Page 23 of Conquering the King of Storms

I must’ve slept longer than I had realized.

There were strips of meat wrapped in some type of leaf hovering in the wind just in front of me, and the king sat down about a foot to my right. He leaned against the wall, closing his eyes.

The man was giving me space, which I appreciated immensely, even if a large part of me wanted to scoot over there and snuggleup against his side. I didn’t need the warmth, but since I couldn’t see well the comfort would’ve been nice.

I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression though, so I stayed where I was.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Sirus.

“Of course. When I wake, I’ll take care of your hair,” he murmured back. “Only let me rest while you eat.”

I made a noise of agreement, though I had no intent to follow through with said agreement. The man had carried me while sprinting and swimming for hours and hours. He needed sleep, and there were enough fish bones off to the side of him that I was positive Sirus had already eaten before waking me up, so there was no reason for me not to let him rest.

While I ate, I studied the man’s features. They were softer in the dark, though he had a kind face anyway. The careful way he had wrapped strips of the raw meat to turn it into sushi rather than dropping a dead fish in my lap spoke volumes of his character to me.

It was still a good thing I liked sushi, though.

As far as sushi went, Sirus’s wasn’t the best I’d ever had, but it definitely could’ve been worse.

I ate slowly and quietly, finally peeling my eyes off the man beside me and staring out into the cave. My stomach clenched when all I could see was darkness, and I forced myself to breathe slowly.

In…

Out…

In…

Out…

My shoulders relaxed slightly.

It was dark, but there weren’t any monsters around us. Sirus would’ve felt them if there were, and he wouldn’t have gone to sleep. We were mated, so our lives were tied together. If I died he would go too. And that meant he would protect me, even if he was a shittier man than he seemed.

If there was one thing I knew about men, it was that they always looked out for themselves, after all.

My mind slipped back into my past. Or rather, my life on Earth. The cave was completely silent, and for the first time since I’d woken up in Bluhm, it felt like I was completely alone with my thoughts.

The day before I was transported in, Steven and I had a particularly bad fight.

He had only hurt me physically a few times, but… that was one of them.

I had mentioned wanting to go clothes shopping alone; something he didn’t like, because he was convinced that if I made my own clothing decisions, I would end up “dressed like a slut”.

When I had calmly explained to him that I should be allowed to dress however I wanted, he had argued that the things I wanted to wear would make him look bad. That they would lead me to cheat on him, and make his friends think I wanted them, and tell people that I didn’t respect him.

I’d realized that the conversation had escalated to a dangerous point, and backed down.

But I’d been steaming mad, so I had turned, and walked away.

It pushed him too far—he had thrown me against the wall, hard.

According to him, that had been my fault, too. All of it was my fault, like it always was. He had apologized, promised to take me out to a fancy dinner, said he would go shopping with me and I could pick out whatever I wanted.

But that was the same shit he always did. I had researched it, after the same thing had happened multiple times—the anger building, the violence, and then the remorse. That last part, the internet had called thehoneymoon phase.

And Steven’shoneymoon phasedidn’t fool me anymore.

I had silently gone to clean up in the bathroom after he finally let me walk away. In there, I unlocked my phone with shaky hands.

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