Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

SERAFINA

Did I just get engaged?

Tyrant lifts me up and carries me right back to his bedroom. At this point I’m not sure my body can honestly handle any more pleasure. My stomach hurts as though I’ve done ten million sit-ups thanks to the endless supply of orgasms. Not to mention my body is achy, tired, and my fucking left nipple is throbbing.

Tyrant opens the towel and lets it fall to the floor. I am once again naked before him. And, yes, if he touches me, tastes me, turns me around and bends me over, I will become soaked for him and he can fuck me into a peaceful death if that’s what he wants.

I am his.

His hands touch my face again. I let out a shaky breath.

“It’s bad,” he whispers. “It’s wrong. You thought you were in danger before? This is a whole new thing, Serafina.”

“I don’t want to be with anyone else,” I manage to say. “I want you, Ty. And you want me.”

“This isn’t normal society. This isn’t a fucking movie.”

“So what happens? Do I live my life unhappy? Forced to be with someone else? What are you going to do? Kill thousands of people trying to calm your rage?”

His right hand moves to my neck. “What I don’t need is any attitude from you right now.”

All of a sudden I feel woozy and my knees bend as though they no longer exist. Tyrant scoops me up with ease and places me down onto the bed. The smell of the sheets is now fresh. Clean. Pure.

“You must be starving right now,” he says. “I’ll get you a hoodie to put on and then I’ll have food delivered. Deep breaths, Serafina. Deep fucking breaths.”

He’s like my meditation guru now.

Deep fucking breaths .

His voice echoes in my head and it calms me. He calms me. He makes me feel so alive. And now… he loves me ?

I’ve seen enough darkness around this place so far to know this is not the kind of love most people dream of. This isn’t the kind of love that leads to romantic dates, roses scattered throughout the bedroom. Surprise trips. Great sex all night and sleeping in and ordering breakfast. Sipping coffee, flirting with smiles as we both think of the sex.

This is nothing like that at all. This is dark. This is dangerous. I hate being alone in bed, even for a minute.

Tyrant helps me put on a hoodie and he gives me a bottle of water. He then climbs into bed next to me and holds me. I rest my head on his chest and close my eyes. He uses his phone to order food.

“Ty,” I whisper. “Can you explain it to me?”

“Everything is arranged around here. That’s the only way to ensure protocol and control. You were sent here by Bridgette. To be claimed and to be married off. That’s your destiny. To stand at Des’s side when he needs a wife as his side. If it’s determined that children would help with any kind of imagery, then you will give birth to his children. That’s how it works for everyone.”

That sounds terrifying and awful.

“Same for you too then,” I whisper. “Everything has been chosen. Right?”

Tyrant doesn’t reply to me.

“Breaking that apart is not smart,” he says. “Yet nothing about your arrival and stay has made much sense.”

“So what happens next?”

“You get something to eat and you get some sleep.”

I lift my head and look at Tyrant. “No. That’s not going to happen. I’ve never felt the way I feel for someone the way I do right now for you. And you’re telling me that we can’t have it? I would rather die than be forced to marry someone else. And you want me to fall asleep?”

Tyrant reaches for the nightstand drawer and takes out a tincture bottle.

“This will help,” he says. “You need sleep. I need to think. And plan.”

There’s something weird about Tyrant having pizza delivered. It seems so basic . So common . Like this cliché campus thing, you know? But I am starving. I’m beyond hungry, flirting with a sense of hangry that makes me want to scream.

Two slices of pizza and a glass of soda later, I’m content. My body is calm, relaxed, and when I look at Tyrant I realize he’s put something in my drink.

Oh. Right. I need sleep.

I smile at him. I trust him completely.

“You can do anything you want to me when I fall asleep,” I whisper.

He touches my face. “I know that, Serafina. Fuck, I know. I have to tell you something right now before you fall asleep.”

“Okay. I’m still here. I’m listening.”

