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At those words, Will’s face crumpled. He slumped further down and began to sob. It was as though Maddox’s unexpectedly tender words of love in the face of the most obscene criminality had unlocked a door that had been kept shut for far too long.
Maddox joined him, crouching down and wrapping William in the warmest of his cold hugs. He held Will as he cried.
“You can’t love me. It hurts too much.”
“I know it hurts. Love hurts more than anything,” Maddox said. “Loving you has been one of the most painful experiences of my life. Separation from you was hell itself. Being close enough to see you, but not being able to hold you, seeing the pain in you, seeing you lose hope in me, in life itself. These things were terribly painful for me. I know that for you they were the cause of even more agony.”
“Why? Why did you let him hurt us?”
“Because I did not know what else to do. Because the mistakes I had already made seemed to lead me, and us, into that place. We were there because I put us there. You are right to be angry at me. And because I knew you were right to be angry, I let you be. I abandoned you to your anger. I will not do that again. You can be as ferocious and furious as you like, but you will do it here, with me.”
* * *
Will did not feel as angry now as he had before. Maddox’s words felt genuine, and they were what William had not known he needed to hear.
His greatest fear had always been that of abandonment, and when he’d heard that Maddox withheld the truth of his mother, it was easy to make his greatest fear come true. The months of captivity were not Maddox’s fault, and Will had always known that. They were his own fault.
This was all his fault.
He realized that suddenly and completely, finally allowing all the many points at which his future could have been different to coalesce into that single realization. Yes, bad things had happened to him, many bad things, but he had made them worse at every turn because he could not believe in anything good.
He sobbed not out of guilt, because he was barely able to feel such a thing as guilt, but out of grief. Grief for all he had never had, and grief for all he had rejected out of fear.
True to his word, Maddox held him through it all, even though Will was certain that he must appear completely pathetic to his vampire master who valued his strength and his monstrosity.
“Don’t look at me,” Will sobbed. “Don’t…”
Maddox picked William up in his arms and carried him to the upstairs bedroom. Will hated the way he curled up into Maddox’s cold, strong arms, sinking into his master’s dominance. Not a day had gone by since Gideon took him that he had not secretly craved to be back here in Maddox’s arms.
There were still parts of him that wanted to fight. He still had the instinct to resist and to attack, but he no longer had the energy to do any of that. He had purged so much of his rage in his murderous rampage, he was left with nothing but the misery.
Maddox laid Will down on the bed, a big, soft expanse of comfort that Will was also no longer used to. He had been sleeping rough, in his animal form, without any care for human comforts. In killing so many, in destroying their humanity, he had hoped to destroy his own.
“I’m worse than you,” Will breathed as Maddox’s hands slid to his waist. He was being undressed in the same way a present was unwrapped, if gifts came traumatized and sobbing. Maddox’s agile, long fingers worked on the fastening of his fly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Maddox said simply. “There is no better, there is no worse. None of it matters. Good, bad, or indifferent. I love you.”
The words made Will start sobbing again, his hands over his face as his pants were pulled down his hips and over his thighs and then all the way down his legs. He was naked before his master.
He looked up between his fingers, peeking out, and saw Maddox standing at the side of the bed before him, disrobing himself. He watched that marble-like physique appear with wonder.
He was hard. So fucking hard. Sobbing and erect.
Maddox’s body had always been an unholy distraction, a temple of dominance, mastery, and desire. As he looked at Maddox’s stern eternal visage, Will felt himself sliding away. He wasn’t a helpless, captive boy, or a murderous wolf beast, or any combination of the two. He was a body to be claimed by the dark creature whose elegance and beauty overwhelmed his senses and his intellect.
He reveled in the amnesia that desire brought. He felt the old feelings return, the darkly cozy sensation associated with being in Maddox’s care. It spread through his body, a perverse warmth the closest he knew to comfort. Maddox looked back down at him, dark eyes locked on Will’s naked body with unashamed possession.
Finally, Maddox spoke.
“I have missed you unspeakably.”
Tears began to flow again, running down Will’s face in what felt like an unstoppable river. He had become like water, a rushing, gushing, emotional mess.
He felt Maddox descend onto the bed atop him, and cool lips begin to kiss away the tears. Mad made no effort to stop Will from crying, but he was there through it all, not at all disgusted as Will had imagined he would be.
His master’s bite was painful, but it was a hot pain, the kind of pain that made every bit of him boil with raging desire. He’d forgotten so many things, but he had not forgotten how delicious it was to be drank from.
Maddox drank deeply, more deeply than he had ever before. It felt as though Will was being drained of his sins, all the energies of his recent crimes sucked from his veins and taken into Maddox.
