I just wanted peace.
I wanted to be free.
I’d broken enough that I’d accepted those psychologist’s tricks and entered the room in a full-blown panic attack.
My hands had trembled as I’d tried to start the program. My mind had blanked because I didn’t know how any of the technology worked and there was no one there to teach me.
I’d turned catatonic and curled up on the floor instead, feeling as if I’d been buried alive—forgotten and rotting, my head pounding until I’d passed out.
I’d forgotten all about it until Rook dragged me there. I’d forgotten quite a lot, thanks to trauma erasing certain things. Year by year, my realm of tolerance grew smaller and smaller until I never ventured into the upper levels or down certain corridors anymore.
I supposed that heartless psychologist would say I suffered from agoraphobia—fearing situations and spaces that made me feel trapped, unsafe, or powerless.
My quarters were the only place in the entire estate where I’d conditioned my mind to feel the smallest resemblance of safety. Everywhere else represented twenty years of daily torture, isolation, and helplessness.
It wasn’t just my mind that’d imposed such parameters, but my body too. Each time I ventured into different parts of Cinderkeep, my system reacted with hypervigilance, waiting for pain. My pulse would kick, my heart would race, and Marcus would think I was up to no good, giving me a higher dose of agony to make me behave.
A self-fulfilling cycle that I couldn’t break free from.
Yet her...
She was the first person to try to help me instead of hurt me.
The first person who spent any effort in understanding me.
The one and only person to ever care if I was happy.
And that...
Fuck.
I could survive living in hell.
I could exist in a never-ending nightmare of agony and blood, but I wouldn’t be able to survive her.
Raking my hands over my hair, I tried to stop thinking about her.
For the first time in decades, I felt different.
Alive and dead and changing.
I felt as if I’d actually stepped foot outside this prison and tasted the flavours of freedom. Every sense in my body believed I’d travelled to a jungle. That I’d watched creatures that I’d only ever read about in books and heard sounds I never knew existed.
And I was fucking desperate for more.
It woke up an emaciated part of my soul that’d long since decayed.
A primal part of me that was hungry and thirsty, savage and greedy.
It wanted to blow apart this estate.
To slaughter every man and woman responsible for my suffering.
But most of all?
Most of all I wanted her.
I wanted the way she looked at me, talked to me, touched me.
I wanted to know what it would feel like to give in.
But...what if she was like that room?
What if Rook had been planted in my cage to keep my mental health from shattering entirely? A mere program to keep me distracted with the illusion of connection? The hallucination of everything I’d been longing for and never had?
She was dangerous.
So, so fucking dangerous.
And I didn’t know how much longer I could last.
Out of countless women, numerous enemies, and two decades of agony, she might finally be the one to ruin me.
And if I didn’t find a way out of this hell soon...I might very well have to kill her to stop it.
Chapter Forty-Four
SLEEP REFUSED TO COME.
Dawn had broken and bled into early morning, and no matter how many times I flipped the pillow or flung myself onto my other side, sleep completely abandoned me.
All those moments I’d shared a stare with him, felt a flutter from him, suffered a throbbing between my legs because of him.
I couldn’t stop replaying everything.
Every inconsequential thing clung to every monumental moment where something had been flying between us.
I flopped over again, doing my best to forget the way he’d kissed me. How his fingers dug into my hips as he hoisted me from the cold water. How his—
“Ugh, will you stop?!”
Shoving the pillow over my face, I groaned into it.
My door flung open, banging against the wall.
Jackknifing up, I threw my pillow away and twisted toward the noise.
The urge to apologise for what I’d done last night—for making him do something he didn’t want to do, for encroaching on his privacy in the plunge pool—made me blurt, “Lucien, I can explain—”
“Explain?” A feminine voice echoed. “Explain what exactly?”
My eyes cleared and in the cloudy morning light, I recognised the two annoying gatekeepers that liked to guard the steps of Lucien’s palace. “Evelyn? Lydia? What are you doing here?”
Evelyn laughed quietly, dressed in her usual black leggings and top. “What did you do to Lucien Ashfall that requires an explanation?”
“We all know she’s banging him,” Lydia snipped. “Keeping him all to herself because she’s greedy and won’t share.”
“Pity.” Evelyn clucked her tongue, both coming closer. “The more the merrier.”
Fear flung me out of bed. I wobbled on two feet, cursing the lack of bodily protection from my powder blue pyjamas. Shaking my head a little, I balled my hands, begging my system not to forsake me. “Why are you here so early?” I scowled. “Actually, why are you here at all?”
“It’s ten a.m., you lazy slob.” Evelyn’s teeth flashed in a smile. “And can’t we visit our favourite Cinderkeep sister?”
“I’m not your sister.”
“You’re right. You’re not.” Lydia shot forward, her peach dress flaring around her knees. “Where is it? Give it to us and we’ll leave.”
“Give you what?”
Evelyn sighed and tapped her foot. “Don’t play stupid. Give it to us.”
Anxiety scratched down my spine. “I can’t give you what I don’t—”
“His blood, you little seductress.” Lydia held out her hand. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him. Whatever you’re letting him do to you means you get special privileges. So...gimme.”
My heart thudded hard enough to bruise. “I don’t...I don’t have any more.”
“Oh, come on.” Evelyn rolled her eyes, her black hair glossy even in the dull day. “Don’t make this hard. Just give us his blood and we’ll leave.”
“Where are you keeping it?” Lydia asked, her gaze flashing around my pavilion. “Tell us right now.”
“I already told you,” I snapped, my temper helping chase away some of my anxiety. “He hasn’t given me any—”
“Liar.” Evelyn shot toward me. Her hand cracked across my face so hard, my head snapped sideways.
Tears stung my vision.
Did...did she really just slap me?
Cupping my stinging cheek, I blinked back the pain.
My first instinct was to fight back but...I wasn’t an idiot. “I’m not lying.”
“Find it, Lydia,” Evelyn commanded, stalking away from me to join her as Lydia shot toward the sideboard and wrenched open all the drawers. Ripping them off their railings, she tipped them upside down, sending papers, pens, and all the folded cranes I’d made—when I’d been bored on those first few days of captivity—flying.