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Spools of gold crept over the horizon, followed by the intoxicating flush of a well-delivered bruise: purples and blues, followed by shades of reds and streaks of pain.
I sipped the wine, comparing the tart richness of grapes to the earthy rapture of Ily’s blood and…I waited.
I didn’t light the cigar.
I didn’t shift from where I sat in the grass. The manicured green perfection cushioned me like the thickest, softest carpet.
After my five a.m. dinner with Victor, he’d retired to bed, and I’d strolled outside for some fresh air. Every mouthful of our shared celebration had been divine. Every swallow stayed exactly where it was supposed to.
The meat soaked up the rest of the alcohol, slowly bringing me down from the savage high of monster-hood, hovering me somewhere in the middle of human and beast.
I’d waited for shame. For disgrace and self-reproach, but so far…nothing.
I didn’t wonder what’d become of Ily.
Didn’t think of my brother or how he’d kill me.
My mind was empty, blissfully empty.
And I hoped it would stay empty.
But…just in case it didn’t, I wanted to be on my own.
I needed to find out how much of this transformation was true.
A terrified part of my psyche kept waiting for me to revert.
To snap back into the weak, sniffling bastard who’d suffocated me my entire life.
For the hero to beat back my villain and shove me into another worthless cage.
I’d gone most of my life suffering sickness that could spring from nowhere.
And…after tonight, I couldn’t quite trust that I was cured.
I hoped so.
I tentatively believed so.
But…I had to wait.
And so, I kept sipping vintage wine and watched the sun come up.
By the time golden rays peaked over the guard towers and the men on watch turned off the spotlights aimed at the drawbridge and moat beyond, I closed my eyes and flopped heavily onto my back.
I opened my arms for retribution.
I swallowed hard to entice the sourness of penance.
But still…nothing.
No nausea.
Not even a stomach squeeze.
Slowly, a soft smile tipped my lips.
I closed my eyes to the incandescent sunrise.
I sank inside myself, into all the corridors and forbidden chambers that I’d been too shit-terrified to venture into.
I made myself take inventory.
Forced myself to recall my childhood and puberty full of loneliness and suffering. I remembered the urges that’d crippled me and relived what I’d done to Ily.
And…as I sank into the very soul of my monster, another lock fell away.
The final lock.
The last chain.
Motherfucking tears came to my eyes as I exhaled with bone-shuddering gratitude.
No regret.
No remorse.
My worthless spirit didn’t try to drag me back into unachievable light but was perfectly content to stay in these comforting, worshipping shadows.
I was changed.
I was freed.
I didn’t turn into a rampaging lunatic intent on raping, pillaging, and murdering.
I didn’t sprout fangs or a tail or go loping after a full moon.
I was still just a man.
A man who was finally honest.
Sitting upright, I tipped the rest of my wine onto the grass, tucked my unsmoked cigar into my trouser pocket, then shot to my feet as if I weighed nothing at all. No longer burdened. No longer drowning beneath anchoring lies.
I strode calmly and confidently toward the fortress where I’d been forced to step into me.
My thoughts were still my own.
My heart still beat, my senses still worked, I still breathed and existed.
All my life, I’d been so afraid of personal acceptance that I’d built up a fantasy that the day I became who I truly was was the day I died for good.
But I didn’t die tonight.
I’d metamorphosised.
I’d shrugged off the ill-fitting chrysalis.
And now, I flew.
Chapter Five
………………………….
Ily
CLOUDS IN MY HEAD, MY mouth, my ears, my heart.
I groaned and tried to crawl my way out of the fuzzy, foggy entrapment, only…something heavy pinned me down.
Sleep dissolved instantly, slamming me into a vicious headache. My hand raised to try to rub away the discomfort, only that was trapped too. Blinking away threads of nausea and confusion, I raised my head and froze.
I lay in the jewelry room.
Naked as the day I was born.
Dressed in a few scant band-aids, I slowly shifted against heavy, crushing body parts and sat up.
The people surrounding me mumbled with annoyance. Some rolled over and slung arms and legs over their closest companions. Others huddled deeper into their dreams as if unwilling to come back to reality.
A circle of them.
A hoard of them.
Just like all the jewels dumped into baskets and draped over each other, Victor’s jewels did the same thing.
And I sat in the middle of what looked like a massacre.
Bare limbs punctuated by scant white blankets drawn from single beds. A blend of skin colours, hair colours, bruises, cuts, and pain. I hadn’t met all the slaves serving in this fetish-filled stronghold, but seeing them all in one room made me freeze.
At first, I thought it was another illusion. It had to be the drugs. Because if it wasn’t...
