“But you didn’t…” She held me tight. “You didn’t deserve to be the witness, the executioner, the juror; you didn’t, Donovan … never—not then, not now.”
“I did.”
“You’re wrong.”
I sat up and stared her down. “I’m not your savior, Juliet. I couldn’t save her. I refuse to save you.”
She tilted her chin up. “Good, I’ve always believed a girl has to save herself. You aren’t strong enough to save me, Donovan. I’m a woman. I know my worth. I know my strength. Despite the way I’ve been broken, I’m still free. The difference between us is that you aren’t…”
Was she right?
“So…” She pressed a kiss to my mouth, soft, tender, loving, strong. “What happened next?”
I shook my head again, bringing myself back to a time when things were so dark I wondered if the sun even existed. Maybe in the past it simply didn’t.
It was all dark.
All of it.
Ash raining down on my face, I looked into the heavens, smiled, and made my damning choice.
I grabbed the whip and rained holy hell down on my father until he collapsed onto the ground. Blood spewed out of his mouth, creating a river down his neck. I watched for a couple of seconds, consumed with the view in front of me.
Witnessing him bleeding out at my feet, I waited for it for so long, and it was finally upon me. I wanted to remember this moment for as long as I lived, cherish it, and carry it around with me. Gripping onto the knife, I shoved it into his wounded back.
A life for a life.
A kill for a kill.
He stole my mother’s soul, and now I owned his.
His bloody smile was the last thing I saw before he revealed, “She’s not even your mother, you fucking bastard.”
Just like a Phoenix rose above his ashes, the monster created rose up above the river of blood and claimed his crown—his throne, his legacy.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Troy announced from the doorway.
Paralyzed, I couldn’t even turn around. “How much did you see?”
“All of it,” he snapped.
“Is it true?”
“Can you handle it?”
I shot around, staring deep into his beady eyes. “Is it fucking true, Troy?”
He held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “I’m just the messenger, Donovan.”
“Answer my question,” I clenched out, my jaw tight as all hell. “Is. It. True?”
He shrugged. “She was your mother in every way that mattered.”
I jerked back, stunned by his revelation. “Where is she then?”
“Who?”
“Stop playing your damn games! Where. Is. She?”
“Eh.” He pushed off the doorframe. “She died giving birth to you.”
My eyes widened. “How can this be?”
“You should be grateful. At least she didn’t have to endure your father’s recklessness like the slave who raised you as her own. She loved you, Donovan; that much we both know.”
“Troy—”
“No, no, no, the question and answer portion of tonight is now over. We have more important things to discuss.”
“Which are?”
“That you just proved to me that you were always better than your father and that mostly”—he moved toward me and pried the whip from my hands—“you need pain just as much as he did.” Blood from the whip dripped across his fingertips. “Maybe even more than I could have possibly imagined. You need the balance; you need me.” He dropped the whip and put both hands on my shoulders. “We’ll continue this empire together, with you by my side.” He shook his head at my father’s dead body. “Son, we’ll conquer the world.” He abruptly stepped back. “I’ll clean this up. You go take a shower and think about things. We have a lot of work in our future, but first.” He cleaned off his hands and pulled out his cell phone, barking into it, “Send her in.”
“Her?” I repeated, stunned stupid, in shock, afraid, lost. “Who is she?”
His smile revealed white capped teeth. “Yours, she’s yours… Your first. Do enjoy taming your pet, Donovan. It might be the only way you can sleep tonight, and don’t worry—she likes the pain.”
A gorgeous woman stepped into the room.
She had a slinky black dress on and immediately fell to her knees, shoes off, hands open, waiting for me.
And like a drug, I went to her.
Needing her touch. Needing to punish her the way I was punished. Needing ownership.
Pain.
Loss.
Screams.
I gripped her by the hair and exclaimed, “Who am I?”
Her eyes dilated as she replied, “Master.”
Juliet
He was shaking.
Did he even realize it? The way he clung to me?
“Master,” he repeated from his panicked memory. “Now you know… He killed my mother, and I paid him back in the same kindness. Troy saw.” He sat up, facing me on the floor. “He saw, and he took me under his wing. Our business has always been this, but Troy…” He hesitated. “He’s not the same as me. He’s cruel, punishing, and he’d kill me to get to you.”
“You’re afraid,” I said calmly. “Of turning into him.”
“I fucking am him!”
“No.” I was ready to slap him. “You aren’t. You’re controlled. You’re loving. You know the boundaries. Maybe at first, I didn’t see that, but now I do. I—” I almost confessed. “I see you, Donovan. I see you.”
“Impossible.” His voice cracked. “I stole you. All you see is what I want you to see.”
“Had you given me a chance,” I uttered softly. “I would have begged to be stolen by my monster, my villain. I would have tied myself up and opened wide for your taste, would have spread my legs and cried for the pleasure only you could give me, would have crawled across a floor just to serve my master. I would have—”
His kiss was sudden.
Painful.
Raw.
Mine.
Our tongues tangled as he pushed me back against the floor, hovering over me, his body weighing me down in such sweet surrender I wanted to cry. “Yes.”
“Yes,” he repeated. “Mine, all mine.”
“Always,” I agreed while he kissed down my neck.
He paused, his breath coming out in short pants and pinning me there. “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
“I know that.”
“I keep this estate to remember.” His dark eyes met mine. “To never become him; no matter how much I need—to stay me.”
I leaned up and kissed him across the mouth, setting my lips against his. “She’d be proud of you, Donovan.”
“She wasn’t even mine.”
“She was in the ways that counted.”
Our foreheads touched.
I didn’t know how long we stayed like that until my stomach started growling.
With a sexy smile I hadn’t seen from him ever. Donovan stood and pulled me to my feet. “Shall I feed my pet?”
“As long as it’s not in a bowl,” I joked.