passed in adapting to her new life beyond her bedroom.
Waking up to the view of the beautiful mountains on one side and the sea on the other thrilled her every day. As did finding a fresh red rose and little notes on her bedside table. Notes that elicited different reactions in her.
The ‘I got the piercings for you’ made her breathless.
The ‘Did you know you snore?’ made her frown.
The ‘I liked the dress you wore yesterday’ made her cheeks warm.
And so on and so forth.
Little notes, every single day.
She enjoyed the long showers she took, avoiding the bath mainly because of the memories she associated with being in a tub. She started using her tablet for everything. From searching ‘how long should I boil pasta’ to ‘is it normal for rape victims want to have sex again’ to ‘best shows to binge’? And the answers she didn’t find, she asked Dr. Manson, who told her that yes, it was completely okay for survivors to want intimacy again.
Searches got varied, and life got a new routine. She tried different things and learned she had no talent for painting, didn’t enjoy being online for more than a few minutes, and didn’t like making jewelry. What she did like was cooking—or rather learning and experimenting—and reading, though she was a slow reader. And it wasn’t a physical book from the library she was enjoying reading either, but one she’d found online and had Bessie help her buy. It had showed up on her search when she’d looked for ‘raped heroine romance’. She’d been skeptical that there wouldn’t be many but surprisingly, and tragically, there were. It seemed being forced was more common than she’d thought, even in the outside world.
The book she was reading dealt with a normal woman who had been raped at a party, her struggles and how she fell in love again with a wonderful man. Parts of it, Lyla could relate to. Those parts—feeling dirty, hating her body, being depressed—those made her feel seen, acknowledged, like someone had reached inside her and told her it was okay to feel the way she did. But other parts—mainly where the heroine was falling in love with a gentle, caring man who told her how much he loved her and how beautiful she was every other page—she couldn’t relate to.
She put the tablet down, staring out at the sea, imagining what it would be like. She imagined a good-looking, non-violent, gentle man, imagined him easing her into soft kisses, imagined herself sleeping with him for the rest of her life… and felt nothing. The more she was learning about herself, the more she was understanding that the love in the movies she watched with him wasn’t something she’d ever understand.
The scene in her mind changed. She imagined herself running in the dark, getting caught by a man who was darkness himself, telling her she was his as he claimed her, making her feel safe and protected and unreachable for any other monsters. She didn’t need a good man telling her he loved her; she needed a dark devil to tell her she was his.
And maybe Dainn was the man. Maybe he wasn’t.
She shook her head. Who the hell was she kidding? She knew he was the man for her, had known for many years. Had she been trained by her brain to believe it? Probably. Was it ‘healthy’ like she’d read in articles? Probably not. But again, as Dr. Manson reminded her, other people’s definition of healthy couldn’t be hers. Her experiences were different, her past was different, and whatever made her grow and heal was healthy for her. All the information she’d been consuming over the days had been doing was simply making her think—think, so she could follow different directions of thought and decide for herself which she agreed with and which she didn’t. She was discovering herself, slowly but surely, and that was all she could do. The knife on the counter still looked inviting sometimes, but she was working on it.
Getting up from the comfortable, plush armchair in the study, she went to the table and picked up the small notebook she had claimed for herself, opening it to the last entry.
‘Cook pasta for dinner’.
One step at a time.
That’s what she had begun to do at Dr. Manson’s suggestion. Every morning, she wrote a task for herself to be done that day, and throughout the day, she focused on it. She’d read about it in one of the more useful articles on how to prevent suicidal thoughts as well, and it had been centering her more. Now, every time she had a thought, she opened the notebook and checked what she had to do that day, and eventually, the thought passed.
Checking the time, seeing the sun was setting already, she headed to the kitchen, the one place in the house she was slowly making her domain. Though she still wasn’t an expert, she was experimenting more and more, looking up recipes online, seeing videos on how to cut a vegetable or slice the chicken, and she was becoming more and more confident about the simple, basic things. But only she had tasted her food, and it was the first time she was planning on making a full meal.
Dainn—she was still getting used to calling him that, both inside and out—wouldn’t return home until late in the night. They had begun to share meals together, but if he was away, she usually ate and went to bed, mainly because she’d started waking up at the crack of dawn to simply enjoy the sunrise on the deck every morning. By the time she had dinner watching TV on those nights, she was droopy. Last night, she’d fallen asleep on the couch, only to come awake when he’d picked her up and carried her to bed, tucked her in, and left her sleeping.
She wanted him back in the master bedroom. She wanted to have sex with him, yes, but she also wanted more, much more. She wanted to fall asleep in his arms and wake up in them, she wanted to talk to him in the dark of the night and memorize his words for the day, she wanted to find his hypnotic, intense gaze on her in the morning and give him the reactions he wanted. She wanted it all with him. And maybe she was foolish—she more than likely was—but the desire to have him, to hold him, to hug him was a constant hunger under her skin.
