Queen

     "Queen..." he started and I shook my head.

"Those are my terms and they're final," I told him.

He looked at me for a long moment before shutting his eyes. We sat in that moment, the silence only growing into a longing as I patiently waited for his answer.

I forgave him the moment he took me in his arms. My defenses may have still been up but I knew he'd never betray me in that way. I recalled him showing me how to hurt him- how to try to fight him. Not to mention he had never taken off my panties or his briefs.

He simply pushed today and I quite literally fell over the edge, but he went right with me. He let me hurt him to show me that I could.

He was a lunatic.

But he was my lunatic.

"Okay." He breathed out in defeat and it was like the world finally shifted back in place. I squealed in excitement, throwing my arms around him and he sighed. "If I knew back then you'd make my life this difficult, I'd have quit smoking to not be caught in that garden with you."

I giggled. "Like that would've stopped anything. If it wasn't the garden it would've been the hall, the library, your room, church maybe..."

"That could've been hot," he considered it.

I sat back. "Tsk. Maybe in another life."

"There won't be another one," he grumbled.

"Oh?" I teased. "You believed in reincarnation not too long ago..."

He waved the reminder away with a hand. "I hoped for it but since you won't just let me die..." he narrowed his eyes at me and he smiled. "There will be no other life, Queen." His tone became serious. "Which is why I'm going to add a condition to this term of yours."

"What?"

"Will you really do it?" He mocked, throwing my words back in my face and I shook my head.

"What is it?"

"We have today," he said. "I will be by your side, but the moment where we can't figure it out and they come for me...you must let me go."

"Syn-"

"I will fight as long as I can," he said, his voice low, the weight of it pressing between us, "but the moment your life is on the line... I will go to them."

His eyes met mine, a rare vulnerability there, something I hadn't expected to see. "I will only agree to fight with you as long as you're willing to let me go when there's no other choice. No matter what happens, you must live. Whether it's with me or without me. Promise me that, and I'll do everything I can."

I swallowed, the weight of his words settling like a stone in my chest. I thought about the future, the harsh decisions that might come, but also the certainty of this moment. "Okay." My voice was quiet but firm. "I promise."

There was no chance in Hell I was letting him go now—not after everything, not after he had seen me at my worst.

He had unlocked something in me, something raw and untamable. What it was, I wasn't sure, but I felt it, a part of me that had once been buried now awakened, rising in sync with the dangerous pulse of his own existence.

He was mine. His twisted thoughts, the darkness he carried, even his cruelty—it was him, every fragment of him, and I could feel it in my bones.

He belonged to me. Just as I belonged to him.

I wasn't going to die. Not unless it was the last thing I did, and I would make sure it wasn't. The possibility of my own death had been etched into the horizon since this madness began, my life for his. But now—now, I could keep that promise.

I could live.

I would find a way to keep us both alive. But there was one thing I knew for sure. There was no way I was going to let him die. That was where the deception crept in. There was no letting him go, not when I had finally realized what we were—what we could be.

I wanted him. Alive. With me.

And I would make sure of it, no matter what it took.

He gave me a firm nod, the weight of our unspoken promise settling between us like the sudden quiet that follows a storm.

A quiet that felt impossible—like the calm after a hurricane, when the destruction still lingers in the air but the wind no longer howls. For a moment, the chaos that defined him seemed to retreat, but I could feel it smoldering beneath the surface, alive, ready to burn everything down again. But for now, it was contained.

I smiled, small and knowing, as I glanced at the black leather still in my hands. The feel of it against my skin stirred something strange. The memory of its restraint, the tightness of its grip around my wrists, reminded me of everything I'd endured. Of him. It had my mind going to dark places.

That damn curiosity reared its head again, an insidious thing creeping up my spine.

Syn saw the shift in my gaze. His eyes darkened instantly, the intensity of his focus sharpening as he watched me. There was no humor in his eyes—only that dangerous, unreadable look that always warned me to tread carefully. But something about the situation felt... different. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it was there.

I raised the belt in front of him, teasing, my voice light, and playful. "I think I'm entitled to some revenge, aren't I?" I joked, recalling a memory long ago before our wedding night.

His eyes locked onto mine, hot with intensity, but there was no jest. No playful challenge. Only something deep, something complex. "In here?"

