Page 24 of Conquering the King of Storms

My eyes had been glued to the screen.

My fingers moved slowly over it, typing the numbers one by one, until my thumb hovered over the call button.

I knew the phone number by heart; my state’s domestic violence hotline. I had almost called them a dozen times already, but every time, something always stopped me.

Fear?

Shame?

Regret?

All of the above?

I wasn’t sure what, but even as I stared down at the phone number, I knew I wasn’t going to call.

If I called, I would have no one left.

Not his family, or his friends.

Not my family; they had abandoned me years ago.

Not my own friends, which he had slowly convinced me to cut out of my life.

He was all I had left.

And if I tried to leave him, he would kill me.

My eyes had closed, and I had shut off my phone, setting it on the counter.

And I had taken a hot shower, hoping the warm water would stop the bruises I could feel building.

It didn’t.

Steven had taken me to dinner, and then shopping. He had picked out dresses I hated, and I had pretended to love them.

Everything had been exactly the way he thought it should be.

And another piece of hope was stripped from my already-raw back.

I was never going to get away, I had realized, as I slipped into one of Steven’s old t-shirts.

And I had fallen asleep clinging to the very edge of my mattress, fighting tears.

But then I woke up in Bluhm, with two sets of glowing purple eyes staring at me.

And just like that, everything had changed. All of it, for the better.

Even in his first moments of sanity, after Ivy convinced me to kiss Sirus so he’d stop trying to kill her and his own people, nothing about him had reminded me about Steven even slightly. There was a peaceful feeling that he sort of… exuded. It made me feel calm.

I had liked Steven in the beginning because he made me feel excited. He was full of life and energy, and was always taking me to new places and doing new things with me. The sex had been exhilarating, always happening at random places and inappropriate times. I’d thought we were perfect together.

Even then, the red flags had been there. If Steven wanted sex and I didn’t, he would keep bringing it up and dragging me to wherever he wanted me until we had sex. If he wanted to go somewhere I wasn’t comfortable going, we would go. If I ever so much as suggested doing something with one of my friends, he would guilt-trip me into forgetting it and going out with his instead.

And Sirus, even though he was physically intimidating, had been the opposite so far. He had never tried to push me into doing anything. The only time he got mad at me was when I put myself in danger by swimming in the ocean without considering what might be beneath the waves.

Then again, he hadn’t been sane for that long.

There was a chance that he was different than Steven, but not a chance I could take a bet on. I wouldneverget myself trapped in another relationship like that.

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