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A couple of minutes later, I was walking down the hallway, accompanied by a guard. Thorn had told me there would be a room prepared for me, for what I was about to do, and he hadn’t been lying.
The guard led me into a large room that appeared to be a home cinema. But now, there was no film playing, just a large space at the front with a single spotlight shining on me.
Thorn was sitting in the front row, a huge bouquet of red roses next to him. Their color was stark, so red and dark it reminded me of Ellis’s blood when Thorn shot him. It made me shiver as the guard left, leaving me exposed in the room.
My eyes connected with Thorn’s and I stared openly at the man who would be my new master.
It had been months since he’d taken me.
Another month since Ellis’s death, since I’d finally connected the dots.
I’d spent weeks not speaking, or talking only to Amber. But now I was prepared. I was ready to call him Master.
I held up my ballet shoes, battered and bruised just like I was.
“I can’t wear them,” I said softly. “It’s… it’s too much. They remind me of who I used to be.”
Thorn stared at me as music started to fill the room. Piano music, tones I knew, melodies I’d danced to before. I approached him with slow steps and deposited my ballet slippers in his lap. When I tried to draw back, his fingers wrapped around my wrist and he made me look back at him.
“Rose,” he whispered. His nickname for me. He’d called me that before when he first took me from that bloodied room. “If you dance for me now, I won’t be able to hold back. You’ll be mine forever. I’ll never let go. Do you understand?”
I stared back, not willing to say a word. I had to dance. I needed to dance to stay sane. Yet here he was, offering me a way out. A chance to escape his cruelty and the terrors I would experience with him. He wasn’t a good man. He’d already proved that by killing Ellis.
“I understand,” I whispered, tore my hand out of his and walked to the stage.
The music made me dance. I could never resist it. The movements, the dancing, it flowed out of me like someone had severed a vein. I bled for him, beautiful dark blood washing over the makeshift stage as I danced. For his eyes only, as it would be from now on. I only danced for one person, and it was no longer me. It was Thorn – the man in the front row, with his eyes dark and hooded, and his intentions wicked.
I didn’t know how long I’d been dancing for. Time wasn’t important anymore, all that mattered was the music playing for me only, the music that had transitioned into the Nutcracker and later on, into Swan Lake, letting me dance freely, not by a routine I had learned during my lessons. I closed my eyes and danced with hope, with regret and every other feeling I’d felt since I’d met Reuben Thorn.
When I couldn’t bear to keep my eyes closed anymore, I opened them wide and connected my gaze with his. He was rigid in his seat, his cock visibly straining against his trousers. He picked the biggest, plumpest rose from the bouquet and tossed it on the stage. It landed at my feet, the stem snapping when it connected with the floor. I kept dancing and he kept throwing roses, a performance just for him, just for us. I willingly let go, understood and accepted that I belonged to him now. That I was his woman, his private dancer, his property. Now and forever.
I danced. I danced over the roses, the thorns digging into my feet, but barely noticing the pain. The floor was stained with my blood, and I kept on dancing as he threw the flowers. He hadn’t meant to hurt me, I don’t think. But yet I danced, my soles torn up by the roses. I let my pain bleed out of my feet, the pain of knowing I was stuck here, with this man my body loved and my mind struggled to hate.
In that moment, I understood what Pia had meant when she’d showed me her bruises. Why she had to hurt herself. How it had escalated from pain to something she needed as much as her next breath.
I danced when the music tuned out. I danced in silence. I danced for my hopes and dreams, and I danced for the love I hadn’t known I needed. It was only when I started to feel the pain that I stopped.
I collapsed on the stage, my feet ruined and torn up. He was next to me in seconds, his strong arms gathering me in his embrace. He held me like a broken doll. Held all of my pieces together, so beautifully broken by what he’d made me do and what I’d done to myself.
