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How could she not love him?
She walked across the bedroom and stood in front of the glass door that led out to the balcony. She watched the rainfall, splattering against the surface. And then she opened the door.
She was naked, but for some reason she didn’t feel self-conscious. She stepped out into that rain, and the drops began to roll over her skin. And there was a flash in her mind. Standing there at the root with him across the space from her.
Everything had changed in that moment. She knew it. She felt it. And most importantly, she saw it. Not because he had told her, but because she remembered. The rain. She had been soaked through to the bone, abandoned. Afraid. And he had been there. And she had wondered if she was walking to her doom or to her salvation, and she had chosen to walk toward him anyway. She always chose to walk toward him.
She hadn’t known, even then. If he was a man or a monster.
Heated images flashed into her mind. That night in the tree house. It had been a tree house. She had given herself to him without thought. Because there had been no room for thought. His hands on her body. His mouth on her throat. Would he use his teeth to destroy her or give her pleasure? He had given her pleasure.
And she knew now why it had all seemed so strange. Because she had unlearned so much about life that night. And built something new. New affirmations inside of herself that changed the very foundation of who she was.
It amazed her, that realization that so much of the changes had taken place over the course of a single night. But they had. Utterly. Absolutely.
And the rain continued to pour down her skin, and as the drops washed away the fog in her mind, she could see further and further into time.
They had not separated after that night. Not ever. She had been in his bed every night after that. She felt like she was running through an open field, racing toward something in the distance.
Sun and truth, even as she stood still in that cleansing rain.
Rain.
Rain again. She was running through the rain. On the streets, cobbled and uneven. And she fell. But what happened before? What had happened before that moment? She could remember holding her stomach. Low. Blood.
And as clearly as if she was experiencing it now, she remembered looking up, raindrops hitting her face. Melding with the tears on her cheeks.
I’m losing it anyway. Everything is lost.
And it was his face she saw. But there was none of the gentle lover there. It was the Tiger. Only and ever. Dark and fearful in his symmetry. And there was no terror over whether he would devour her, for he already had.
In that moment, everything had been gone. Everything she had believed about herself, all of the new truths that he had built that first night, decimated. The future. Everything she had hoped for. Everything she had believed in him. But most of all, he was gone. The man that she had grown to love was gone, all of his artifice ripped away, revealing the truth of him. That deep, horrific darkness that she had sensed was beneath the surface all that time.
But she couldn’t connect the whole memory. Only that picture. Only that face.
And the blood.
She stumbled back inside, soaking wet and shivering, and Krav sat up in bed, threw the covers to the side, revealing his glorious, sculpted body.
But she felt nothing more than wild, insensible terror. “What did you do?”
“Riot...”
“No. I need to know. I remembered the rain. I remember the rain and the day that we met. I remembered why I went back with you. I remembered... You changed me. You made me feel like I was beautiful. But then it rained again, and you made me feel like I was nothing. You destroyed me. You destroyed us, didn’t you?”
“Riot...”
“No,” she said, moving away from him. “You never loved me. You don’t love me.” He had never said it. He had never said it, but she had believed that he did because he had to. Because how could they be here building this beautiful life together with their beautiful child if he didn’t love her?
“You never loved me. And you... You sent me away. You did.”
She couldn’t remember, but she could feel it now. She could feel the utter brokenness in her soul. As if her heart had been severed from her. That was that moment. He had done worse to her than anyone else in her life ever had. Because he had made her believe that there could be more. He had made her believe that he cared. And she had been a fool. She had ignored all of the things that her spirit had known. Had sensed. She had chosen to see only his beauty, and to ignore his darkness. She had chosen to believe that just because he could make her feel good didn’t mean he would eventually destroy her with that danger.
She had mistaken the fact that a predator could be beautiful for a promise that he would begood.
But he was still a predator. And he would destroy that which stood in his way. Krav was a man who consumed beautiful things, sated himself on them until they no longer served him.
She knew it. In that moment she knew it.