My voice feels like an echo. I’m so relaxed and feeling myself slipping with each breath.

“Serafina Lockart,” Tyrant says. “I love you.”

I suck in a breath and I can tell my heart wants to race, but it can’t. The drugs have fully kicked in. Those three words are the last I hear as my eyes shut. In my head I tell Tyrant that I love him too. That I’ve completely fallen in love with him. That I love everything about him. I love his darkness. I love his comfort.

My lips move…

… but nothing comes out.

The drugs thrust me into a crazy dream where Tyrant and I are getting married.

He and I standing at the top of a hill with lush green colors around us. But all the trees have different color leaves, as though it’s the peak of the autumn season. Bright reds, golds, and oranges all around. Beyond that the mountains are kissed with snow. I’m in some world where all the seasons exist at the same time.

And I’m marrying Tyrant.

He’s shirtless too. His muscular chest being shown off, along with this two nipple piercings now.

Two. Nipple. Piercings.

Naya is marrying us. I have no idea where Lia is. Tyrant and I just stare at each other while Naya talks. Her voice fades in and out, which is my memory recalling some of the cliché parts of a wedding.

At one point my evil stepmother demands the wedding be called off. Demo then appears and twists my stepmother’s head right around and she collapses to the ground.

Naya then asks if I’m ready to take Tyrant to be mine forever. When the words ready to take are spoken, I drop to my knees. I guess this is how marriages begin. At least in my dream. To Tyrant.

As he unzips his pants, ready to pull his cock free for me to prove my commitment to him.

“Why the fuck won’t she wake up?”

I hear the voice above me. I look up at to the sky. I know I’m dreaming but the voice…

“Just pick her up. Help me. You promised to help me!”

“This wasn’t what we talked about. Oh… fuck… this is… you fucking fucked up. You fucked up so bad.”

“Then leave. Fuck you.”

I stand up in my dream, still looking up to the sky. A weird sensation hits and I start to blink in my dream, which also makes me blink in real life. The dream fades and reality settles back in.

“This wasn’t the plan,” a voice says.

By the time I find the strength to follow the voice, all I see is a leftover quick shadow of a black figure leaving the bedroom.

“You’re mine now, bitch,” another voice says.

A woman’s voice. I look forward and there is something standing over me, but all I see are big blue eyes and well-kept eyelashes showing through the uneven cut holes in a white winter hat that’s been pulled over her face.

“Stand and walk or you die,” she says.

Evidence of her statement comes in the form of a gun in her right hand. A gun now pointed right at me. I realize then my hands have been taped at the wrist.

“ Ty ,” I moan, wanting to yell for him. “Ty… where is… Ty…”

“Oh, how fucking cute you are,” the woman says. “Calling him Ty . You want to see your precious fucking Ty right now?”

She grabs my hair and pulls with force. It hurts and doesn’t help that she’s pulling the hair close to where the staples in my head are. I slide and wiggle off the bed as fast as I can without the use of my hands, not to mention it’s not easy to just wake up and feel restful and perky after being drugged into sleep.

Once I’m standing, the woman presses the gun against the back of my neck and orders me to walk. We’re leaving the bedroom and I obviously have no idea where our next destination is.

Out in the hallway, the masked woman pulls at me, hard, and I trip over something and stumble into her. I feel the gun slide from the back of my neck down toward my back. I have this sudden image of me throwing my shoulder into this masked woman’s face. Then slamming my head into her face. I could run then and get help. I could find…

My eyes look down at the object I just tripped over and I freeze in place.

“Tyrant,” I manage to say before the hallway starts to blur and spin.

I let out a loud scream, completely forgetting and abandoning my plan of attack. The woman in the mask hits me in the back of my head and it’s a whole fresh, familiar sense of pain that makes my knees go weak as I fall to the floor. A second away from darkness totally consuming me. And my last image?

Tyrant on the floor, face down, with a knife handle sticking out of his back.