bad habit waking up in strange beds and looking at strange ceilings. Lyla blinked her eyes open, her limbs too weighed down for her to even try to move.
It took her a second to realize there was an actual weight on her, holding her down.
Panicking, she looked down at the bare muscular biceps resting on her stomach, down to the ripped forearm dusted with dark hair going diagonally to her hip, to the large, masculine hand holding her with long, tapered fingers. Burn marks littered places on the back of the hand.
Lyla moved her eyes up to see the man the arm was attached to and found herself ensnared by mismatched devilish eyes, one black, one golden-green, staring at her quietly.
It had been real.
Her fever dream had been real.
He had come for her, albeit after months, but he had.
Facts registered simultaneously in her brain—he was shirtless but she was dressed in something soft, his body was pressed to her side and his face close to her pillow, and there was a lot of natural gray light coming in from somewhere.
Ignoring the first two facts and ignoring him, she turned her neck to seek the source of the light.
And she stopped breathing.
The largest sets of windows she had ever seen showed something she had only ever seen pictures of. Mountains. Tall, majestic, gray mountains.
Scrambling from the bed and pushing his arm away, she tried to stand just as her knees buckled. She almost went down before strong arms effortlessly swung her up in an embrace she recalled from her delirium.
“Easy,” he told her softly, but she ignored him, focused on the vista bare before her.
He carried her toward the glass, toward what she now realized was a set of double doors and not windows. Pushing it open with his foot, he walked them out. A blast of cold air assaulted her skin, making her instinctively curl closer to his body heat, the silk sleep shorts he must have put her in too thin to stand the weather.
He walked them to the edge and placed her on her feet, imprisoning her from the back with both arms on the metal railing, his presence behind her warm in the cold.
But she was focused on the view, on the feeling of being outside.
Her eyes greedily gulped the sight before her, unable to understand how places like this could even exist as she took in every inch of it.
Tall, beautiful, rocky gray mountains spanned as far as the eyes could see on her right, the view wrapping around until it disappeared on the side. On the other side to the left, a gray sea churned under the clouds endlessly, waves after waves crashing on the rocky beach in the distance, a beach created by the natural slope and decline of the mountains that went into the water. And right below her, the cliff steeped into a long, narrow body of water that joined the sea.
It was exquisite, surreal, unbelievable.
“What is this place?” she whispered in awe, unable to believe her own eyes.
“It’s called Bayfjord,” he informed her from her back. “That’s the Iron Mountains, and that’s the Black Bay.”
She took in the sight for a long time, standing in the cage of his arms, unable to register it all, register that not only was she alive, she was in heaven and she was with him.
Reluctantly, she turned around so she could see the house they were in. A gasp left her as she stared up at the rough gray rocks.
They were on some kind of deck made in a slit of the space within the mountain. Within the mountain.
“Are we…how… in the mountain?”
Her broken words made him take a step back, leaving her alone on the edge, and she clung to his hand, terrified of the steep fall off the cliff. And that was so contrary to the woman who had decided to end herself.
She saw him look down at their hands together, his large, dark, burned hands encompassing her small, soft, pale ones.
“Come with me.” He tugged her forward, and she half-heartedly followed, not ready to go back into her own mind or how she felt about him right that second. There was something new to experience, something good, and she grabbed it with both hands.
He took her back to the warm bedroom inside, closing the glass doors. She took the time to look around and take in everything. It was the largest bedroom she had ever seen—everything within it big and classy. From where she stood near the deck doors, the biggest bed, made of black wood with the same colored headboard and side tables was on the right.
Leading the way, he pointed to the wide dark doors opposite the deck doors. “This is a walk-in closet.”
He slid the door open, and Lyla stared in awe at the spacious room, lined on both sides with clothes. The right side had all masculine attire, rows of shirts and suits and jackets, all in blacks and grays and whites. The left was feminine, rows of dresses, tops, tees, in mostly whites and blacks, with an occasional color thrown in.
A sharp stab of something pierced through her chest at the sight.
Someone lived with him, shared a closet with him, and yet he stood there holding her hand. She scrunched her eyes close. She had no right to feel anything. That was how things worked in their world. He could have a gazillion women on call and still take her, and she couldn’t deny him.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling—
“We can add more color to your side if you like.”
—wait what?
She pressed brakes on her rampant thoughts and took in the wardrobe again. That was for her? What the hell?
Oblivious to her thoughts, or maybe not, he let go of her hand and walked to the large mirror opposite the entrance.
“Come.”
Curious, she walked to him, realizing her feet were bare and the carpet under her toes was soft. Coming to a stop at his side, she was startled when he pulled her into his back by her hips, looking at their reflections. She looked so much smaller compared to him, the top of her head coming barely to his chin, her frame slender where his was wide. He wasn’t overly muscled but muscled enough to be both strong and sleek.
“Tell me what you see.”
Frowning at the odd request, because she could clearly see their reflections, she shook her head. Her hair, almost shoulder length now, was sticking out around her face. Her eyes were exhausted and her shoulders drooped. He, on the other hand, looked sharp, dangerous, lethal, the shirtless torso and black sweatpants not taking away from his aura, exactly as he had always looked.
“What do you see?” he prodded again.
Lyla saw herself blink in the reflection. “You behind me.”
