AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And he’s here, his hands around me, his lips on mine, and I’m forced to move with him as he pulls me deeper into the center of the ballroom.
Every single muscle in my body is tense to the point of pain, that lump stuck so well in my throat that I’m not entirely sure how I’m managing to breathe. By the time he releases me from the kiss, he pulls my hand in his, and leads me into a dance to the disturbingly suggestive cover song.
“You belong to me…” Ryan whispers into my ear, at the same time as the song, the hand clutching mine a little bit harder than necessary, the grip on my waist firm, and if I wasn’t at the edge of a panic attack, instead of holding his shoulder, I would hold him by the fucking throat. Until he choked on his Adam’s apple.
I’m not looking at him, I’m looking over his shoulder as he spins me, trying to find something to ground my soul, an object, a face, a fucking piece of food, I don’t give a shit. I just need to learn to breathe again.
Every move you make…
Every vow you break…
And when the song slows, so do his steps, and through the blurred faces, I finally see her. Lulu clutches Luke’s bicep, completely still, looking at me with a shocked expression that does nothing to settle me. No… it makes me even more uneasy, because I see on her face exactly what I feel…no escape.
Every smile you fake…
Every claim you stake…
But as Ryan spins me farther, I catch another face through the sea of blurred ones, it’s fixed on me in a way that no one else in the room is, none of the ones that watch us right now. He pulls me in, commanding my attention with those black eyes that feel almost hypnotic—The Serpent. Those dark pits of tar make me sink deeper and deeper, pulling me into the denseness of them, a deeply satisfying pressure on my soul. My throat softens, the lumps shrink slightly. I come out of that hypnosis and actually look at him—there’s no joy, no pity, no excitement, no shock in his features, only this calm severity, one that somehow cheers me on. A silent urge to focus, driving me toward the right path, as my muscles slowly relax and that lump in my throat shrinks enough that I can control my breathing again.
I don’t know what this was, but it worked.
However, I do know that I’m going to have a little chat with The Serpent again soon.
“What the fuck did you do, Ryan?” I pull my head back, facing him. A grin spreads over his lips and suddenly that bile rises in my throat once more and I have to swallow too many times to push it back down.
“You think I didn’t know you’ve been planning to break up with me?” I attempt to pull away, but he presses his palm on the small of my back and pulls me hard against him as the rhythm of the song increases. “You’re not fucking going anywhere. You. Belong. To me.” He finishes that sentence with a crooked quirk of his lips, muddy eyes rabid with victory.
“You think that just because you made a fucking scene, and put me in this situation…” The son of a bitch knew exactly what he was doing, he knew how much it would fucking hurt my soul not to lash out and rip his goddamn throat out when he did this. So he did in front of half the fucking city, at a party that apparently he planned with my parents. “…You think I’ll go through with it?! Marry you against my damn will?! What the hell makes you think I will hesitate to leave you the moment this dance is over?”
There’s a strange sort of madness in his eyes. It’s been infusing his features for a little while now and I’m not sure what to make of it. I don’t know how to handle it or how to make it fucking go away. Because it’s true madness, seeping in his words and actions, making him do stupid shit like announcing a fucking fictional marriage that will never take place.
“Try.” Too many promises and threats lie in that one word, and I know for a fact that the man I knew is gone. I see no traces of him in the muddy eyes staring back at me. This man right here would throw me to the fucking alligators in the delta at the edge of the city, without thinking twice about it.
He spins me with a little bit more force than necessary, but at this point more couples have joined us on the dance floor and the move goes unnoticed. I think. I’m not sure, because my spine tingles with that feeling you get when someone’s watching you.
“You see your parents dancing next to the Chief of Police?”
I follow his gaze, but when I don’t respond, he squeezes my hand until I wince.
“Yes,” I spit.
“They signed you off to me.” Those words carry an amusement that I want to fucking strangle. “They’re not going to support you if you do something stupid. Not when you are a price they paid.”
I turn my head to him fast enough that my hair whips around me, wrapping around my throat, slowly falling against my chest as my gaze settles on him.
“I’m not goddamn currency, Ryan! You’ve gone insane!”
“Maybe. But I’m not about to reject the insanity when the prospect of it is so entertaining. And you have to understand something… You’re mine, Morrigan. I fought hard to make you mine, to make you love me when I loved you for so long. And I’ll have you forever.”
“This is not love! This is madness, pure fucking madness! I’m a possession to you, not a partner, not a girlfriend. I am nothing to you and I cannot figure out why the hell you want me. Why would you want a woman that doesn’t love you anymore?” My tone grows just a little bit louder.
“Shh…” He puckers his lips. “Why do I want you? Because your freedom becomes mine, and isn’t that just a lovely, lovely thing to own. Freedom is all we are, it holds our wants and needs, our soul, our mind… our personality. It holds it all, a little crystal ball, so full of wonder…” He pauses enough that my eyes burn from the need to blink. “…So easy to shatter.” He bursts into maniacal laughter, one that the couple around us seem to have mistaken for joy as they throw at us the sweetest smiles they can muster.
He’s gone, he’s completely gone.
“You can’t have me. I’m not yours. I haven’t been for a long time, Ryan. And you know it.” My voice cracks a hint.
“I worked too hard not to have you, Morrigan. Breaking up is not an option. It’s either no one else has you, or you’re mine forever. And I chose the former.”
