Page 15 of Vicious Little Princess

I’d had to carry her into the house and also help her out of her soiled clothes when we’d reached her bedroom, because she’d been shaking so much, barely able to walk straight. From my own familiarity with entering myferalstates, I recognized it as a mixture of high-level adrenaline and a massive expulsion of energy, as well as the struggle of her regular, rational mindset trying to reconcile what that monstrous mindset had done.

With her not all there in the moment, I hadn’t left her alone for even one nano second. Not even to shower. Especially not to shower.

“Yeah?” I responded carefully, trying to keep my voice soft. Well, assoftas a brutal bastard like me could actually manage to pull off.

It seemed to be good enough because she didn’t flinch or react negatively to my one-word response.

In fact, she raised her head and met my eye line, even loosening her death grip on my biceps, wherein she’d been clinging to me in a very uncharacteristic way since I’d brought her in here to wash up. Like I was her lifeline.

While, sure, it did feel good on the one hand to be needed that way, especially by her, the woman I’d spent years being immersed in deep obsession with and who I’d developed a whole lot more than mere obsession with in the recent weeks, it also didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like us. It wasn’t our usual dynamic. And I also didn’t like the shift in the power dynamic either. I didn’t like it with her when things weren’t even between us, when she was more… submissive like this. Her being strong and domineering in her own right and being able to match me on every fucking level was the woman I knew, the woman I respected, the woman I… cared for a great deal.

Anything else just felt… wrong.

Unsettling.

And, yeah, fucking upsetting at seeing her like that.

Not herself.

Fucking lost to me.

I hated that all this shit was doing this to her, hurting her so much.

And I felt like it was doing more than that—as if that wasn’t already bad enough—that it was taking her from me, pulling her away.

It had takensolong for me to bring her close and to earn her trust, to be with her in a way that wasn’t just my one-sided fixation on display for her to see, beyond our war, that the idea of anything impacting that, risking that… it made me sick to my stomach. Hell, it threatened to make me rage in a way that the world and I, myself, had never seen the likes of before.

“How long have I been… out? Spacing out, I guess?”

“Almost an hour.”

She frowned, looked down at herself standing there naked, pressed up against me while I was clad in my pants and white shirt, the latter now see through from being utterly soaked. The only things I’d taken off were my socks and shoes, and my leather jacket. Well, and also my holsters.

“You’re in here fully clothed?” she questioned.

“I figured you might need that barrier right now.”After what happened to you tonight, after those fucking rapists set upon you while I wasn’t there to stop them, while you were taken under my fucking watch, while I was failing all over the place to safeguard the people I love.

“Thank you. But I’m fine.” She grimaced as she looked me over, her eyes darting all over the scratches she’d inflicted when she’d lost control on me earlier. “I’m so sorry, Nico. I wasn’t in my right mind, but that’s not even an excuse. I hurt you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Of course it is and—”

“Come on, we both know you were holding back when you came at me. Majorly. In that state, the damage you could have really done is far beyond these mere slight grazes.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“No,I’msorry,” I said, reaching out and stroking her face carefully. “Because you’re actually hurt,” I said, gesturing at the nasty scrapes along both of her arms, a red-raw handprint around her throat, bruising along her jawline,andnail marks… between her thighs.

“It’s not a big deal,” she insisted, even as she winced when she shifted her weight.

I saw her look down and realize what had caused the discomfort. She caught my eye and started shaking her head vehemently. “It’s not what you think. It was just a brutal grab.”

Just?

A growl escaped me before I could swallow it down.

“I mean, they didn’t get any further than that.” Her eyes darkened briefly as she uttered, “I made sure of it.”

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