She startled as he leaned in, his reflection joining hers closer, his face beside hers. “Exactly. I’m always behind you, even when you cannot see.”
Her throat closed up, the black hole she had escaped into ever-present inside her, reminding her of the months leading up to the moment she had decided to give up. Just because he had somehow decided to come back and found her didn’t absolve him of anything. He had betrayed her, and that wasn’t something she could let go of.
Gritting her teeth, seeing her bright green eyes flashing in the reflection, she addressed him. “Were you behind me when they were raping my body?”
His grip on her hips tightened. His face remained neutral. “Yes.”
A bitter laugh burst out of her. “That’s even worse. Because that means you did nothing to stop it. And that means you don’t care.” Her eyes locked with his. “So you can take your fancy house and fancy clothes and fancy views, and get the fuck away from me. I don’t need anything from you, not anymore.”
His eyes blazed for a split second before she shrugged his grip off, and he let her.
Exiting the closet space, she blindly headed toward the door she assumed led outside the room, needing to get away from him, to distract herself, to do absolutely anything but deal with him. She just didn’t have the energy anymore.
Pulling open the black door, she walked out onto a small cavernous landing, a couple of low steps leading up into a massive, and she meant massive, open space. The first thing she noticed was the high ceiling, normal ceiling and not rock-cut like on the deck. Was this not a part of the mountain?
She entered the huge open space, a sense of wonder filling her at the multiple windows and natural light filling in.
She had never seen anything like this in her life, never thought she would see something like this.
From where she stood on top of the bedroom landing, she could see a short corridor going to her right, to what looked like another bedroom of sorts from her vantage. Ignoring that, she took a few steps into the open space, turning around on the spot to take it all in. A large open kitchen to her right, separated from the main living room by tall island counters and a dining table for six people. To her left corner, a seating area with black couches and wooden table on the left corner, right by a set of windows, in front of the biggest television screen.
She stared at the screen, unable to remember the last time she’d seen a movie. There had been a small TV in the common room at the complex, but she had barely ventured down to watch it. Mostly, the girls had fought between themselves to decide on one thing, and Lyla had never been confrontational. She simply sat back and bit her tongue, going with the flow, keeping her head down, surviving. That was how she’d understood survival worked best—go unnoticed, go safe.
‘How’d that work out for you?’ a voice taunted in her head.
Taking in a shaky breath, she looked to the other corner of the room, toward another corridor going somewhere. On slow steps, she went to investigate, crossing the length of the space and admiring the view outside the windows. She just didn’t understand how this portion of the house looked normal but the deck had been under the mountain. How was it built exactly?
Sidelining the question for the moment, she entered the corridor and went down the short space, curious to see what she would find on the other side of the large door she could see at the end. With a click of the lock, the knob turned in her hand and she pushed it open, freezing on the threshold.
A room—no, a long hall—with windows on the wall opposite the door, lit up the space filled with things. So many things. Books on shelves lined one end of the hall. A solid wooden desk with a chair and multiple computers sat on the other end. In between, the area was littered with a canvas on an easel, a box of shiny crystals and shiny metal wires, so many things her brain couldn’t compute what they all were for.
“There’s something for you here.”
The voice came from her back, from a space away. She turned to see him standing, still shirtless, his muscular upper body exposed for her eyes, an expanse of honey brown skin and solid muscles and a smattering of dark hair. He stood with his hands in his sweatpants pockets, simply observing her observing things.
“There’s a white tablet on the table. That’s for you. You can spend your time in here deciding what you like,” he continued when she didn’t say anything. “Reading, painting, jewelry-making, watching TV, playing video games, doing things online—try everything and see what you enjoy. There’s also a little garden outside if you want to give it a shot, but you’ll have to wait a month or two for the weather to turn warmer. If you like nothing, we’ll add more options. It’s all yours.”
Throat tight, she stared at him, everything crashing on her, unable to understand how he’d known something she’d always wanted, a chance to explore what she liked for herself, control of the television remote, the outside.
“How… how did you know?” she stuttered, because there was nothing she had ever verbalized or expressed to anyone, innocuous and intense little things.
He moved forward then, stepping into her personal space, slowly, lazily almost, but sleek, his devilish eyes pinning her in place. One of his hands came up, holding her jaw like he always did, just as his thumb brushed over her lips. Her lips parted at the soft, almost tender touch, not used to feeling any sensation at all for months. He dipped his thumb in, just a little, and she stayed still, her heart pounding but not sucking on it, not responding at all. He took his thumb out, painting her lips with her own wetness, leaving them glistening, his eyes moving to her mouth, the pupil in the light eye expanding. She watched it, fascinated.
“I know you, flamma,” he reminded her. “The deepest desires of your heart, the softest secrets of your soul, the meanest moments in your mind. I know them all, I own them. Every desire, every secret, every thought.”
She couldn’t deny that. And yet, the bitterness didn’t abate.
“And I fit into your agenda of whatever you’ve been doing, isn’t it? I’m useful to you. That’s why you came for me. That’s why I’m here.”
He said nothing, just gazed at her steadily, and she didn’t know if that was an affirmation or a denial.
She never knew with him.
It began to dawn on her, standing there in the doorway of his expensive house, locked in place by his firm grip on her face. She had just traded one kind of prison for another, a more dangerous kind, because she knew she was weak when it came to him, and though she was already broken beyond repair, he had the power to break her still.
