After weeks of nothing but coldness, the onslaught of her emotions intoxicated me better than any whiskey. Every second that ticked past, Tess lost the glassy sterile look, descending further into crazed and scared.

It’s working. The curse around her f**king heart was breaking.

Tess tested the rope on my wrist one last time before scrambling off the bed and staring at me with such a soul-crumbling look in her eyes it undid me once and for all.

I f**king loved this woman. Not just for now. Not just for tomorrow. But always. Now and forever, I was hers.

I nodded, gritting my teeth. “Do it, esclave. Do whatever you want to me. I’ll accept whatever you give. I’ll live and be happy with whatever scraps you let me have.” My voice was rough, laced with sorrow, but I kept going. “I give you myself, Tess. If it doesn’t make you come back to me, then this is it. This is the last time I’ll have you close, and I want to see passion in your eyes one last time.”

I waited for a tear, a twitch, some recognition of how much I offered, but only terror greeted me. She stood stiff as a f**king board, no longer looking at me, but back there—back in the place where her nightmares brewed.

“Tess…” I wanted to tell her not to be afraid, to let them take her. That I’d be with her every step, but she shook her head, gripping her hair with desperate fingers.

She mumbled something under her breath, before exploding to the other side of the room, heading toward the open cupboard.

I strained to see what she collected and my heart bucked when she came back with whips, floggers, scissors, and vials.

She dumped it all between my splayed and bound legs.

Her eyes evolved from dove-grey to icy blizzard, glittering with hatred. She no longer looked at me from the eyes of my esclave—my Tess. She morphed into a complete stranger. A woman with a vendetta, a wish for death and destruction.

I nodded in response to her harsh breathing. “Wherever you are, Tess, don’t hold back. Relive what happened, face your demons, inflict whatever you need to on me.” I might’ve sounded strong, but inside I was back to being a f**king boy who buried his mother and shot his father. I felt so alone. Always alone.

Her eyes closed, and a cape of horror came over her. Her energy changed from weak and closed off to ferocious and angry, so, so angry. “You made me do so many things. And yet you think you can order me again?”

Oh, shit. She’d left me. Her mind had regressed—she’d done exactly what I told her.

She sneered, picking up a thick paddle, running it along the inside of my thigh.

I didn’t mean to move. I meant to stay frozen and let her re-enact whatever she needed to, but the beast inside couldn’t do it. I struggled, jerking my wrists, wincing as the rope dug deeper.

“You think you can get away? You can’t. Not after what you made me do. Not after everything.” She picked up a whip in the other hand, brandishing both. “Would you prefer radiating pain or sharp pain?”

My eyes hardened, realizing I’d asked her the exact same thing when I placed her on the cross. I knew she didn’t mean to sound creepy as f**k, but she looked like a little wind up doll asking me which murder weapon I preferred.

How much longer must I endure this agony?

As long as it takes for her to come back to me.

I snarled. “Anything. Fucking use anything if it means you’ll use something.”

She didn’t flinch at my rage. Her head bowed as anger flushed her cheeks. “You always were an ass**le. Telling me to hit and maim and kill. But you never let me choose the weapon before.” Her eyes snapped to mine. She snarled, “Use the baton, little girl. Pull the trigger, bitch.” She cocked her head as her arm flew high, holding the paddle. “Let’s see how you f**king like it.”

She struck.

The paddle slapped against my jean-clad thigh and I tensed, rippling with anxiety. The power behind the strike was nothing but a f**king bug bite, but the fact I willingly let her strike me made me die a little inside.

She reached out, patting where she hit me. Her smile was pure maliciousness. “Did I do it right? You were always telling me I didn’t do it hard enough. Bite harder, little girl. Scratch deeper, bitch. Never satisfied.”