She wanted to belong.
So, she got to work.
Putting her tablet on a stand in the corner of the kitchen, she put on a tutorial video even though she had practiced making it, and brought out the big pan. Putting the water on boil, she opened the fridge and brought out the eggs, tomatoes, cheese and butter.
Knowing what she knew about him being Shadow Man, she didn’t expect him to come back early, but she was willing to sit up and wait for him. She did want to ask him what else he did and how he had all this wealth, ask him why he became the Shadow Man in the first place, ask him about what his big plan was that he’d once talked about. But he was closed off about those subjects, so she let him be for now.
Watching the video and following the steps, she lost herself in the motion of creating something. It soothed something inside her, just the simple act of cooking something from the scratch, and it excited something inside her, just knowing she was going to make someone beside herself eat it.
“Lyla.”
The voice behind her made her turn. Nikki was putting on her coat, still aloof toward her. “Do you need anything before I leave?”
Lyla hadn’t even known she’d been in the house. She shook her head, having brushed up on some basic manners. “No, thank you. Have a good night.”
A smirk lit the other girl’s lips. “Oh, I will.”
Okay. That was odd.
“Oh, and whatever you do, please don’t go into the greenhouse tonight.” Nikki said on her way. “There’s a storm coming.”
There was something off about the way the girl said it. A weight that hadn’t been there in days settled in her stomach. Her mood dampened, she quietly cooked her way through the meal, the scent making her mouth water. She put the servings on two plates and popped them in the oven to keep them hot, putting the rest in a serving bowl that she placed in the oven too. Then she cleaned all the pots and pans she’d used, setting them aside to dry.
And then, with everything done, she went to the closet, put on some warm leggings and a sweater, pushed her feet into sneakers, and walked out the main door.
The cold wind assailed her face as she looked at the dark sky. The moon and the stars were hidden behind thick clouds, and the helicopter was on the helipad, covered by something she couldn’t see too well. The garden on the other side was dark too, everything except the greenhouse with one light on.
She couldn’t see anything since the plants covered the glass. Tugging the sleeves of her sweater over her wrists, she briskly walked to the greenhouse, needing to know why the other woman had told her not to go there.
The ground was relatively flat on the cliff, just a gentle downward slope, and she covered it in minutes, slowly coming upon the main door that was open.
Her body froze.
Nikki stood naked in front of the long table, her hands holding Dainn’s shirt, his hands on her waist.
Ice filled her veins as she took in the sight, her few weeks of relative happiness crashing as she realized she was discarded again. He hadn’t touched her in all the days he’d had her under his roof, and that was because he’d already had someone. And Nikki had hated her on sight because she’d been with him.
God, she was an idiot.
Nikki’s eyes came to her, triumph glistening in them, and Lyla exhaled through her mouth, unable to control the burn in her eyes.
Suddenly, his neck turned, his devilish eyes finding hers.
Lies. That’s all they said to her. Lies.
She was done. He could eat the fucking pasta with Nikki and laugh over her feeble attempts.
Fuck him.
With that thought, she turned on her heel and ran down the hill, uncaring of where she was going, the only thought in her mind escape. Tears ran down her face, and she knew her reaction was not warranted. He’d never told her he was hers, only that she was his. He’d never told her that he’d not been with others, just like she’d been with others. The only difference, and the one that hurt the most, was that she’d never had a choice and he’d always had it. And for a moment, she had believed he had chosen her, but he’d not.
Plan. She was a part of his plan, and he was giving her only enough to keep her willing and under the illusion of happy.
Fool, fool, fool.
No, she would get to the village somehow, and hitch a ride somewhere, anywhere, away from all the emotional turmoil.
As her feet gained speed downhill, her lungs and legs burning due to the exertion she wasn’t used to, something heavy tackled her from the back.
A scream left her throat as she went down, thinking it was a wild animal, and whatever the weight on her back was twisting at the last minute to save her the brunt of the fall.
Heart pounding in her ears, she caught her breath, struggling to get free from the weight that was under her, before suddenly finding her hands locked behind her back, her jaw locked in a tight grip, and her eyes locked with the devil’s.
“What the fuck, Lyla?”
The tone of his voice made her still, the fact that he called her ‘Lyla’—when it had always been ‘flamma’—making her realize he was pissed. And he was never pissed, not with her at least.
Thunder rumbled in the sky, throwing her back to the first time they had met in the dark, alone in the woods, with a storm coming in. That moment had changed her life, and she looked down at him, everything she’d been holding up for weeks, months, years, crashed inside her.
Every single time she’d been hurt, every time she’d been debased, every time she had hoped for something only for it to die, every time she had stared at the ceiling counting cracks, every time she had cried herself to sleep, every time she had given him a piece of herself only to feel discarded, every time she had lost parts of herself until she didn’t even know who she was anymore.
