Chapter
28

A warm cloud on dense fog and nothingness cushioned me. It was funny how the dark didn’t scare me anymore. Deep inside, it was the darkness that kept me safe. It wrapped me in its warm embrace and reminded me I didn’t have to return to the light. An infinitesimal speck of light hovered on the edge of my haven, a cruel reminder I wasn’t dead. There were times it grew bigger than the sun, and I hated it. What was the point of going back to life when the promise of death—a sweet, soft, painless death—called me?

A pity, Ashlyn. You never used to be this girl.

No, I hadn’t. But somewhere between Jason, Matt, Lorcan, and Caesar—the cardinal points of my painful life—I’d lost me. In all honestly, I don’t think I ever knew who I was. Was I the child who bowed to her abuser because training dictated it, and I’d been too afraid of the pain to fight it? Or was I the girl who tried to love a boy too clean for me? I’d stained Matt’s existence because I’d tried to save myself. He was the only innocent life in all of this. And Lorcan … he claimed the most monstrous actions. I shied away of the memories of my time with him, the hell he’d inflicted upon my body. Through it all, his anger never dissipated; that made him the worst. He hadn’t broken and fucked me because he wanted it. No, he’d done everything because he hated Caesar for taking his father away.

Weren’t all humans like that?

It didn’t occur to him who I gave my body was my choice, and his father should never have touched me. It didn’t matter to him I was hurt and terrified of what Gleeson would do. The only thing that mattered to Lorcan was the pain of losing a father, a man I believed he hated and revered at once. The man who’d knocked up his mother and never looked at his son with love and respect. Lorcan never would have the chance to find out the all-important answer to one question: why? For that very reason, he needed to act out his frustration and helplessness on me. To direct his rage at what he hoped meant something to Caesar.

What a fucking bastard.

I wished I could have made him see the stupidity of his ways. Caesar was a storm, a torrential force of cruelness and laughter. A psychopath with a broken heart and twisted psyche. And I, for a few moments in time, reminded him of his sister. If I’d learned nothing else in the time Lorcan held me, I’d come to understand this. Caesar lost the one woman in his life who’d meant anything, and he’d been destroying, just like Lorcan, everything in his path ever since. For Caesar, I represented both a chance for him to be saved and a chance to be dammed. He wanted to hurt me, so he did. He needed to save me, so he came. I pushed and pulled him, back and forth between warring points, my body trapped in between.

I was tired. So very tired. My body clung to life, but my mind raced to death. My body, which belonged to Caesar, held on for his permission to fade. For his touch to end it all. In the darkness, trapped in my own mind, I couldn’t lie to myself. With terrifying clarity, I saw what we were together. I was the past he tried to run away from, and he was my future I could not stomach, and yet we could not escape the other. I found no solace in the fact Caesar would always find me. Even when Lorcan held me, to the end, a part of me had known Caesar would come. That he wouldn’t let me die without it being caused by his hand. But what did it matter that I was saved if I slammed against sharp rocks on the cliff every time? Eventually, this thing we shared would burn out.

The light grew brighter as an odd sensation rippled through the darkness. Like tingling when my foot’s been asleep and I could finally take a step. It pricked at the blackness surrounding me, a warning. No, stay away, I thought, but the light ignored me. It grew brighter as it steadily came closer, the tingling morphing into raging pain. Everything hurt. It hurt so badly. I couldn’t make sense of where the agony came from, but it danced over my nerves. Every vein in my body rushed with sensation, and thick blood—coated with congealed fear—pulsed through them. From my head, to my toes, I throbbed, but I couldn’t fight, couldn’t move. I waded in stasis.

No!

My precious fog dispersed, the last tendrils clawing at my skull until I bled. My brain felt too large in my head, the meat squished against the sides. I jerked as fire streaked through me. It burned its way along my insides until I couldn’t catch my breath. Too much. But the light caught me and forced me inside of it, out into the world I’d tried to escape.

I saw the plain white above me first, but my vision twitched, and I tried to make sense of it. Where was I? I tried to turn my head, but my muscles didn’t listen to me. Something hot gripped my cheeks, holding my face immobile. I grunted, unable to frame words, but the sound hurt my ravaged throat. Cold air kissed my skin somewhere past my waist. I frowned. What was happening? But then, my senses turned on all at once.

“Come back to me, Ash. Come back.”

