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“YOU BURNED IT TO THE ground!” I snarled. I couldn’t believe them. “Gone, all of my gear. I built those scaffolds and the bench myself! For fuck’s sake, why didn’t you get my stuff out first?” I was livid. I had been building that fetish collection since I was eighteen, and now, according to Ryane and Sig, it was all gone.
“The place was unsalvageable Boss. There was blood and gore everywhere. Seeped into the rugs, the tile, Hell, the walls had viscera on them.”
“Fire was the only way to clean it up and not have questions asked later. I’m sorry, baby.” Ryane tried to console me, but I was really, truly good and angry. She pulled back her hand before it could touch my left arm, the mangled one and I noticed it finally. I thought she had been staring earlier, but this was a definite avoidance. I was sure of it. She was uncomfortable with how it looked, or maybe how it felt... I didn’t care which, but it was the nail in the coffin of my rage.
“Just get the fuck away from me. You don’t understand! I wouldn’t have given a fuck about the mess. I went feral, I tore the place apart. Don’t think I don’t know that, but it was mine... Charles and I built that collection together, you two had no right!” I was roaring, I was irrational, as I stormed up the stairs and to my room. Well, Samuel’s room, I looked around, it was modest, with its oak furniture and sparse decorations. I needed something to break, but there wasn’t anything that would make the kind of crashing and smashing sounds that I was craving.
My mind traveled back to Charles and how I had misused him, keeping him close, but never as close as he had wanted. I lived out my fantasies in that carriage house with him. My most depraved and forbidden desires were pushed on him and he took it all, always, he was always loyal to me. All he ever wanted was my love and I couldn’t give it to him because when I looked at him, I saw the darkest parts of myself.
I stripped the blankets from the bed, tearing them to pieces. I kicked and swore as I demolished the bed and its hard, wooden frame. Tears stung my eyes as I screamed, bitched and moaned. It wasn’t until I knew it was gone that I realized just how much I needed it. How much I had needed Charles and his unwavering devotion. He would never have swayed from me or my touch just because I wasn’t so pretty anymore, not like she had, just moments ago. What had I done in making her like me? Was Charles right? Had I simply fallen in love with the idea of her, in her innocence? Did my lust for that virgin throat cloud my senses and make me think it was love? Was it just the blood bond between us that made me lust so hard for her, ache for her so badly?
I was so caught up in my head that I didn’t see the door as it swung open. I don’t know how long she stood there, but she stayed quiet until, finally, I had reduced the bed to splinters and I stood in the middle of the room with a heaving chest and a heavy heart.
“Did that help?” Ryane leaned into the doorway, her piercing blue eyes watching me from beneath thick black lashes.
I turned my head away from her voice with an unhappy nod. She stepped toward me and I put out my hand to stop her, but she pressed her lips against my fingers, kissing them gently. I was rigid and my arms burned from the exertion it took to tear the bed apart.
“Don’t,” I snapped, which only made her break into my space more.
“Or what? You’ll tear me to pieces too?” Her voice was soft, filled with hurt. “You’ll find I’m no longer that easy to break.” She pulled me toward her, wrapping me up in the scents of her. Brown sugar and vanilla. She always smelled and tasted of vanilla. She fit perfectly in the hollow of my chest as she put her head against my heart. “Steel yourself, my love.”
“Your love?” I mocked, still not looking directly at her. I was afraid that if I did and she shied from me again, my heart would shatter or worse, I would fall into her and forget all the hurt that was coursing through me. I needed my pain. I deserved it for letting Charles die. I could still feel the tears, they burned my cheeks and made my face feel tight.
She sighed, squeezing me, and for the first time in months I felt her emotion and her mind as it reached out to me.
‘Please talk to me.’ She was pleading with her whole heart as her body forced itself to connect to mine. Her guilt over my present state spilled over and I could feel the tears as they fell from her eyes. “You miss him?”