the capacity to appreciate its comedic value. Angry tears burned my eyes.

“Of course not,” Rune said, pain in his dark irises. “It’s only been a couple days. It’s all still fresh and unprocessed. I’m not here to cater to your every fleeting desire, Scarlett. I’m here to take care of you and put your well-being above all else, even and especially when you can’t do that for yourself.”

“Kind of patronizing to think you know what I need better than I do,” I snapped.

Rune shrugged, an infuriating immovability in his features. “Call it whatever you want. But I know when you’re no longer present and capable of giving consent, and I think it’s fairly bloody reasonable to exercise the most extreme level of caution right now. And it’s more than that. I need you to understand that pushing it down is an unsustainable way to cope with trauma.”

The anger was back in his eyes, and he raked a hand through his hair. “I spoke to Uriah and Sadie.”

I glared at the floor. That was why he’d been irritated when he’d first found me.

“Talk to me, Little Flame. Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

I looked back up. “Why should I? You’re only going to shut me down.”

Rune sighed, his face softening. He reached for my hand, kissing my knuckles before guiding me to sit with him on the nearby loveseat. He was comically large on the dainty piece of furniture. I nervously picked at a nail, pulling my thoughts together through the haze of anger, lust, and confusion.

“I wasn’t merely a passive, broken victim in that place,” I started. “Sometimes I was. Sometimes I was even worse—sometimes I tried to help the other slaves, and I failed.” I took a deep inhale, refusing to look at him. “I got two humans killed.”

“How?” Rune pulled my legs into his lap, taking my hand and rubbing his thumb soothingly over the top.

It didn’t feel like I deserved this tenderness, but I let it soothe me, anyway. I forced myself to meet Rune’s soft eyes, teeming with understanding and care.

“I pulled as much attention as I could off them and onto me. They had no defenses, no magick. And I—well, Durian had forbidden anyone from touching me sexually or killing me. I had protections that no one else had, and they hated me for it, and I hated myself. I wanted to take as much of the abuse as possible, to give them a reprieve.”

Rune stared at me. His jaw flexed, his body tightly wound. I could tell he was trying extremely hard not to show his wrath that threatened to explode from his every pore.

“They put me on a cross and made the other slaves hurt me,” I said, my voice breaking. “I only created a frenzy. Guards threw humans at vampires in bloodlust to distract them from me and my addictive blood,” I spat out the words, disgusted with my selfishness and callousness. “Then you showed up, and you told me what I thought I deserved to hear—that I was dead to you, that I belonged with the born. You said I was ruined.”

Rune’s thumb stopped his gentle caress, his grip on my hand tightening. His tattoos shifted on his skin.

“Sometimes, even though I know it wasn’t really you who said those words—I still worry that it’s the truth. I worry that you look at my body and see all the places other men have touched. You see the weight I’ve lost and the way my time as a slave has changed me physically, and you’re disgusted. And maybe that’s partly why you won’t touch me sexually.”

As the words poured from me, it felt like a space had opened up that had once been closed and locked tight. I was uncomfortable and raw. I wanted to be back in a secluded corner, lost in a fantasy realm instead of facing this god of wrath who saw straight through me and into my soul.

“Scarlett, my soul,” Rune said, his voice bleeding rocky emotion. “When I look at you, all I see are stars. I see the woman I was born to love. The fact that other men have touched you does not affect how I see you. It affects how I see them, and all the ways I plan on killing them slowly, painfully, and damn artistically.”

He placed his hands on my legs, giving his head a little shake as he exhaled roughly. “My refusal to hurt you is because I love you. My attraction to you is as fucking insatiable and concerningly obsessed as it’s always been.”

When his eyes burned into mine, I couldn’t do anything but believe him.

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