Page 52 of Madness Behind the Mask
But it is all too calculated, too cold for true pleasure.
So despite the ache in my balls, I pull back and grab her chin, squeezing slightly when she tries to suck me in again. I pop out of her mouth, and she looks up at me with a hurtful expression that cuts me deeper than any blade ever has.
“What have I done wrong?” she whispers, and I drop to my knees in front of her. Our gazes level, I shake my head.
“Nothing, Sau,” I murmur. “I just want to know wherethis is coming from.”
She glances away, her mouth closing as she wars with that infamous Shadow pride.She shrugs half-heartedly, and ice grips me as firmly as I do her chin.Was this a goodbye? A last gift, a last made memory before she killed herself? The calm before the storm? The bright brilliance of the sun before the eclipse?
Hauling her to me, I fall onto my ass and drag her onto my lap. “I’m sorry I left you on your own,” I say, my softwords heavily controlled so they don’t split and break apart. So I don’t follow them in their grief.
I run my fingers through her hair, taking comfort in the fact that she is still here. I still have time to convince her to stay alive.
I try not to think about how many successful suicides there have been in this Family. How none of them could be saved unless theywantedto be saved.
I cling to her, trying to push my desires for her life into her very core.
But magic is not miraculous.
And my heart shatters inside my chest, exploding in all directions like a fucking grenade, imbedding shrapnel in my ribs and lungs,knowing that unless she wants to stay with me...Iwilllose her.
“But Igot a lead on the head of your abusers,” I say, hoping that is enough of a tendril, enough of a wanted thread to tie her to the world of the living. I hesitate for a second, wondering what will happen to her grief if David turns out not to be the mastermind behind her rape. She could spiral quickly.
But she needs this knowledge now...and I am prepared to sacrifice him for her peace of mind, guilty or not.
Whether that destroys this Family or not...
She looks up at me, her mouth closing on whatever she was about to say. Then she swallows. “Who?”
“David Woolman Shadow.”
Her mouth drops open, and a part of me fucking purrs at the terror in her eyes, the instant belief that he could hurt her. That she trusts me over him. That perhaps he isn’tthe one who means the most to her after all.
“Did he…” She trails off, but it isn’t due to a tremble of words. It is because of a growl. A flash of anger in her eyes. “Touch melike thattoo?”
Every last molecule of pleasure is ripped frommeoverthe way she asks. “What do you meanlikethat?” Isay, a softer growl than hers, more measured, more controlled but no less promising of pain.The alarm bells ring again about how skilled she was with her mouth, and my grip tightens on her hair, yanking her head back to meet my eyes.
She stares unflinchingly, but there isn’tanypain in her gaze, no sign of victimhood ordistaste like there always is when she thinks about her rape at the hands of Bert or Antonio. No, this is indifference. A lack of caring, a lack of understanding that what happened to her was just as wrong.
That it was the same.
I trace my thumb across her lips, my jaw tight, and she turns her head fractionally away. “They were just lessons. A gift for you,” she says. “Now answer me about –”
A small whimper escapes her, the first knowledge I have about how hard I’m squeezing her. I dig deep for the ability to force my fingers to loosen despite the desire to clench them into fists and slam them into the wall behind me.
“No, he wasabusingyou, Sau,”I hiss as I can imagine it all so fucking clearly. She was a virgin when I met her – a stipulation in the contract between our Families – but given how detached she is when it comes to sex now… He touched her when she was a fucking kid. He looked me in the eye all these years. He lives in my house. I trusted him alone with her.He was supposed tolook after her, protect her. Instead, he violated her.
For.
Fucking.
Years.
Because a sick fuck like that doesn’t just stop. He doesn’t ‘get help’ or suddenly ‘see his ways.’He simply continues until his victim either outgrows his tastes or he finds another.
I release her chin abruptly, knowing if I hold her, I’ll hurther accidentally. My hand is already a fist, my magic pulsing at the tips.“I bet he told you to keep it a secret, didn’t he,Sau? Special lessons?”
Her pretty green eyes narrow as she searches my face, stillnot quite sureabout why I’m upset.“Yes,”my wifewhispers,and my whole body goes cold, coiled. My magic sits just beneath my tips, waiting for my command to ripthe fucker apart atom by fucking atom.
