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Her hand tensed underneath his but she went without a word.
When the door clicked shut, he struggled to stand and grabbed a towel from the rack. He shivered when the cool air hit him. It was so weak for him to be in here crying like this, like a baby. Like the child he’d once been. When would it stop chasing him?
She won’t tell anyone.
Even if he permitted her to see the doctor, she wouldn’t tell. He’d felt it in the energy that had passed between them. She was his in a way that went beyond collars and captivity or any amount of money. She didn’t know it yet, but he’d felt it just now when she’d left a piece of her soul in his hands.
Brian gripped the sink, steeling himself against the emotions that still overwhelmed him. He’d been hurt that she’d hidden and ignored his call. But what had he expected? She didn’t know yet that he was her protector.
It made him feel powerful in a new way… instead of breaking things, holding them together. The itchy darkness that slithered under his skin was quiet and still. For now. He held no illusions that it was over, that somehow she’d saved him and pulled his soul from the brink. It wasn’t like that. The monster would call for someone else’s blood and tears, but now it demanded something more, something he’d never given to another soul and wasn’t sure he had the ability to give.
When he stepped out of the bathroom he felt her fear, and unlike the other women, it made a sick feeling knot inside his stomach because when he saw her afraid like that, all he could see was himself. Until this point in his history, the normal reaction for someone taking him back to that place under the stairs would have been anger, violence. Any reaction to make it go away. But hurting her felt like hurting himself, and he’d been hurt enough for one lifetime already.
Mina’s clothes were neatly folded in a nearby chair. She was under the covers, curled on her side facing the bathroom door. Wide, frightened eyes rose to his.
Brian took the towel from his waist and draped it over the chair with her clothes, then he joined her.
Her lip trembled, and she started to cry. Whatever bravery she’d managed to summon in the bathroom had abandoned her. She recoiled when he touched the side of her cheek.
“Shhhh. Roll onto your stomach.”
She hesitated, but then seemed to fear inciting his wrath for the hesitation and rolled over as he’d asked. He pulled the covers back, and she cringed as the air hit her.
This was the first time he’d gotten a truly good, unfettered look at her back, at what those monsters had done to her.
Monsters like you?A voice in his mind whispered.
No. In all likelihood, the monsters that had gotten hold of her were nowhere near as bad as Brian was capable of being, which made it all the more ridiculous that he thought he would somehow be better for her.
But these marks, brutal though they were, were the marks of amateurs. Unbalanced, sociopathic amateurs, but amateurs all the same. They weren’t made from the same anger and pain that had crafted Brian. They weren’t retribution. They weren’t solace. They were boredom and the basic thrill of lording power over another.
She shivered when he swept her dark hair out of the way. He trailed his fingers over each mark in turn as if he could erase them by touching them the right way. He kissed a languid path down her back. Her hands dug into the bed linens beside her.
“Relax, Mina. I will never hurt you. I have other kinds of toys for that.” He wouldn’t use a loaf of bread to hammer a nail. Why would he break something that belonged solely to him? Because she thought he was crazy. And he couldn’t blame her, given their experiences together up to this point and the things she must have heard.
While waiting for her collar to be made, he’d worried that all the time she spent in the house would give her too many opportunities to learn things which would only make it that much harder for both of them when she knew who she belonged to.
At night, he’d stood in the shadows and watched her swim. She didn’t have a swimsuit, so she’d gone naked. She’d been tentative and fearful at first, but when she didn’t see him or anyone else, she’d lost the inhibition. She’d seemed free, and now he was afraid she might never be that way again.
He pushed those thoughts away. “Don’t talk to Lindsay about us. I mean it. If you do, I’ll find out about it.”
She tensed under his hands. He didn’t like scaring her. He didn’t want to, but he needed her to keep her mouth shut around Lindsay. Letting him into their world was too invasive. He wouldn’t live under the doctor’s constant surveillance. Lindsay didn’t get to impose himself into Anton and Annette’s relationship. So why should he get to be a third party in Brian and Mina’s?
“Do you understand?” he asked, knowing full well that she did. She wasn’t a child. Still, he needed to know she’d heard the command. He felt certain that if she heard him explicitly forbid the action, she’d be too afraid to go against him.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
Brian stretched out and pulled her unresisting body against him. “I’m very tired,” he said. Or maybe he thought it. He wasn’t sure if he got the words out before sleep claimed him.
* * *
Mina lay still as Brian’s breath moved in and out in a steady rhythm against her skin. What just happened? After the display with Lindsay she was sure he’d lose control, that he’d hurt her—today. Not later.
The reality was quite different.
He hadn’t even touched her sexually. Nor had he insisted she touch him. If not for how frightening he was, she would have been attracted. She found him almost painfully attractive. She would have been more than willing to touch him and let him touch her if she could trust he wouldn’t hurt her like the others—if she could get past what he did to other women here.
He had the chiseled physique of a god, though it was more likely he was a gym rat with a level of dedication that hinted he had a touch of masochism to go with his sadism.