Caesar’s voice blasted into my ears, and pins and needles punctured my skin. Blood raced down my limbs, and I finally mapped out my arms, fingers, and legs as it traveled. It was then I realized I still jerked, and Caesar was hunched between my legs. His turgid cock sliced into me with rough, demanding strokes as he growled into the skin between my tits. His dark hair tickled my breasts as he fucked me hard, forcing my hips to curl to take him.

“You come back. I won’t stop. I never will. I’ll keep fucking you however long it takes. I’ll fuck you until you’re raw. Until you can’t ignore me.”

His voice. I frowned. His voice didn’t sound right. Lost, maybe? Or worried? I couldn’t be sure. It all hit me, rolled through my confused brain too fast to assimilate. His cock dug into me again, and warm liquid gushed out and slid down my ass.

“Shit, not again.” He reared back, removing himself from me. My gaze followed his movements as he gripped his cock in a punishing fist. “Work, fucker. Keep going.”

He palmed my breast with another hand, his eyes screwed shut. He jerked himself viciously as white cum leaked from the tip.

“Fuck,” he groaned, pushing back into me. His cock slipped in with ease, but it softened. He pulled out once more and fisted it again.

“Wake up, Ash.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want him to know I was awake. I didn’t want to see the strain on his face, the fear in his eyes. But I had, and I felt it in his trembling body as he curled around me again. Semi-hard, he sank into me again, but even then, my body ached with his possession. My insides were raw, each push of his cock setting me ablaze. How long had he been doing this? His cum stung the sensitive flesh as I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out.

“You fucking hear me?” he roared before he leapt off the bed. I could hear him, but I didn’t open my eyes. I wanted the darkness back. The light hurt; it tore me up and twisted the peace I’d had. I wanted to return to where it was easier. Where I could be alone, safe from the violent emotions Caesar pulled out of me, but he refused to let me go. His belt buckle jiggled in the silence, and I heard material adjust. Then the air whistled before a stream of pain raged over my breasts.

“Wake the fuck up, Ash. Four hours!” he roared. “Four hours I’ve been fucking my pussy. I’ve been screaming. I’ve been demanding. Wake. The. Fuck. Up!” The belt cracked through the air, pain spread, and I came into focus.

I screamed, my eyes flying open. I couldn’t keep up the pretense as he struck me with his belt.

But my sound galvanized him.

We stared at each other, tears pouring out of my eyes and his chest heaving from exertion. He was naked, sweat coating his body, and splattered blood dotted the dark hair around his cock. The head look angry and red, and I wondered if the blood was from him. He lifted one hand and took a tentative step toward me but stopped.

“Ash?” He cocked his head to the side, studying me.

“C-Caesar,” I forced out, but it was airy and garbled.

But he heard it, he understood. He pressed a button on the bed near my head and thrust into his pants. “I’m here, Ash. You made it back. Everything is going to be okay.”

I shook my head, knowing it wouldn’t be. Because Caesar wouldn’t let me go. He wouldn’t let this be the end. We’d missed so many chances to part ways, no matter the pain. His obsession with me could have faded long before anyone had to die. And I could have escaped what belonging to him would mean.

“Pain,” I said.

“The doctor should be here soon,” he mumbled. But his hands were everywhere. On my face, my neck, down my sides and over my legs. He pinched my skin and smiled when I pulled away. “You really are back,” he said, and I swallowed at his smile.

He shone too brightly, like rays of the sun. The rippling colors were beautiful to behold, but I’d be blinded if I gazed too long. He blinded me, and yet I couldn’t look away. His warm, calloused hands gripped my cheeks as he held my gaze with his.

“I knew you’d come back to me,” he whispered against my lips.

His kiss was soft, apologetic, and yet claiming, all at one. His lips slid against mine until I gasped, allowing him to slip his tongue inside. In all the time I’d known Caesar, he’d never kissed me like this, in this slow, burning manner that made my womb clench and my pussy grow wet. It hurt to get excited, it was torturous to feel his seed slide out of me, and it was even more agonizing when he smiled against me, knowingly.

“Die. Let me die,” I forced out.

“I can’t. If I could have let you go, I would have when Lorcan took you. I wouldn’t have killed Gleeson. Or Sean. Or so many others. Ash, you’re indebted to me. A debt that can never be repaid, except with your very soul. And baby? I intend to collect,” he whispered against my lips.

The door slammed open and voices raised, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Lights were shined in my eyes as soft hands cleaned me. Still, I paid no attention. My gaze was only for Caesar as he lounged against the wall. Our gazes locked through it all, he was the last thing I saw when my eyes closed again.

But this time, I knew the darkness wouldn’t keep me safe.