Page 6 of The Lands Defying
Stop it.
“Stop it!” I scream, forcing all the power I have into the barrier. It ripples, losing its solid color, but it doesn’t break.
With blurry eyes, I see Darius on his knees again, facing away from me. He holds the whip in his right hand that hangs at his side, fresh blood coating it and his back.
“Please, Darius, stop this. It... it hurts me.” I shake my head, pressing a fist to my chest to rub at it.
His shoulders rise and fall with harsh breaths as he stills.
“Why can’t you just leave,” he murmurs.
“I’m not leaving unless you do.” And I’m not. “You cannot expect me to forget what I am seeing.”
“It was something you were never meant to see. You wanted me to hurt like you did, I’m giving you what you want, and I’m just continuing what I deserve.” His voice is rough, trying to hide the pain he no doubt feels.
I pause. I did say that, didn’t I? I wanted to hurt him more than anything, I wanted my revenge on the way he had hurt me. I couldn’t do it though, he knows that.
“Is this… is this my fault?” I ask, lead filling my stomach.
The shake of his head is instant. “No, never,” he says vehemently.
Silence follows until I speak again.
“I did want you to hurt,” I admit, swallowing over the lump in my throat. “You know I couldn’t do it, but that doesn’t mean I wanted this to happen. I thought after we had spoken that we were trying to move forward, to not stay in the past.”
“The scars on your back are always going to be in the present!” He growls.
My heart cracks.
“And so shall yours now, won’t they?” I say, my eyes roaming over his bleeding flesh. I rest my head against his barrier again. “Why are you doing this, Darius, tell me, help me understand. We saw the memory, and then you just didn’t come back… to dothis? Why?”
He laughs cruelly, and the hairs at the back of my neck rise. It reminds me of just before everything went to shit at Eridian. My heart beats faster.
“I whipped you because I thought it was you I saw who had caused the rogures, only now, who I saw wasn’t you, was it? It was your mother.” His knuckles turn white with how hard he grips the whip. I tense. “I’ve known it wasn’t you for a while, but seeing it?” He hangs his head, his shoulders bunching. Anger rolls off of him as he growls, but it’s not at me, it’s at himself. “It was a reminder that I failed you.”
So he came down here to hurt himself, but something doesn’t make sense. “You have old scars, Darius. How long have you been doing this?” A pause. “Darius!” I shout when he doesn’t answer me, banging my hand on his barrier.
A growl. “Since you escaped Wolvorn Castle.”
I reel back, my breath catching. “But… But that was months ago.”
“It was.”
I look at the blood dripping down his back in horror. “How often have you done this?” I think back to the times he would disappear. I swallow. “Every few weeks?”
A shake of his head.
“Every few days?”
A pause, and then a grunt in confirmation.
My soulhurts.
How didn’t I notice it? Thinking about it, I haven’t even seen him fully naked since he had taken me here. Even in the shower he always faced me, when we fucked he’s kept clothes on or made sure his back isn’t to me. I think back to when I’ve been over his shoulder and hit his back, the grunts he let out, only now I realize it was from pain. In the bathroom when he was sweating through his t-shirt, that wasn’t sweat at all… it was blood.
When he’d stretched his back out and rolled his shoulders like he was trying to shift some discomfort, had he been whipped during the night when he had left?
He’s hidden it from me all this time…
