“Daphne...I didn’t know. I never even guessed you were sick.”
“Oh I wasn’t. Not at that point. The disease was in remission. Not because of the treatments—they all failed—but because my body was young and strong enough to fight.” My father wanted to keep experimenting on me, see if he could poke the disease awake, but my mother wouldn’t let him.
“You were my light in the darkness, Logan. My reason to live. Even before you knew my name.”
But the nightmare feeling of thorns wrapping around my flesh and pulling me under the dirt flashes vividly through my head. Because I feel that darkness closing in around me again and it’s so consuming I’m not sure even the most powerful love on earth could keep it at bay.
Two
Logan
You were my light in the darkness. My reason to live. How can she say that to me, of all people?
I hold Daphne’s hand long after she falls asleep. I have to be careful not to squeeze her fragile fingers too hard. When I finally lay her hand down, her skin looks so translucent, the blue veins are stark against the white sheets.
I’ve knelt for so long my bones protest as I rise. I grit my teeth. I’ve got to get out of this room, get some air. I hate to leave Daphne, but my stomach is still roiling from what she told me.
It was my father’s plan all along. He knew…
What sort of sick fuck experiments on their own child? If he wasn’t dead I would destroy him. Not just his company. They’d never find the bits of him I’d flay from his flesh. I’d lock Daphne in the castle for as long as it took for her to forgive me. After what he did, kidnapping her would be a mercy.
Guilt churns through me. For all my anger against her father, did I treat her any better? For all I know, my rough play weakened her and brought on this relapse.
I carefully shut the door to her private hospital room, just barely resisting the urge to slam my head repeatedly against the fake wood. Who the fuck am I kidding? I deserve to have the skin flayed from my back for what I did to her.
She was fragile and I spanked her. Made her stand in the corner once for hours. Made her crawl on the unsanitary floor…
My hands clench into fists so hard my nails tear at my palms. I’m a monster. Depraved through and through. My love is twisted. I unleashed all my demons on Daphne, made her pay the price of my obsession.
She’ll never blame me. She’s too good. Too forgiving. No, it’s up to me to dole out punishment. I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll spend my whole life making it up to her. I’ll cherish her and stay up day and night working until I find a cure.
Because even still, knowing all that I know now, I’m not giving her up. Even knowing she deserves so much better than me. The gods be damned if they think to take Daphne from me now. No. I won’t let her die.
She won’t escape me so easily. She’ll have a long fucking life side-by-side with me until we’re old and gray.
“Sir,” the doctor touches my elbow. I whirl and growl. His hands fly up to show me he’s not a threat. “Sorry,” he squeaks.
“Shhh,” I hush him harshly. “The patient is sleeping.”
“I know, I was just—” The idiot goes to open the door anyway. To wake Daphne from her precious sleep.
I’m gonna kill this guy. He’s gonna be a smear on the beige-tiled floor.
“Back the fuck off,” I grab his name badge and stand to my full intimidating height. “Dr. Lockhart. Hematologist. Where exactly did you go to school?”
He babbles something and I sneer, releasing his badge. “Really? Not the butcher’s shop up the street?” I grab the chart he’s holding and scan it quickly, shoving him off balance when he grabs for it.
At the last second, my free hand fists his collar, keeping him upright. The man teeters before me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows over and over.
“This is what you call a treatment plan?” I berate him. “You’re barely treating her symptoms and aren’t doing anything to address the disease itself. You don’t know a damn thing about what you’re doing!”
My eyes continue to scan the chart even though what I see makes my chest cinch tight. Her vitals are stable, but her blood cell counts are bad. The disease is ravaging her system. Fuck.
“Sir,” snaps a woman in blue scrubs. She’s Daphne’s new nurse, a replacement for the male fuck they first sent. Her eyes are round but she’s got her hand on the alarm button, ready to call security. “You need to let go of Dr. Lockhart. Now.”
I open my hand and Dr. Lockhart staggers backwards.
“Happy?” I ask the nurse.
“No.” The woman meets my stare head on. “Your…the patient—is she your wife?”
No. Not yet.
“Yes,” I say confidently. Because she will be. As soon as I can get the ring on her finger. “Her father just died, and her mother is gone. I’m her only kin.”
“Well, visiting hours are over. She needs to get some sleep.”
Visiting hours? They think I’m going to go home and leave the love of my life with these idiots? I exhale a growl and hold up Daphne’s chart. “I’d like to go over her course of treatment.” As in, I’d like to actually fucking develop one. “I’m a doctor.”
“I understand, sir,” the nurse says in a syrupy, condescending tone. “But your wife has been battling this disease since she was a girl. This isn’t her first rodeo. We are the best hospital in New Olympus. You need to back off and let us do our jobs—”
Back off? Back off and watch my Daphne wither away and die in a hospital bed in this depressing as hell hospital? This is all bullshit. There are so many shady people on this earth and Daphne is one of the best. It’s not fair that she—
“Fuck this,” I roar, and topple a food cart. Both the nurse and doctor leap back as plates, trash, and trays clatter to the floor at their feet.
Before they can react, I spin and stride into Daphne’s room. “I’m taking her out of here.”
I ignore the frantic shouts behind me, “Sir! You can’t do that. Sir!”
But they don’t know what I’m capable of. I kidnapped her once and I’m doing it again. Right now.
I stand, brace myself, and all but bare my teeth at the doctor and nurse. “I’m her husband, her only living relative,” I bellow. “And she’s coming home with me right now. Don’t dare get in my way.”
I was worried about the slightest noise waking her earlier, but when I storm into her room, Daphne’s all but dead to the world. It takes half a minute to rouse her.
The doctors hover anxiously in the background as I gently cup her face. “Want to go home, kitten?”
She nods, though it looks like it takes all her energy to do so. “Anywhere but here,” she breathes out before her eyes flicker closed again.
It’s enough for me and apparently it’s enough consent for the doctors, too. They let me wheel her out to a private ambulance I arrange so I can take my beautiful Daphne home where she belongs.
Three
Daphne