Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
What would happen if I cut that line?
What if I refused to go back?
Would I float to the next life and leave my body to rot?
Would I be free of living in a place I didn’t want, struggling with feelings I couldn’t stop, and enduring things I wasn’t strong enough to survive?
You are strong enough.
You have to be.
You made a promise.
To Peter.
To them.
Get them out…
My golden light faded a little, allowing mortal sensations to enter my serenity.
Hands on my hips. Grunts in my ears. The faintest pressure as the beast who raped me reached his end.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I would go back.
I would finish what I started.
But not yet.
I flew higher into the stars as he spilled inside me. I stayed in the cosmos as his body withdrew from mine.
I didn’t know what happened for a while after that.
I stayed up there where it was quiet and safe.
Where no one else could reach me.
I wasn’t aware of Rachel whispering in my ear or someone picking me up.
The detachment grew stronger as I sank from the heavens and hovered near the ceiling of Victor’s bedroom.
I’d never experienced such a thing.
The projection of my consciousness as a separate entity.
My body draped like a broken bride’s in Henri’s arms.
Sweat glimmered on his temples.
His trousers done up, his shirt neatly tucked, his face carved from stone. He might stand like a man and smile like a friend, but nothing was inside him.
Broken.
Empty.
Gone.
Bowing his head, shifting me higher in his arms, Henri said softly, “Thank you for allowing me the honour of Rachel’s company, Victor.”
Just like his body, his voice held no life, no spark.
I studied my face, where I hung in his embrace.
No life, no spark.
My eyes might be open, but they didn’t focus.
Lips slack.
I looked dead.
But that couldn’t be.
I floated a little closer, my light-ball heart skipping at the torment on Henri’s face. Beneath his emptiness, the faintest shards of agony gleamed. The longer I stared and saw past his brokenness, the more my heart flurried faster.
I’d never seen a man so…shattered. So damaged.
Lines bracketed his mouth. His eyes aged a million years. A glossiness coated his stare as if every inch of him had filled up with tears he couldn’t spill.
The longer he stood holding me, the more his energy swelled from dread to despair. It billowed in every corner. It howled in every bone. A ferocity kept building, curdling, until the cold draft of his misery sucked me close.
I tried to fight it.
But he was too strong. His soul summoned mine, pleading with me, begging me—
I snapped back into my body.
The floaty, airy feeling of drifting by the ceiling vanished.
I jerked as I settled back into blood and bone.
Heavy and solid, sticky and used.
Henri looked down at me.
The ticking of time stopped.
I bit my lip as the memories my physical body had recorded replayed in crystal clarity.
Henri on his knees behind Rachel.
Henri mounting her with a grunt that sounded as if he’d stabbed himself in the heart.
Henri moving stiffly, unwillingly.
Rachel whispering in my ear that it meant nothing. Henri meant nothing. Victor meant nothing. It was just us. Me and her. Just us. Just us. She’d kept whispering such a thing as Victor orgasmed inside me. His shuddering pulses despicable and his kiss on my shoulder utterly vile.
Henri had torn himself free the moment Victor finished.
Rachel had sagged and pushed her white teddy back into place.
I wanted to console her.
Hug her.
Make sure she was okay after years of abuse.
“You’re leaving?” Victor strolled toward us, tying the string of his pyjama bottoms and raking a hand through his hair. “But you haven’t come.”
“I’m sorry. My body…I’m tired.” He didn’t look up from the carpet. “I fucked her. That’s all you asked me to do.” He sounded as if he’d swallowed a canyon, and his soul echoed back.
“It was supposed to relax you, not…” Victor waved at Henri’s condition. “Whatever this is.”
Henri chuckled. “I’m fine. Truly.”
The edge of insanity sharpened his tone.
He’s not fine.
So far from fine.
His pain overshadowed mine like the biggest thundercloud. I couldn’t think about what’d happened to me. Couldn’t look at Victor and know his DNA was inside me.
For now, it never happened.
And really, it hadn’t.
Not in my world.
Not in my meditative freedom where no one could touch me.
But Henri?
God…I didn’t know how to help him.
I hung in his arms and witnessed a slow car crash. I could see the flames about to erupt. Hear the smash. Watch the carnage. But I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the table, Victor padded toward Rachel and passed it to her. “Here, my sweetling. Go start a bath and take a soak. I’ll order up some cheesecake, hmm?”
Rachel blinked, wary of Victor’s kindness. Climbing to her feet, she drank the water and nodded. “Thank you, Sir V. You’re so good to me.”