I couldn’t do this. You can. Staring at the dark red canopy above, I yelled, “No, you didn’t do it f**king right.” This was wrong. It wouldn’t help her. She’d obviously lost herself too deep. I couldn’t save this woman in front of me—not like this. “Tess, this was a mista—”

The sharp wallop on my thigh came from nowhere; my eyes popped wide. Tess breathed hard, pointing the paddle like a gun. “Is that how you like it?” She hit me again. Fire building in her gaze, nursing the hatred, the fear she’d lived with for so many weeks.

I stopped breathing. Was I seeing what I wanted to see, or was it the truth?

That spark. The flare. The ice blue smouldering to soulful grey.

“Yes,” I murmured even though my answer was f**king hell no. I hated it. Hated being strung up. Every cell in my body hated it, but this was the woman I loved. This was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

“Hit me again, esclave.” My hands curled into fists; I gasped as she delivered another stinging wallop. She hit me hard across my stomach and I tensed, clenching against the pain.

“Always orders with you. Do you know I wished to kill you so many times? Every second of every day I existed in a drugged stupor, I thought of ways to exterminate you.”

My heart raced. Tess no longer saw me. She no longer knew where she was nor cared. Her mind had cracked, and I was both elated and petrified.

“You like it when I hurt for you? You like it when I take orders from you?” Her voice raised an octave. “You like it when I kill for you?”

What the f**k? She killed for them? They broke her by making her commit murder? Everything that happened in the last few weeks suddenly made sense. How she avoided all human contact. She stopped feeling. Stopped reacting.

She took a human life. That did something deep inside. It irreversibly changed a person forever.

Fuck, I would never get her back. I knew the darkness of taking a life. I could live with it—the darkness was part of who I was—but Tess… she was never meant to be such a monster.

Her arm swung, putting her entire body weight behind the strike. Her body twisted, her face scrunched as she belted me across the groin.

Holy, f**king f**k.

My c**k hollered in agony; my balls disappeared into my body. The pain ricocheted into my stomach, making me want to vomit.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” she whispered, her tone dark and sinister.

I couldn’t say a f**king thing, only gasp like a dying fish. The pain. I’d never been hit so hard in such an off-limit area.

Her body language went from angry to radiating manic hatred. “You f**king made me hurt them. You made me burn them, break them.” Her arm rose and she hit me across the chest. “You made me kill one of them! And I’m done. I’ll kill you. I’ll do what I should’ve done months ago.”

I squeezed my eyes, no longer able to watch her come apart. To see the pain she’d bottled up inside spewing forth like a black disease.

“I hate you.” She struck my knee.

“I hate you.” She hit my side.

“I hate you!” She pummelled my chest.

My eyes flew open as she hit my c**k again. I groaned with agony.

Each time she hit me, her voice rose and cracked until finally, the one thing I’d been waiting for, begging for, started to fall.

Tears.

They glossed her eyes, trembling on her bottom lashes. “You made me into one of you!” She threw away the paddle and grabbed a thick flogger. The strike landed across my face, cutting deep into my skin.

I grunted with the pain. I wanted nothing more than to dive at Tess. Pin her to the floor and turn the tables. I wanted to hit her. Inflict the same agony. I wanted to sense her submission. I wanted to be turned on and f**k her.

There was nothing sexy about this. My c**k wanted no part in it. It wasn’t right in my world, and every part of me screamed to end it, but she needed to kill her nightmares.

I had to give her my body because she already owned my heart.

I knew the dark place she lived in. I knew the horrors of being a killer, and I knew the moment she gave in fully, allowed herself to release all those ugly memories, she probably wouldn’t stop until I was dead. But if it meant she could purge herself and move on from hell, I would do it.

I would sacrifice myself for her.

Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “Je t'aime, Tess.” I love you. “Nous sommes les uns des autres.” We are each other’s.

Tess cocked her head, breathing hard against the tracks of tears falling endlessly from her eyes. It didn’t register, and I was glad in a way. I spoke to her fractured soul, not the broken woman.

Sucking in my pride and honour and every last f**king shred of decency I had left, I growled, “You’re a f**king disappointment. Did we not teach you anything? You killed—so what. You’re useless. Pathetic.”