Authors: Mara Black
No matter what Tate did, I'd never feel good about the idea of him suffering. Especially the idea that I'd somehow caused it.
"You'll find more," I said, quietly. Chimaera was starting to calm down, though she still eyed us cautiously.
He let out a little wheezing laugh. "Where?"
"I don't know," I said. "But you will. It can't be that hard, can it?"
Tate stared at the ground. "Almost killed my last supplier." His right hand curled up into a fist, or the best approximation he could manage. "Still plan on it, next chance I get."
So I was right.
Guilt pooled in my belly, tempered only slightly by his stated intention. He still wanted Birdy dead. I knew it had to be mostly for his benefit, but I still felt a warm sense of satisfaction in my chest. That fucking bastard would pay a price for his crimes.
"That's only if I don't get to him first," I said.
He glanced at me. "No," he said. "I won't let him get close enough to you. Can't take that risk."
"It's
my
risk to take." I tightened my hand on his shoulder. "You understand that, don't you?"
Tate swallowed heavily. "I understand," he said. "But that doesn't change the fact that I'm going to kill him first."
"You'd never allow this yourself," I pointed out. "I need this, Tate."
And until I spoke it out loud, I hadn't realized how much.
I needed to see Birdy die. And I needed to be the one who caused it.
Bloodlust coursed through my veins when I thought about him. That fucking toy train. His fucking putrid breath. His face, when he asked me to choose.
"I need to see him beg me for his life," I said, softly, staring at the hay. Remember the first time I felt it scratching against my skin.
Tate looked at me, and I finally met his eyes. There was an openness, a rawness, in his expression that I had never seen before.
"It changes you," he said. "It changes everything."
My resolve was only steeled. "Good."
He sighed. "I want to want this for you, Autumn. You have no idea how much. But I know what it's like. If I really believed it was the best thing, I wouldn't hesitate to bring him to you, bound and gagged - but I know better."
"No," I said fiercely, shaking my head. "Don't you dare
bring
him to me."
Tate sighed again. "That's not my point."
"I know." My eyes glinted with hunger. "But when the time comes, you won't be able to stop me."
I control you. I control everything.
You have to follow my orders, or else.
He didn't say any of the things I expected him to say. He was completely silent, except for the sound of his breathing. His hand stirred in the hay, moving towards me. Sliding across my knee, searching - I realized - for my hand.
Our fingers touched, and intertwined. I was staring at the corner, remembering the first time I saw his face.
When he spoke again, his voice was low and quiet. "Just promise me one thing."
I nodded, my head against his shoulder.
"Wherever you end up, don't let anyone change you."
His grip on my hand tightened.
I laughed softly. "Never."
In the warm silence that stretched between us, I knew it was finally time.
Time to take what I wanted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Scars
Tate's bedroom was flooded with inky darkness.
I heard him prowling through the house, one last time, like he always did. Every night, checking the locks, satisfying himself that everything was in its right place.
And everything was, except for me.
When he reached the doorway, I heard him pause. I wondered if he could see my reflection in the mirror, of it he simply sensed my presence.
I was still wearing the same dress from earlier, but I'd let one of the shoulder strips slip down. A silent invitation. My heart thrummed as I waited for him to step into the room.
In the dark, I could hardly see him. Just another shadow in the corner of the room.
"Come here," he said, softly.
Any other day, I wouldn't have dared to do this. Not because I was afraid of pushing him too far, of being hurt - but because I feared he would send me away.
But after today, I knew he wouldn't. A silent understanding had passed between us. Something like respect.
I was afraid to put any other name to it, no matter how much emotion reflected in his eyes when he looked at me.
Tate's eyes glittered in the darkness. I felt bold. Coming close, laying my hands on his chest, I went up on tiptoe to kiss him.
He was like a statue. His lips hardly moved under mine, and I started to wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake. Had I really misjudged things so badly?
"Autumn," he sighed.
I took a deep breath, trying to stop my head from spinning.
"Yes?" I whispered.
"Turn on the light."
I did as he asked, leaving him only momentarily to find the switch. Blinking as his eyes adjusted, he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks by the door.
Why was the light so important? Of course, he wanted to see me. But he'd seen me plenty of times.
Then I remembered: I'd never seen
him
.
Every encounter, every time, he stayed clothed. Only parts of his body were familiar to me, and while they were lovely parts, I had wondered. What was he hiding?
I couldn't imagine there was anything to be ashamed of.
The first thing I noticed was the holster around his shoulder, keeping a very small revolver close to his chest. It was similar to the one he'd given me, but not quite the same. Well-worn, and obviously special to him.
He set it aside, carefully, before he removed the holster.
Then, he unbuckled his belt. I locked eyes with him, quivering inside at the smooth slithering sound of the leather being pulled free from the loops. A slow smile travelled across his face.
He tossed the belt aside, letting it land on the bed with a quiet thump. I hoped he had a plan for it later, but in the meantime, I wasn't going to miss the show.
When he stepped out of his perfectly tailored trousers, I expected to be captivated by the taut muscles of his legs. Marveling at their strength. He'd carried me bridal-style like I weighed nothing at all.
And I did - I saw all of that, but I couldn't ignore the little criss-cross of scars that ran across them. They were long-healed, but the memory of the welts still remained.
I said nothing, staring at the proof of his suffering. Of course, I had known that Stoker did untold psychological damage to him. That was obvious. And when Joshua showed the marks on his arm, I assumed they had done something similar to Tate. Similar, but much worse. Still, I hadn't imagined this.
He was still undressing. One by one, he unbuttoned his shirt. I held my breath.
When it finally slipped from his shoulders, I saw what else he'd been hiding. His chest and his arms, too, were marked with countless little white scars, methodical, laid out almost artistically on the canvas of his skin. So many more than on his legs, and so much more vicious.
