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Santos
“She stays inside,” I tell Val. “No one goes in. No one.”
Because I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother decided to pay a visit to my wife to be sure our marriage was consummated. That everything is wrapped up tight.
To be honest, I’m glad to leave Madelena there because this is fucking hard, harder than I expected. Not that I thought she’d be any different. She has claws—she always has—and bite. I wonder if she realizes that.
But what happened just then, the way she responded, the way she looked at me, clung to me, the way she came? It wasn’t what I expected or how I’d expected it to be. I took from her tonight, but she also gave to me, and I don’t understand.
I strip off the rest of my clothes in the room she’d stayed in last night. This will be her bedroom for the nights she’s not sleeping in mine. I walk into the bathroom and run the shower but turn to take in my reflection before stepping under the flow. She left rivulets of open skin down my back to match those on my chest. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her cry when I pushed into her. She’d tried to muffle the sound in my shoulder, but I heard it, felt it, and for one brief moment, it was her pain I felt.
But then the warmth of her took over, and everything else was background to that building of tension—of orgasm just there, just beyond. I gave myself over to the darkness because that is where all violence lies and sex is violence in its own way. A taking. But then her grip turned clinging. Her breathing shifted.
And when I looked into her eyes, I saw a darkness there. It’s different from mine, though. Hers is desolate, alone, and something about that makes my chest tighten.
I shake my head, remembering the blood on her thighs. I should have been more careful with her. I should have tried harder to stave off the beast at least this first time. But it is too strong and always has been. Even though the Commander has been dead for five years—even though all that time has passed—it is ever present, and to think it ever sleeps is a mistake.
I step into the shower, turning the tap so the temperature is freezing cold. It’s a small penance. I make myself look at the blood that washes off me. Her virgin blood. Why wasn’t I more careful with her? Just as when I sliced her palm to make the blood oath, I think about how I do not deserve her—and how she certainly does not deserve me.
After my shower, when I can’t stand the cold for another minute, I change into a different suit. I walk through the bedroom. Her things are here, mostly unpacked. Her tote is on the bed. I unzip it and look inside, finding her personal things, including her sketchbooks and the photos I remember from her room at the college. I leave it all alone.
She’ll live here. I won’t take her to the family house. I spend most nights here, too. I have for almost a year now. A few months after my father’s will was read, I’d half moved out. It’s not official, but it felt like the best thing to do.
What did my father hope to accomplish with that change? What did he think would happen when, apart from a stipend, he cut Caius off and left it all to me?
Then there was the sealed envelope. The executor had been instructed to unseal it before my brother, my mother, and myself. There was a single sheet of paper within, folded into a square, with one sentence written in my father’s hand.
I know what you did, and this is your punishment.
I hadn’t understood it. I looked at Caius, who appeared just as confused, then at my mother, but her face had been unreadable as ever.
“What does that mean?” I’d asked the executor, who was one of my father’s oldest, most trusted attorneys—now one of mine.
He’d looked at the back of the page, then at me, and shaken his head. He did not know any more than we did.
“Who is it addressed to?” Caius had asked.
“It’s not.”
I draw in a deep breath, preparing myself, and leave the apartment to head down to the ballroom. I am sure there will be speculation as to why the bride will not be attending her own wedding reception, but I couldn’t give a fuck.
As the elevator doors slide open onto the lobby, I adjust my cuff, touching one of the stones of the bracelet Caius and I both wear before tucking it back into the sleeve. Conversation quiets once I appear, careful not to make eye contact but aware of every person in here.
“Forget something?” my brother asks casually. He disengages himself from the young woman around whose waist he had his arm. She’s strangely familiar, although I can’t place why. She’s young, about Madelena’s age, but that’s not unusual for Caius. He has varied tastes and has never confined himself to one type. All those years when I refrained, when I wouldn’t touch the women the Commander had sent me as a reward for work well done, Caius enjoyed the bounty while I was busy carving lines into my skin.
The Commander. Fuck. Why the hell am I thinking about him now? He’s dead and rotting. Food for the fish.
“What?” I ask Caius, lost in thought.
“Your wife. Did you forget your wife?” he asks. “I think they’ll expect to see her.”
“Well, they’ll be disappointed then,” I say and walk past him toward the ballroom, the same one where I’d rescued Madelena from the idiots who’d cornered her two years ago.
Caius falls into step beside me. “Are you all right?” he asks as we stand at the entrance of the lavishly decorated space.
“Yeah. Fine. Just went differently than I expected.” I wouldn’t have undressed in front of her. I’d never considered that she’d see what was underneath the clothes. No one has seen my scars apart from my brother. Not even Dad had known what I did after the secret errands the Commander sent me on. Errands. As if people are just that.
“You got it done?” he asks, sounding uninterested, but I know him.
