Page 28 of Dove

From the absolute obsession, he had for me. It might be wrong. Crazy. Twisted. But sometimes, it felt… good. Good to be wanted.

A smile ghosted across my lips but died when I looked up again and saw Tristan staring at me. A lump formed in my throat as a wicked smirk covered his face, but hatred burned in his eyes.

It felt like he saw inside my mind. Like he knew what I’d been thinking. That I was fucked up for liking this obsession Maddox had for me. I blinked, and his expression was wiped clean as he looked at Maddox. Had I imagined it?

“She’s a fucking whore.” Tristan shouted. Nope. Didn’t imagine it. The asshole.

The thought hadn’t even finished forming in my mind when Maddox moved. He shoved Tristan against the wall and drove a knife into his shoulder. My mind buzzed as they continued to argue.

About me.

I knew Maddox had protected me before. I knew he killed for me. But I’d never seen it. I could pretend he didn’t go out and torture people every night before I let him back into my bed, our bed. But faced with it in front of me, I couldn’t deny who he was. His demon had been let loose. He was going to kill Tristan for what he said.

“You paid her!” Tristan said. “You can pretend all you want. You can try and make her something more, but she’s a whore. You can kill everyone who tells you the truth, but it won’t change. He was right. She’s a freak who likes to get smacked around, and you’re fucking crazy enough to do it. That’s the only reason she’s here.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. And there it was. The ugly truth. All of it. I had been paid, and I stayed because I was a freak who liked pain. Pain given to me by a murderer. And everyone knew.

My eyes flicked around the room, trying to look away from the truth. Henry met my gaze again. I expected him to look away quickly. To show me the same disrespect Tristan was. Instead, he stared straight at me. As if he was telling me he didn’t feel the same. As if it was okay.

“Kincaid.” I whipped my gaze back to Maddox. He hadn’t looked away from Tristan. “Go back upstairs, little dove. You don’t need to see this.”

This. He meant him killing someone.

Did I want to turn away? Did I want to keep pretending I didn’t know who he was? Was I ready to be so violently faced with it?

I didn’t know. I glanced around the room again as If the answer would come to me. My eyes connected with Sebastian’s. I could see the pleading in his gaze as he looked at me. Maddox was off the deep end, and Sebastian thought I could bring him back from the edge. Did I have that kind of power over him? I didn’t know. But I had to try.

I ran down the last few steps coming to stand by Maddox’s side. He turned to me as if he felt my presence before I touched him. His eyes flicked to mine briefly before focusing back on Tristan and where he held the handle of a knife that was embedded deep in his shoulder.

I should have been disgusted by the sight of the blood, but sadly it had become normalized to me. Blood. Death. Murder. Torture. It surrounded me now. Iwasdisgusted with myself for letting it become that way.

I didn’t like Tristan. I never had. He’d made me uncomfortable from the moment we’d met. But I also didn’t want him to die because of this. Because of me.

Did I like that he saw me in that way? No. Did I like that he shouted it in front of everyone? No. I hated that he’d probably told other people since that information had been used to torture me. But I didn’t want his blood on my conscious. I didn’t want to feel responsible for his death.

“Maddox.” I spoke his name softly. I know he loved hearing me say his name. He demanded a lot of different things of me when we fucked, but saying his name was a constant.

I brought one hand to his wrist. I didn’t try to pull the knife away; I just rested my hands on him. Gently I brushed my thumbs over his pulse. It skipped a beat as I leaned forward to rest my lips on the shell of his ear.

“Maddox. It’s okay.” I whispered so no one but the three of us could hear what I said. What had been revealed about me to everyone tonight was bad enough. I brought my other hand to the nape of his neck, brushing my fingers through the thick strands of his hair.

“He disrespected you.” Maddox growled without taking his eyes off Tristan. “He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

“No, he doesn’t. But he doesn’t deserve to die either.” Something happened as I continued to touch him. It started to feel like I wasn’t only soothing him anymore, but he was soothing me. Like the jagged edges of my subconscious, the parts that told me Tristan was right were smoothing out. Made normal by Maddox’s acceptance of it. By his willingness to kill to prove it was okay.

“He made you feel like a whore.” Blood poured down Tristan’s arm as Maddox pressed the knife further into his skin. It dripped onto the gray stone floor. “He’s the reason you’re pulling away from me.”

I placed both my hands on his cheeks, subtly turning his head to look at me. I gazed into his deep blue eyes. They had taken on the manic darker color I saw when his demon came out. I wanted the softness. I didn’t want to lose him to the darkness.

“I’m right here, baby.” The endearment popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. I hated how right it felt. “Come back here with me. Let’s go upstairs.”

I felt like he was staring into my soul, looking for lies. He wasn’t wrong. I had been pulling away since I’d come back. I’d tried to leave. I was waiting until the danger was gone so I could go. But in this moment, it didn’t matter. Maddox needed me, and I needed him.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t want him again. I’d been telling myself it would be better to go without touching him again. But…fuck… I missed it. Missed him. And seeing him defend me was doing funny things to my insides.

I knew it was wrong to want him. It was wrong to want a murderer. It was wrong to want pain. But I did. And I was going to latch onto this excuse to take it from him, if only one more time.

“He needs to be punished.” He tried to turn away, but I kept my hold on his face. I ran my fingers through the stubble on his jaw.

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