Page 105 of Seizing Control: Part One

The one thing I had that no one else did.

My sweet.

Mine.

Lily gives up trying to put her ruined dress back on. She drops it to the ground and steps away from the torn material. I watch her stumble over to the door. When she whispers to herself, “This isn’t fair. I thought I had time”, something in me snaps.

I pick my pride up off the floor.

Force it to take a back seat for once in my life.

Lily’s words start to rearrange themselves in my head.

Scared.

The ritual.

First time.

Baby.

In front of the Trinity.

A child.

Two years.

Kill you.

Backfired.

A fury of Shakespearean proportions flares within me.

The devastation in Lily’s posture smothers it down to embers.

Without making a conscious decision, I stalk over to her, catching hold of her wrist before she can gain the screws’ attention. “Sweet thing.” The agony in my endearment nearly takes out my knees. She jerks away from my touch to wrap her arms around her waist. When she stares at the floor, I command, “Metukà shelì, look at me.”

Lily closes her eyes.

Sweeping her off her feet, the emptiness inside of me is immediately filled when her head comes to rest on my shoulder and she drags in a breath that sounds like a drowning woman resurfacing from beneath a wave. I’m shaking from head to toe, caught between betrayal and the bone deep need I have for the woman in my arms.

It’s a thin line.

Love and hate.

One that I’m balancing on like a carnival clown.

A single gust of wind could take me out.

Exile me.

I kick out one of the chairs and sit in it.

With Lily’s weight in my lap, I hold her tighter than I ever have before.

The past few minutes without her.

The period of time where she wasn’t mine.

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