"Did Stoker do this?" I half-whispered. As if I didn't know.
He nodded, once.
"If I wouldn't do what they asked," he said. "One mark for every mark I wouldn't leave on the girl."
A moment of silence, while his face darkened with the memory.
"At least, that's how it started."
I stared at them, awed, letting my fingers run over the welts, the straight lines and jagged edges. Every single one, a mark of defiance. A memory. A time when he refused to hurt one of his broken things.
Slowly, I followed the path of one long scar around his side, just above the jut of his hipbone. My fingers went first, and then my gaze and my body had to follow. The last thing I wanted was to leave his line of sight, to risk breaking this moment, but I had to know.
My hand flew to my mouth, jerking away like I'd touched a flame.
The front of his body told a story of pain. But the back...
Not one inch of his skin was untouched. A jagged pattern of criss-crossing whip marks, cane marks, God only knew what else, like a tapestry across his back. From his waist to his shoulders, nothing was unmarked. Nothing had been allowed to heal. The same wounds opened and reopened, until his skin had forgotten how to come back to life. But it had healed,
eventually
- how long, how much agony, only Tate could say. But he didn't need to.
All I could imagine was the torment that had led to this. How many lashes? How many? How many pieces of broken glass embedded in a cat o' nine tails for his defiance? His flesh hanging in ribbons. Rivers of blood.
Bile was rising in my throat.
It took a moment of staring at his shoulders, hypnotized by the rise and fall, before I remembered what it signified. Tate was standing there, a living defiance of everything I saw scrawled on his back. Still breathing. Waiting for my reaction.
He didn't need my sympathy or my outrage.
He needed my acceptance.
Slowly, like walking underwater, I pushed my body forward, against his. He tensed, but I just wound my arms around his waist. Pressing my skin against his. My cheek against the largest, angriest mark in the center of his back. It still flamed, reddish-pink against the pale faded color of the rest. Lifting my head, I turned and kissed him there.
Tate let out a soft, shaky breath.
His body was still bowstring-taut, but something in his mind had relaxed. I just held onto him for a while, breathing, hearing the heartbeat echo through his ribcage.
It was the heartbeat he'd tried to hide from me, for so long.
Every human impulse, punished. Every sign of compassion, met with sharp and unending pain. A lesson hard-learned, and well-taught.
But they'd left the job unfinished. He saved me, again and again, every time with the sound of the whip singing in his ears. They twisted him, filled him with rage and dark lust, but they couldn't destroy what made him human.
My head swam with the realization, finally beginning to understand the way his conflicting impulses coiled and twisted inside, like a nest of snakes. The slave-breaker in him wanted to fuck me until I cried, enflamed by the memories of so many formative encounters with women who couldn't say no. But the man who survived Stoker wanted nothing to do with me. Another captive soul, another memory lodged like a broken shard in his consciousness. He closed himself off to me and pretended I wasn't human. But the man left behind when all of that was stripped away - the man, the boy, the one Holland snatched off the street with the promise of a mouthful of bread - ached to help me. To save me.
The way no one had bothered to save him.
Reluctantly, I let go, circling back around to see his face. My hand stayed on his hip, grounding me, not breaking that crucial contact.
I didn't understand the look on his face. Why had he been so afraid for me to see his scars? Did he really think I was that shallow?
But no - the fear went further, deeper, back to our very first days together. He had never let me see him without his shirt on. Back before he would have admitted to himself that he cared if I wanted him. Back when he would have welcomed the opportunity to disgust me.
"I didn't want you to know that you were right," he said, softly.
His eyes flickered.
"I wanted..." He stopped, frustrated, searching for words. "A clean break for you. You deserve that. Stoker never really had a chance to get their claws in you. Autumn, you have no idea how precious that is. I didn't want you tangled up with me."
His hand cupped the side of my face, his thumb brushing gently against my cheek. "Since the day you got here, you've been looking for a reason to feel sorry for me. I didn't want to give you one. I thought if you saw, if you knew, you'd never give up trying to save me from myself. You have a good heart. And that's dangerous, nowadays."
A good heart.
I didn't believe him, but it made something twist painfully in my chest, all the same.
"I wanted you to run away," he said, with a ghost of a smile. "I wanted you to forget me."
At last, I found my voice.
"That's impossible, Sir," I said, a whole new thrill running through my body at the word. "You're unforgettable."
He seized me by the roots of my hair and kissed me, pulling me hard against him. I melted. My knees weakened against him, and his tongue tasted my mouth, exploring,
claiming
. My heart jackhammered in my chest, realizing what was about to happen.
After everything, I stood to freely give him the one thing he'd never taken from me.
No, that's not true,
a dark little voice in the back of my head reminded me, the realization zinging through my body like a jolt of electricity.
There are other things.
But none like this.
I was still a virgin. On a technicality, perhaps, but I clung to it. I almost wanted to laugh when I thought about how close Tate came to demanding this of me, robbing himself of the gift I was about to give him.
He doesn't know.
A rush of fear went through me, cold, then very hot. I'd forgotten that. I never told him, unless he somehow already knew. I didn't want him to know, to be allured, or...
To be turned off. He likes them broken-in.
I ignored the voice. He didn't have to know. I'd ignore the pain, and if there was blood, well, I'd ad-lib my way out of it. It didn't matter. He probably wouldn't notice. After denying his own needs for so long, he couldn't possibly drag this out much further. It would be over almost before it began.
Finally, he released me from the kiss. His eyes burned into mine, the room thick with tension and expectation.
I slid my fingers under the waistband of his boxer-briefs. One last strip of clothing, and he'd be completely exposed to me. I was still wearing my dress, but it hardly mattered. His eyes saw through me anyway; I could never be anything but naked in front of him.