Every. Single. Time.
Every. Single. Thing.
Every. Single. Memory.
Crashed, collapsed, crushed inside her.
She shattered.
She felt her shoulders shake, her chin quivering, the old tears on her cheek joined by others, and she tilted her head back, screaming her pain to the sky.
And it felt glorious.
She screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat felt raw, crying and thrashing, for minutes and hours she didn’t know. She cried and cried until she couldn’t anymore, until her breath got short and she began to hiccup.
The black hole opened wider inside her mind, asking her to fall into it again. It didn’t hurt when she went into the black hole, she didn’t feel the pain tearing at her when she was consumed. She slowly felt herself succumb, wanting the numbness it brought her, if only for a while.
“Shh. It’s okay, flamma. It’s okay. Shh. You’re safe.”
Words penetrated into her consciousness, a litany of words spoken right into her ears, pulling her away from the black hole.
She resisted, keeping her eyes closed, wanting the numbness.
“My beautiful girl,” the voice kept whispering, seductive in its call, alluring in its lure to reel her back in. “So soft, so vulnerable, so hurt. You hurt, don’t you?”
She did. She hurt, and she didn’t know how to heal. She’d thought it had gotten better, but it had been an illusion. Would she ever get better? Would it ever not hurt?
“I will set the whole world on fire before I let anything hurt you again.”
The dark promise full of violence made the black hole take a step back.
“Give me your eyes, flamma. I want to see the fire in them. Show them to me.”
The two forces warred within her, the black hole pulling her to oblivion and the devil holding her tight, refusing to let go.
And suddenly, her hands were free.
That sent her eyes flying open, the sudden loss of the touch that had been anchoring her imbalancing her.
She blinked as he stood. Bending to pick her up in his arms and nestling her close, he began carrying her back to the direction of the house.
Jolted from whatever mental state she had gone in, she hiccupped occasionally, slowly letting her mind come back down to reality, unable to understand her heightened emotions or her overreaction. And she had overreacted, hadn’t she? She had found him fully clothed with a naked woman and done the first thing that had come to her mind—run. She hadn’t given him the benefit of the doubt, hadn’t waited to calmly let him explain exactly what had been going on, hadn’t even stayed to let him get a word in.
And then she’d screamed like a banshee and proceeded to have a mental breakdown in the middle of nowhere.
She’d been doing so well, so much better. She just didn’t understand it.
Embarrassed that he’d witnessed something like this again, witnessed how broken and imperfect she was, she hid her face in his neck, her body trembling in the aftermath.
Their walk back passed in utter silence, and she took the time to steady her heart-rate.
They emerged near the greenhouse just as cold, fat drops of rain began to pour.
“Hold on tight,” he instructed her before suddenly turning her so she was over his shoulder. World tilted upside down, she held onto his jacket as he sprinted back to the house, the torrential downpour soaking them both within seconds.
He didn’t stop under the porch, simply opening the door and carrying her inside, all the way to the master bathroom.
Slowly setting her down on the floor, he pushed her wet hair out of her face, looking down at her with a softness she’d never seen from him.
“Get out of the clothes.”
The instruction came on the heel of him pulling away, leaving her standing alone in the bathroom.
Confused, she did as he’d asked, dropping the wet clothes to a corner of the floor, before taking a shaky breath and splashing water on her face.
They both sucked at emotions it seemed, her with the excess of it and him with the lack. And she had to bridge the gap, or at least try to, so something like tonight didn’t happen again. Though, it probably would. Dr. Manson had warned her it could, but she had fallen into a sense of security, and it had caught her unaware. But she could hope it wasn’t as often, because she felt raw, her wounds that had been closing torn open again. And every time this happened, she would have to start from the scratch to try to stitch them together, each time making the scar deeper and worse.
Walking out into the bedroom naked, she found herself pulling on the silky bottle-green shorts and camisole set she’d put on the bed for the night before going out. Running her fingers through her hair, noticing the way they were beginning to fall more into their natural waves, she exited into the open living area.
The smell of the pasta she had made, what felt like ages ago, wafted from the kitchen.
Following her nose, she went into the space she had slowly made her own, and found him sitting on the dining table, shirtless in his sweatpants as he liked to be when he lounged around at home, his hair wet and gleaming in the low lights.
The plates she’d put in the oven were on the table, along with two tall glasses of water.
“Sit.”
Suddenly nervous, both because that was a meal she’d made and because of the breakdown she’d had, she quietly took a seat on his right, tucking her chin into her neck.
“What happened tonight?”
His quiet words, spoken low but clear, made her steal a glance at him. She wet her lips, finding the courage to open the door for some honest, real communication. That meant being vulnerable again, but at this point, she didn’t think she had much to lose.
