Dark Wish (House of Sin 1)

“But I haven’t—”

“I know what you’re thinking and what you’re going to suggest, and the answer is no,” I rebuke before he even gets a chance. “She is mine and mine alone.”

“You’re obsessed,” he retorts.

“That’s your perception, not mine,” I reply, still gazing at him through the mirror. It’s easier than facing him or my sins head-on.

“You wouldn’t have gone down this road if you weren’t,” he says. “No wonder you’ve done this to yourself. You’ve already fallen.”

“It was just one slipup,” I reply.

“A slipup?”

I chuck the bottle of scotch at the fire too and watch as it erupts into a fiery blaze. “I do what I need to do for this House. Do you understand?”

He nods a few times, slowly. Finally, he’s gotten the message. I will not be persuaded to surrender. Not with this girl.

“I will do it. Her punishment is mine and mine alone,” I say. “And if I have to sin to bring her to submission, so be it.”

“But how far are you willing to go?” he asks, ogling the scar on my back. “How much of yourself are you willing to lose?”

My nostrils flare, and I grab my shirt and put it back on, pushing the button through each hole before answering him. “That is my burden to carry, not yours.” Then I approach him and place a hand on his shoulder. “Now … shall we go meet our new guests?”

Amelia

No matter how many times I brush my teeth in this fancy marbled bathroom, it doesn’t make the memory of him go away. It’s not just the stain of his claim on me but my own submission that makes me want to rinse myself off over and over.

How could I be so easy? So willing?

I opened my mouth like it meant nothing, like it came naturally, and I’d done it a million times before. But no one, not even Chris, was allowed to do that. Yet I let this man, this monster, take my mouth as though it’d always belonged to him.

I can still see those hungry eyes in my mind, yearning for more as he looked down upon me, as though he wished he could do this to me every single day. As though he wanted to sweep me off my feet and carry me into the bed to fuck the night away. All the ways he wanted to use me, own me, destroy me … all in a single look.

And it mesmerized me to the point that I forgot what I was agreeing to.

That I let this monster control the narrative.

And he still didn’t set me free.

Anytime I think of escape, I give in, yet when I do, it doesn’t change a thing.

He won’t let me out, of course not … if I’m such a gullible, controllable girl, he’d be stupid to do that. I’m an easy mark. A girl he can use to his every delight.

So why did I think that this was even a remote possibility?

His words are deceptive. They make me think that I have a choice when, in reality, he’s already made that choice for me. Rules don’t apply to him because he makes them.

I have to keep that in mind the next time he comes into my room.

So I stay wary at all times. Even when sleeping, I keep one eye half-open and my ears perked. Doesn’t matter if I’m reading a book or if I’m soaking in the bath, I watch those damn cameras like a hawk. Any time they move, I capture which way they go to know if someone’s watching or not. I’ve even waved and wondered when they’d come to get me.

But no one comes for hours on end, and it makes me question why I was brought here in the first place. Why would he capture me only to ignore me when he sees fit? Unless I’m truly nothing more than a plaything. Someone to beg him.

Because that’s what this is all about … me asking for help, asking him to give me the answers, asking him to tell me what I did that made him do this to me. Me … finding out the truth behind my own wish.

Punish me. Two simple words I still cannot wrap my head around even though I’ve tried for hours to decipher my own thoughts. I’ve dug and dug until nothing was left unscathed, but I have no idea why I would say those words, let alone to a stranger like him.

All I remember is going to party at Club M and waking up with a hangover at the park with no recollection of what I did prior. But that happens sometimes, right? I’m not the first person to get drunk and do something stupid.

Nothing to write home about … or punish someone over by locking them up in a tower.