Page 67 of The Art of Obsession
“We lived like we were part of another time.” He sifts his fingers through my hair. “A world untouched by modernity. Old beliefs. Ancient practices. The kind of things most people read about in horror stories and think can’t possibly be real.”
“What kind of practices?” I ask softly, my voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart.
A pause. A deep inhale. And then… “Blood rituals. Bloodletting. They believed it purified the soul, gave power,” he sharpens his voice, his fingers digging into my scalp. I don’t protest. If touching me helps him get through this and give me the answers I want, I’ll take it.
“From the time I was a child, they taught me how to use a blade—how to cut myself, how to cut others.”
I wince, remembering the scars on his backside.
“There were ceremonies,” he continues, rubbing his lips along my brow. “Elaborate rituals where blood was spilled like water. The first time they handed me a knife, I was six. I didn’t understand. I thought it was a game.”
Any words get stuck in my throat. My heart burns for him. This isn’t supposed to happen.
“When I was older, they sent me into the forest alone for weeks at a time,” he says. “To hunt. To survive. To prove myself.” There’s something like a smile in his voice, an amusement. I feel it in his fingertips as they shift the strands off my cheek, baringmy face. “But I didn’t just hunt. Icreated. Mud, twigs, berry juice—whatever I could find, I used it to make art. It was the only thing that made me feel… human.”
His voice softens, and I can picture the boy he must have been, alone in the woods, finding solace in creation. A born prodigy.
“Sometimes,” he continues, “I’d come across hikers, backpackers, or homeless people who’d wandered onto our land. They didn’t know the rules. They didn’t know the danger.” His voice pitches to a low tone. “The clan always found them. And they always died.”
I’m almost afraid to speak, but he said he always wants my authenticity, my voice. “They… killed them?” I rasp.
“They called it justice,” he says bitterly. “Night rituals. Roaring fires. And bloodletting to cleanse the trespassers’ souls. And then they drank their blood before burning them alive.”
My stomach churns, but I feel his gaze on me. When he lights a palm on my right ass cheek, I whimper at the increase in pressure.
Roaming his mouth along the side of my head, Cal goes on, his tone shifting, “But even in that hell, there was light. Her name was Naomi.”
His whole body seems to soften at her name. His breath curls warm and even across my face. “She was my foster sister. Orphaned, like me. Golden curls, green eyes. She idolized me, followed me everywhere.”
I hear the affection in his voice, feel it in the way he lightly touches my skin.
“When I went on my hunting trips, I’d carve little animals and flowers for her. She loved them. Played with them like they were treasures. And when I came back, she’d run to me like I was some hero. She was the only good thing in that place. The only thing that made me believe there was something worth saving.”
Cal grips the back of my neck like a vice. I gasp but remain as still as possible. His fury seems to penetrate me, resonating down my spine. Desperate to convey the truth. Like he’s speaking it for the first time.
“She got sick when she was eight. Fever, weakness… I knew she needed real help, but the clan had their own ideas.”
“What did they do?” I whisper.
With his chin draping my cheek, I feel his jaw tighten, and the hand on my neck squeezes, gutting my breath. “They said she needed more bloodletting. That she was impure. I argued, but our foster father wouldn’t listen. He handed me the blade and told me to do it.”
“Did you?”
“I refused.” His voice is like steel. Cal fists my hair, twisting, coiling it around his hold. “For the first time in my life, I said no. So he fucking did it himself. The same monster who carved up my back and taught me what it means to be arealman…in the mostpersonalof ways.”
When he pauses, the silence is suffocating, the horror crippling as his pain seeps into my pores, seeking my heart.
When he shifts, releasing my hair, I’m confused. He was on the verge of telling me something deep, something even more horrific. What is he?—
—strike! The burn hits me like a bite of hot iron. I hiss, tipping my head back just as Cal brushes multiple thick ribbons of something, soft and warm but…
“Leather cat o’ nine tails,” he purrs darkly, tracing the strips along my back and tickling my buttocks. “If I don’t keep my focus on you, Everleigh, every part of you, I will get lost in the memories. I will not break your skin, but I need your pain. Give me your pain.”
I hear the low whistle. The flail cracks against my back. Once. Twice. Three times. I bite the pillow below my head tomuffle my moans. I excuse it as Stockholm Syndrome again, but I trust him. Trust him not to hurt me beyond repair. With every burning strike, my legs shudder.
“Fuck,” he growls. “Your skin is like a scarlet rose beneath my scourge. Christ, yes, I need this. Fucking need you, Everleigh,” he finishes, bringing the flail down again and again, finding new skin to burn. He works his way down from my back, attacks the back of my legs, and finally…my ass.
By now, I’ve broken out into whole-body tremors. All my flesh is inflamed, but the warm wetness in my pussy is undeniable. I’m clenching more. But every time I do, the pressure from the plug mounts, threatening to carry me away.
