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“It looks beautiful,” Thorn told me roughly. “I preserved its beauty, making it even more beautiful in time.”
“But nevertheless,” I whispered. “It’s dying, isn’t it?”
He was about to answer when he appeared to change his mind, furrowing his brows and staring down at me. I couldn’t look away from him. His eyes presented a challenge, but I wasn’t about to back down.
“Seems to me,” I said boldly. “Like you enjoy anything in captivity. Stealing things… taking them from their homes and presenting them in what you deem is a most beautiful way for them to exist.”
“Watch your tongue,” he warned me softly. “Don’t want to lose it…”
I remembered the maids, blushed fiercely, but refused to look away nonetheless.
“Show me your favorite,” I finally managed to say. “I want to see your favorite rosebush in this entire garden.”
He smiled, a little rigidly but a smile nonetheless. His arms fell to his sides. I took one of his hands gently, and he pulled me towards the flower that had earned his love. It was a gorgeous bush, large and in full bloom when we approached it. The roses were red and pink, two bushes growing together, intertwining with one another to make one glorious combination of buds so perfect they looked straight out of a magazine.
“It’s beautiful,” I said softly, though if I was being honest, I didn’t completely understand what separated this particular flower from all the others.
“Here,” Thorn said, motioning for me to come closer. “Look closer.”
I followed him through the branches and brambles, a thorn snagging my hoodie as he showed me a secret spot amidst the roots of the pink and red bush. Another, smaller one was growing between them. It was tiny but determined, and between its lush green petals, a single rose bloomed, pure, white and unspoiled. The most beautiful bud of them all.
I couldn’t find the words to describe it, so I looked at Thorn instead, my eyes glowing with the beauty of what he’d shown me.
“It’s gorgeous,” I confessed, and he gave me a bright smile, one that was unlike any of the firm, held-back grins he had for me that day.
“It’s a new hybrid we’re trying out,” he said. “But it has the most beautiful petals, the blooms are like an artwork. I’m excited to see it grow.”
“Me, too,” I whispered, and only a moment later realized what I had said.
Surely, bushes like this one took some time to grow… meaning it would take more than a little while for the roses to bloom on it. Would I still be here when they did? Had I just doomed myself to spending the rest of my life at the Mansion as a pretty captive? Blooming, beautiful but with nobody to witness except my selfish captor, the man who wanted to keep me his dirty little secret. I averted my eyes from Thorn’s, and as if sensing the thoughts going through my mind, he approached me, his hand gently touching my forearm.
“You feel a likeness to them,” he said softly, and I looked down at my feet, my lashes resting against my cheeks. “The roses. You feel that they are being mistreated, just like you.”
“No,” I muttered. “Not mistreated. You’ve given me what I need.”
“What you want?” he asked, his voice gentler than before.
“Sometimes.” I looked up at him, my eyes lingering on his as I sighed. “You’ve given me a lot. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s good or bad. Sometimes I wonder if I’d ever be able to go back to my old life. Maybe I’m a different person now. Maybe it’s not even what I really want anymore.”
“Would it be easier,” he said gently. “If I took the option away from you?”
He touched my cheek gently, rubbing and stroking my skin as if it was the softest velvet in the world, softer even than the petals of the flowers surrounding us.
“I don’t know,” I admitted brokenly, staring stubbornly at the ground.
He didn’t say a word, only pulled me closer and held me in his arms, as if his embrace alone could cure whatever plagued me. The illness of my body… the knowledge that I didn’t belong to him fully and that I would spend my whole life fighting it despite not wanting anything else in the world. My life was a series of contradicting facts and decisions, and I didn’t know how to salvage myself from the point I’d gotten to. I needed to push through. I needed Thorn to be the man I craved – not just my body, but my mind and soul, too.
“You know I want you at my side,” he said, and I risked a look up. In the evening light illuminated by the stars and moon, his eyes looked darker than ever, burning with a passion I’d ignited inside him – of that I was sure. “I don’t want to let you go, Rose. I want you at my side, always. My woman. My submissive. My property.”
