Page 22 of Marked for Life

"Do you know what you are to me?" I ask, my voice a dangerous whisper, my thumbs tracing her jawline.

Her pulse races under my fingertips. "I’m your wife," she whispers, her voice measured, as if the words are carefully chosen to placate me.

I can feel it. She’s saying what she thinks I want to hear.

“More,” I press, my voice dark, insistent. “What else?”

A flicker of confusion in her eyes—she’s grasping for the right words, the ones that won’t bring consequences. But this isn’t about the words anymore. This is about the truth behind them.

“You own me,” she says finally, flatly. The submission, the obedience—it’s there. But it’s not enough. It’s not what I need from her.

"Not enough," I murmur, my voice heavy with dissatisfaction. "That’s not the truth. Not the real truth."

Her face shifts, the mask of calculation falling away as she stares at me, eyes wide with fear and understanding. She knows she’s failing me. She feels it in the way her heart beats, the way the air feels thick with the weight of my disappointment.

"I’m trying," she says, her voice breaking. "I don’t know what you want. What you need from me...I can’t...I just don’t know how to prove this. Not anymore."

That admission—that raw, unfiltered fear—warms me. This is real. This is what I’ve been waiting for. To see the cracks in her perfect composure, to see what she is truly made of when the stakes are this high.

“Maybe...a different approach is required,” I suggest, my hand sliding into my pocket. The glint of a blade catches her eye, and her breath hitches. The primal recognition is instantaneous. She knows this is no longer a test of words. This is real. This is final.

"Please," she pleads, hands protectively crossing over her belly. "Not our child. Don’t do this. Please."

I almost stagger back at her response. Does she really think I would harm our child? I stare at her with more sadness than I ever thought it possible for a man to feel.

Does she really not know me at all? After all this time?

Still, her fear is beautiful. It’s real. It’s the first time she’s shown me something real, something unmasked. But it’s not enough.

“No,” I reassure her, my voice softer than before, though the blade in my hand speaks otherwise. "This isn’t about him. Not about the child. It’s about what’s between us. What we’ve created. What I will prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to you...and to myself."

I hold her gaze, steady as I unbutton my shirt, revealing the mark I’ve made on myself—the tattoo etched into my chest, right over my heart, her name carved into my skin.

The air grows thick as the realization hits her. “No...please, don’t hurt yourself.”

Her voice cracks with genuine concern. The first real emotion she’s shown me since we entered this place. Something triumphant leaps inside me. Maybe she does care for me after all. At least a little bit…

“I do this for us," I tell her, the knife sharp against my skin. "To prove what we really are. What you really are to me. Not just as my wife, not just as the mother of my child. But something more. Something permanent."

I press the blade against my skin and slice. The blood wells up, dark and hot. I don’t flinch.

“Look,” I command, my voice steady, even as the pain spreads. “Watch what I will do for you. For us. For everything we are.”

When she tries to look away, I grab her head with the hand that isn’t slicing my skin and force her to look.

She watches, tears glistening in her eyes as I carve her name into my skin.

Fury. Her eyes blaze with it, and for a moment, I think she’s going to break. She wrenches her head away from my grasp, moving to stand, but her body betrays her. She sags back to the floor, her hands sticky with my blood.

“Why?” she sobs, her voice twisting with something that sounds like rage. “Why can’t you just believe me? Why isn’t everything I’ve given enough?”

She doesn’t understand. I’ve given more—always more. And now she sees how far I’ll go, how deep I can cut for this.

She shakes her head, hair falling over her face.

“Just stop. Please.” Something about the way she whispers it makes me obey.

The knife clatters to the floor a I gather her in my arms and hold her as sobs.

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