Page 85 of The Dark Obsession

Most likely it’s just some form of deep-rooted male possessives combined with the need to protect what’s mine.

Then there’s also the obsession.

When I first saw her, something within me felt whole again, something within me recognized that we are one and the same.My darkness calling out to hers.

With a grunt, I lock the weapons in their steel reinforced cabinet. Just in case Malory decides to shoot me after all and return to her former shackles.

There’s a bothersome spark of hope in the back of my head that she wouldn’t do it given the chance.

But maybe that’s just my damaged subconsciousness trying to desperately latch onto any bits of affection she might have developed towards me.

Fuck it.

Time to get my girl before I self-combust from overthinking this.

There’s no one in front of the cabin with the living room being likewise empty. And I know for a fact she didn’t go down to the creek or she would have passed the garage doors.

Tightness like never before grips my chest.

She wouldn’t have run after waking up next to me, would she? Does she regret it?

Now that I think about it, she seemed to be deep in thought when we were having breakfast.

And where’s the damn dog?

Droplets of cold sweat start running down my temples and my hands that are always steady, easily capable to hit a target straight in the center of their forehead from a rooftop a mile away, are shaking now.

Taking three steps at a time, I barge into my bedroom convinced that my girl went back to bed.

It’s empty.

Something inexplicably dark twists inside me.

The breath is knocked out of my lungs as I fall to my knees in the middle of the room, fighting the gut-wrenching sound that’s tearing through my throat, choking me alive.

I haven’t cried. Not since the night I found my mother in a pool of her own blood.

And I won’t start now.

There’s no place in this world where she can hide from me. Willing or not, I’ll have her back in my arms.

Or these unwanted shreds of feelings will turn me to dust, obliterate my existence until there’s nothing left but ashes of my burned soul.

Malory has sparked a kindle within me, adding to the fire with each passing day only for it to threaten to burn me alive.

It hits me then.

A low humming breaking me out of the spiral of self-destruction. My vision clearing as the sweetest sound carries down the hall.

Scrambling to my feet, I take a few tentative steps in the direction of Malory’s old room.

It’s her. It’s her soft voice humming a melody I don’t recognize.

The fist that gripped my heart like a vice suddenly releases and I let out a long, shattering breath full of relief.

What has she done to me?

Cracking the door open, I carefully peek inside, not wanting to alarm her in the state that I’m in.

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