Page 134 of Safe Word

Inhaling deeply, I felt my lungs expand until the words settled like armour plating around my heart.

I’ve survived worse. Pain. Loss. The emptiness that filled me for years. I moved across the world and built a life from ash and syllables, turning my dream into survival.

And tonight, I’d invited the demon forged in the belly of hell to tear me apart – and I was thankful for every goddamned second.

My gaze fell to the bitemark at my shoulder, still tender, the skin slightly raised, the bruise deepening. I traced it. Pressed down gently. The sting pulsed with a delectable memory.

Then I saw the bruise high on my collarbone – like ink spilt just beneath the surface of my fevered skin.

Another press. Another sting.

He’d left that one when he came, pressing down, just that little bit harder, as his heat spilt across my chest.

Fuck, he was amazing. His muscles had tensed above me, every vein straining like rope pulled taut.

I felt his release ripple through him. So raw and unguarded.

Scarlett’s face shifted, turning solemn. Somehow, she looked… smaller. Trapped behind the frame.

And I realised – I wasn’t her.

I was the dark.

A slow breath escaped my lips. The barriers. The burdens—

They were gone.

I’d shed them all.

All that remained was the mask.

The pink on my skin.

And the truth beneath.

Turning towards the shadows, I glanced over my shoulder with a smile that tasted of blood and victory.

I could still feel the cold kiss of the blade tracing my spine when he’d mounted me from behind. Could still feel the demon in the mask pushing into me; one hand gripping my throat, the other clutching my hip, both dragging me back into myself. Pinching, biting, marking… worshipping my destruction.

His ragged snarl had broken against my neck.

The bindings had bit into my wrists.

Leather scored my skin in sweet punishment. I’d strained against them, needing the burn – the reminder. Every nerve in my body lit up, every breath became a prayer and a curse. Pleasure and pain braided so tightly that I’d forgotten which was which.

He’d wielded torment like art: slaps and bites that bruised into salvation, a careful orchestration of control and surrender. Each sound he made was a thread stitching me back together in a pattern only we could read.

This hadn’t been sex.

It was resurrection. Mine. I chose it. I let him pull me apart because I needed to be rebuilt, but… I forgot to protect myself against his pull.

He’d lured me to the edge of myself.

And when his solid weight pressed into me, I felt… untouchable. Powerful, even in surrender. Because this shift in power wasn’t weakness – it was freedom.

Here, behind the velvet curtains and between the shadows, I could finally let go. No masks except the one shown to others.

And as I stood there, naked and smiling into the dark, I knew exactly who I was.