AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It seems safest to keep my mouth shut until I know for sure.
“Your dress is destroyed, Julianna,” Titan says as he enters the dining room, a fresh cloth in each claw. “Take it off for me.”
For the first time, I hear uncertainty in his voice. He isn’t sure if I will obey, and somehow, that makes me want to obey more. I rationalize it quickly. The dress is filthy, and I feel disgusting in it. Of course I should undress.
I slip off the table and reach back to grab the zipper, but Titan beats me to the job and, with one swift swipe of his claws, cuts the straps of my dress. I suck in a sharp breath as his claws gently grip the sides of the skirt and pull the dress from my hips, and I’m left naked except for a pale pink lace thong.
I look up at him just in time to see fire heat his stone eyes.
“Baby girl, I’ve failed you.” He grabs a fresh towel and cleans over anywhere the dress has left a new plume of dirt.
“Failed me?” I ask the question so faintly, I’m not sure if I just formed the words or actually said them.
“Yes,” he answers anyway.
His cloth moves over my chest again, this time dipping down low to follow the path of the dress’s neckline. I’m keenly aware how my breasts jiggle with the action, and the cool air hardens my nipples.
“I put the Keystone before you. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. The Pull… it confused me, controlled me. I let it mess with my head. I was so used to doing exactly what I was built for, I led my brothers in its pursuit, and in seven hundred years, you were the first being to make me question it, to turn the Pull from something harsh and controlling to something I could choose, that I wanted to choose.”
Titan grips me by the waist, and I swallow hard as the tips of his claws dance along my skin. He lifts me back onto the table and, grabbing my right ankle, places my foot on his chest. I have to put my hands behind me to support myself. He works the cloth down my leg, slowing over the shallow cuts across my shin and the deeper ones on my knees.
“I treated you like you were merely a means to an end for me, a tool, and you were never that. From the first moment I saw you, you were always more. I’m sorry I ever made you feel less.”
“You did more than that, Titan.” I’m talking without thinking, without a plan.
If he’s startled or surprised, he doesn’t react; he just keeps smoothing the damp cloth over my body, turning it when one side gets too dirty. I’m not sure what is going to come out of my mouth next, but he is looking at me, and I should say something.
“I asked you to only look into the audio recording, to see what Stiel could find online. You didn’t even tell me what you were going to do to Richard before you did it. You did exactly what you wanted.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. I thought your pride was getting in the way of asking for help.”
“Pride is all I had for so long, but it’s only part of it. My entire life was dictated to me by my mother, then Richard. I had to give up everything I knew to get any control. So you don’t get to decide what is a good enough reason for me to not do something.”
“They were using me to get to you, and the fastest way to solve the problem was to go to the source. I didn’t think Richard would be there. We were tracking their phones. He shouldn’t have made it home in time.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I snap.
I now have my left foot on Titan’s chest, and I suddenly realize I’m pushing into him with all of my might. He doesn’t budge.
“It doesn’t. I know that now. I should’ve known that then, but I thought I was never going to see you again once I had the Keystone. I believed it was going to turn off my emotions to you once I got close to it. I wanted to give you one small peace of mind before we parted ways.”
“That morning, you made it seem like I wasn’t doing enough to handle my lawsuit”—I feel tears stinging at the back of my eyes, but they don’t fall—“when I’ve spent every day of the last ten years doing it by myself. I’ve done all of it, alone.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said. I didn’t believe it, but I was losing you. I was giving you up, and like an asshole, I was trying to make it easier for myself. I’m sorry, baby girl.”
He finishes cleaning my left leg and, gently gripping my ankle, places my leg back into position on the table. His body looms over mine, his horns nearly hitting the lighting fixture hanging from the ceiling. I expect him to move back and give me distance, but he doesn’t. Titan stays close enough that his heat melts into me.
“But you don’t need to do it by yourself anymore,” Titan says, the warm rumble returning to his voice. He looks down at me, and I’m forced to sharply angle my face up to meet his gaze. It makes me feel like a precious thing. I missed that feeling. “I can’t be sorry for trying to help you, just how I went about doing it. And for that, I will spend every day of my life, if necessary, making it up to you.”
He opens the small first aid kit, pulling out a bottle of disinfectant, several cotton rounds, and Band-Aids. He applies the disinfectant to a cotton round and takes my arm in his claws. He dabs at the smaller cuts, turning my arm to make sure he gets them all.
He’s worn away my initial anger, and I’m left with a much more uncomfortable feeling— guilt.
Guilt for what I did today, for setting off today’s chain of events that led to the Keystone cracking and Titan having to save me, burns just beneath my breastbone.
“I stole from you,” I state plainly, needing him to understand.
He dabs the disinfectant over the deeper cuts at my knees, and I hiss loudly, unconsciously jerking back at the pain.
