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“Brother,” Leon warns, easing himself in front of Christy. Sensing I’m about to let go of my restraint.
“No,” she says, pressing her hand over the name she carved into his chest, holding him back. “I need to understand what I’m dealing with. I need to look Konrad’s monster in the eyes and seeit. Let him finish.”
Leon grits his jaw but he does as she asks, and I know in that moment he always will. I’m glad of it.
“Mymonsterwants to ruin you, Christy,” I admit, staring at her with my honesty.
“And what you’ve described is your monster’s way of doing that?”
“No. That’s sex. That isn’t the monster. That’s my desire.Mine. They’re not the same.”
“Explain,” she urges. “I want to understand.”
“Everything I’ve described, I want that with you and Ineedyou to want it, too. I want you to walk into that room with us knowing what will happen anddesiringit. I want you to trust us, the men who’ve hurt you.” I laugh bitterly. “Fucking stupid right, to want that from you after what we’ve done?”
She drags in a surprised breath, her eyes widening. I can see the distrust in them. She thinks I’m a liar, but I’m not lying about this. It’s why we haven’t taken her to that room already. There is a fine line between what we want as men, and what the monsters our father cultivated need to feed the darkness. Sometimes they’ve blurred and that’s when we lose our grip on sanity. In order for her to survive us, we have to keep those things separate. Always.
“I’ve been abused so many times over the years,” I continue. “Too many times to count; I always,alwaysmade sure that the Numbers wanted what I gave them, even when they weren’t ready to admit that to themselves. I know them better than they know themselves.”
“And Twelve? Did you know her better than she knew herself?” There’s an edge of anger in her voice, and I understand it. From her point of view, all she sees is a woman who’s been kidnapped, imprisoned in this castle and then hired out for sex. A woman who was pushed to her limits and sought her revenge, taking what she wanted before killing herself, and whilst there’s truth in that, there is also so much more she doesn’t see, doesn’t understand.
I sigh heavily. “When Twelve first arrived here, she fought her true desires. I coaxed them out of her because that’s what I was trained to do,wewere trained to do. It’s why the Numbers have stayed, why they continue to perform, because they can be who they are without restraint. We’ve never lied about that.”
“And you truly believe that?”
“I know it,” I reply adamantly.
“Then how come Twelve did what she did to you? Explain that to me, Konrad.”
“For a time, Twelve was everything we knew she could be. She was free to be herself, free to fuck the way she wanted, free to sing, free to bloom. She was beautiful, talented, a perfect addition to The Menagerie.” I sigh, scraping a hand over my face. “Only I drew out more than her desires, I drew out her demon too, and she’s been carrying it with her ever since. The moment I realised what I’d done I tried to reverse it, and when that didn’t work, I kept her at arm’s length. Only my absence had the opposite effect...”
Christy’s gaze pricks with tears as she tries to comprehend what I’ve just said. “If that’s true. If you truly believe you never took what wasn’t given, wanted or desired, even if it was buried deep, then how do you explain what happened to me in the Grand Hall, in the dungeon? Ineverconsented to that. You stole from me.”
My head hangs in shame. “We did.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because we lost control with you. The lines were so fucking blurred we couldn’t see straight. We were hyped up on revenge, fucked up with new feelings that we didn’t know what to do with. We stole your orgasm on both occasions. We hurt you. It was wrong. We were wrong. I’msorry.”
I fall to my knees at her feet knowing that I should’ve done so the night Leon took her life. I should’ve been brave enough then to show what I truly felt beneath the layers and layers of darkness Malik had forced us to ingest over the years. I should’ve let those true feelings out like Leon had.
I was a coward.
I’m not anymore.
She tips her head to the side, watching me closely. “You regret kidnapping me?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t regret that because we wouldn’t have you here with us now.”
“Can you control the monster within you?” she asks, stepping closer. I can feel her warmth, her strength, her courage. It moves into my personal space, wrapping around me, heating me up.
“I don’t know. I want to, but I’m not as strong as Leon is.”
“You are, brother. Youare,” he insists.
She reaches for me then, her fingers surprisingly warm as they press against my cheek and slide along my jaw. Her fingers tip my chin up as she urges me to stand. I follow the movement, captivated by her. She pushes against my chest, and my back hits the stone wall as her fingers gently wrap around my throat. Her touch makes my whole body shudder. My cock punching through the gap in my boxer shorts, straining to reach her. Iwanther. Yet still I retain the threads of my restraint.
“Will you hurt me again?” she asks, pressing her body against mine, her curves soft against my hardness.