“Seeing her there… with you… it triggered something,” she admitted haltingly.
He took a sip of his water, his plate untouched. She knew he didn’t much like alcohol. She didn’t either, and the glass of water in front of her told her he’d noticed as much.
“What did you feel?” he asked, his hypnotic dual eyes snaring her in its trap. What did she feel? He didn’t experience emotions as she did, and knowing he wanted her account of her feeling things made her heart race.
“I felt—” she stopped, looking at him, her throat working “—angry. So, so angry.”
“Why?” he prodded, leaning slightly toward her.
“Because I thought you’d chosen her,” her voice wavered with her words. “I thought you were keeping me on the side, making a fool out of me, giving me little nothings and giving her everything. I felt angry. I felt hurt. I felt jealous.”
“Why?” he pressed, not letting go.
“Because you’re mine!” She slammed her hands on the table, standing up. “You’re the only person, the only thing in this entire world that is mine!” Her chest heaving, she glared at him. “My killer, my stalker, my lover. The thought of sharing your obsession makes me sick to my stomach. You have power over me. Is that what you wanted to hear? That your claim makes me an idiot because my stupid fucking heart believes you? Is that it?”
She looked down at him as he sat back, a satisfied expression on his face.
“Flamma.”
One word. Just one word and everything felt right in the world for a second. She took a deep breath, calming herself. Taking her seat again, she gulped down the water in her glass, aware of him watching her.
“Your heart isn’t stupid.” His words, again quiet, made her look at him. “Soft, yes. Stupid, no. I think it’s quite smart to believe me when your mind doesn’t.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
“There’s been no one for six years, Lyla.”
His words made her straighten in her chair, the disbelief evident on her face.
His lips twitched. “Believe me or don’t, fact is fact. I haven’t fucked anyone in six years. I’ve not touched anyone who’s not you in six years. And I’ve never kissed a woman on the mouth in my life. Never saw any point in it.”
Lyla stared at him, dumbfounded. “I don’t understand.”
He simply shrugged. “Any other woman would have been a poor replacement for you, and it didn’t seem worth the effort. Now, tell me, am I lying to you?”
Lyla observed him, his neutral face as he let her weigh her opinion. Her mind told her he could be manipulating her, telling her things she wanted to hear so she’d fall for his traps more easily. But her heart, the stupid beating organ in her chest, it said something else.
“No,” she whispered, shaken by the fact that he’d been with no one.
“Good girl.”
‘I’ve not kissed anyone too, not by choice.’
Her confession fell between them and she saw him look at her mouth. ‘Then, when you choose, it’ll be mine.’
A sigh left her.
She looked down at her plate of pasta, and slowly took her first bite. It tasted pretty good to her, but she didn’t know if her taste buds were reliable at all. Watching him take his bite, her grip on her fork tightened.
His face showed no reaction, but he chewed slowly, looking down at the plate before bringing his eyes to her. “Did you make this?”
Nerves fluttered in her belly. “Yes. I watched a video and practiced a few times with smaller portions before making this. I…” she hesitated. “I wanted to make a nice meal for us.” Her eyes lowered.
His hand came to her jaw, bringing her face back up. “Make us a meal whenever you want. You’re gifted at this.”
“You like it?” She didn’t know why she needed his approval, why it mattered, it just did.
“Yes.”
A sigh of relief left her as her confidence bloomed. ‘You’re gifted at it.’ She was good at something.
They finished the meal in companionable silence.
Since the moment felt true, honest, open, she risked asking him the one thing that had always blown up in her face. “Is he… is he okay?”
She watched him as he finished his last bite and stood up, taking both their plates to the sink, soaking them in. She took a towel and stood beside him, waiting for him to answer.
“Yes, he’s okay.”
Something heavy she hadn’t known had been inside her lightened a bit.
“You’ve been keeping an eye on him, haven’t you?” she asked, needing to know he was watching over, looking after the one thing between them.
“I have. Just like I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
Relief unfurled in her belly. When the Shadow Man decided to watch over someone, they were safe.
Overcome with emotion, she impulsively stepped into his back and wrapped her arms around his middle, feeling him still with the plates in his hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his back, her voice quivering with so much feeling she felt her chest overflowing with it. “Thank you so much.”
He turned around within her embrace, taking a hold of her face in his hands, his dual eyes blazing on hers. “For you, anything.”
He brushed their noses together in the lightest of kisses, the sensation burning through her entire body. Lyla could not remember being embraced by anyone, had no memory of feeling as safe as she did right then.
“Hold me, please.”
His hands tightened around her and he pulled her in, her face going into his chest, her nose filled with his distinctive, masculine scent, her body full of the warmth of his. He held her close, and listening to his heartbeats, feeling everything she was feeling, she could almost believe he felt it too.
