Page 105 of Taken By Touch and Torment

Uriah tilted his head. “Reasonable and understandable. I’m glad she’s back.” He grinned. “Because that means we have you back, too.”

43

SCARLETT

It had been two weeks since I’d started healing.

When Belise massaged my hips, I started to cry. “Checking in—still okay? Need to stop or break?”

I shook my head. We were in his private healing room, the air smelling of lavender and mint, the energy calming and safe. Warm morning light trickled through the rainbow-colored curtains. I lay on his massage table, where we did a mix of energy work and massage therapy.

His touch was caring, non-threatening. His desire was to heal and nothing more. I used to compulsively check his desires every few minutes, preparing myself to flee each time. But now, the impulse was curbed by my trust in him and his intentions. He’d been incredibly patient, moving at my pace and letting me enforce my own boundaries.

When he pressed into my hip muscles, I winced with discomfort. “What guilt are you holding on to here?” he asked.

My tight bundle of nerves and muscle fibers strained against Belise’s call to loosen, to let go.

“I still haven’t seen Isabella,” I said, the first thing to come to mind.

I was learning how to let my unfiltered thoughts pour out. It was the only way to access the parts of myself and my past I’d shoved down for so long. In this room, I allowed those dark corners to see the light, inch by inch.

“She was my entire purpose for coming to Aristelle,” I continued. “No matter what she did to me, what she allowed men to do to me… I was still the reason she was kidnapped and harmed. And now, she’s free, just like I’d vowed. She’s staying nearby and I don’t even want to see her, and I feel crushingly guilty about it.”

Belise nodded. He was in a loose and flowy purple gown embroidered with golden flowers.

“It’s not selfish to take care of yourself, Scarlett. Do you think Isabella would receive you with love?”

“No,” I choked out, a tear sliding down my cheek.

“Do you think she would express gratitude for your sacrifices on her behalf? Before and after she was taken?”

I shook my head and closed my eyes, releasing my old beliefs and opening myself up to the truth. It was getting easier and easier every day.

This time when he worked my muscles, they untightened.

I hadn’t even realized how restricted and stiff I’d been before our sessions. I knew my mind had been damaged, but I hadn’t fully understood how it had been impacting my body until now.

And I cursed Rune. Because he was right. I did feel better. I got better every day. Even if some days, it didn’t seem like it. Belise taught me that releasing trauma wasn’t always pretty. Sometimes it came out as violently as it went in.

I kept going. I kept doing the hardest work of my life for many reasons. Rune’s praise, Snow’s pride, the promise of doing something to help other trauma survivors.

But also, for myself. It turned out that no matter how much shame I carried—all the beliefs I’d been taught about taking up too much space, being selfish, unworthy of love, and an evil succubus who had to earn everyone’s approval at all times… I’d never lived solely for me. I’d been conditioned to live for Isabella for so long that when Rune showed me how to act on my own behalf, it terrified me. I thought it made me a bad person to choose myself over anyone else.

Now, I was beginning to understand that I was of no use to anyone if I behaved out of guilt rather than love.

Belise moved into energy work, letting me stand as he burned a bundle of herbs and made circular motions around my energy centers.

When he got to my heart, I spoke, and it came from a deep place in my mind—untethered and unfiltered. “Do you think it affects someone, forever? To have their first introduction into this world be their parents disposing of them?”

I wondered what my birth parents were like. Was it my mother who was human? Something told me it was. Or at least that whichever parent was human was the one who left me in Crescent Haven. Were they running from something? From my born vampire side? Nothing in Isabella’s diary had indicated anyone knew anything about who’d left me and why.

Belise stopped, his eyes warm. He shook his head lightly. “Sometimes we’re given family, and other times we choose it. Neither is better nor worse than the other if both meet us with love and nourishment.” He guided me to take a deep breath with him. “Has your upbringing affected you? Of course. We’re affected by our early lives forever. But we can change the story, change ourselves. Nothing is ever stuck. We need only acknowledge each root before altering the trees in our mental forest. We have the power to break patterns and start new growth. For ourselves, and for everyone around us.”

He moved to my throat, changing his movements now as he concentrated. Something shifted inside of me, and I allowed it. I heard music float up from my memories, and instead of grief, I felt hope.

When we finished, I was light and unencumbered. I saw movement where there had once been stagnation. I heard melody where there had once been silence.

I’d been worried that in letting go of the past, I’d be letting go of who I was.

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