My heart caught. He wasn't angry or threatening. There was fear in his eyes. The kind that even he couldn't outrun.

For a moment, I almost thought he'd laugh, brush it off. But instead, he was still, his entire body taut, every muscle coiled as if preparing to launch himself into a fight. But instead of defiance, something deeper moved through him. His gaze dropped to the belt in my hand, then back to my face. And then, as if a part of him broke, he slowly offered his wrists to me.

I stopped breathing. I stared.

This wasn't him being cocky, or playing a game. This wasn't a challenge or an invitation to more. This was him letting go.

The son of the Devil, the one who had always been untouchable, unyielding, was surrendering to me.

His shoulders trembled just slightly, a shudder that was more than physical. It was as though he was trying to exorcise something from himself.

And in that moment, I understood.

It wasn't just submission. It was a brokenness I couldn't have anticipated, a quiet cry from the darkest corners of him. His outer strength, his facade of invincibility—they had always been armor. But now, there he was, offering me the weapon that had always been his shield.

My breath caught in my throat, and I felt something break within me as I took in the gesture. It was more than a surrender. It was an offering of his deepest, most fragile self—the part of him that had been burned, discarded, and never allowed to heal.

I shook my head, my fingers trembling as I reached for his wrist. I couldn't do this to him. Not like this. Not in here. Not when he was already teetering on the edge of something dangerous in his mind.

"I'm not going to tie you up in here, Syn."

His voice, low and steady, didn't hold its usual bite. "It would only be fair." But there was a heaviness in his words now, a weight that didn't belong. It wasn't about fairness. It wasn't about some twisted idea of revenge. It was something deeper. "I did it to you."

I felt the rawness in his voice. He was still trying to justify it, still trying to hold onto that piece of him that couldn't admit he was vulnerable. But he wasn't just asking for something—he was giving, something I had never expected him to offer.

His trust.

I opened my mouth to speak again, but when his eyes met mine, I saw it. I saw what he was asking. And it wasn't for my mercy. It wasn't a request for reprisal. He was asking me to carry his pain, to help him bear the burden he had been carrying for far too long.

"Baby..." I shook my head, unable to form words. I couldn't do this to him, not when he looked so... so fragile. Not when I could see the shattered pieces of a man who had never been allowed to fall apart, now crumbling before me.

But his eyes—the depth of them, the rawness that poured from him as he quietly pleaded—cracked me open.

"Please," He whispered, the word low and aching, yet weighted with the gravity of a thousand unspoken sins as if it were a plea from the deepest well of Hell—a cry for mercy that had never been allowed to surface before.

It wasn't just a plea. It wasn't a request. It was a cry from the child he had been. The him who had never been allowed to grieve, to mourn, to heal, to feel. The child who had never been seen or heard, not for the chaos he caused, but for the hurt that had caused him to become the man he was now.

I suddenly wanted to protect that version of him and knew with a fierceness that from here on out, if he asked me for anything as he had done right now, I'd do it.

I couldn't refuse. I couldn't say no.

I realized, in that split second, that he wasn't asking me to fix him. He was asking me to see him. And to accept him, in all of his terrifying, beautiful, broken pieces.

My hands were shaking as I gently cupped his face, as I whispered the word that felt like the breaking of everything in me, "Okay."

"Okay."

I stood from the bed and glanced at the headboard, then back at him. "To there?"

He didn't look at it- his eyes were only on me. "Is that where you want me?"

"Is that where you'd like to be?" I shifted on my other foot and he tilted his head in question. "I'm sorry. I know I've done this before...but it feels different."

He took a deep breath and blew it out. "I understand." He pulled himself further on the bed, lying back until his head rested on the pillows. "Here?"

"Yes." I climbed on the bed after him, walking on my knees until I was at his torso. I straddled him, grabbing the belt and looking down at him. I could feel the heavy rise and fall of his body under me and I bit the inside of my cheek. "Cool?"

"Cool." He nodded.

My hands were unsteady and I took in the change of our dynamic. I was kicking and screaming against him earlier but now my hands were shaking at the thought of binding his hands.

I didn't want to risk hurting him mentally or emotionally. Most people had their entire lives to process their emotions and learn to cope with the things that happened to them...Syn had less than four.

I didn't consider him weak by any means but the mind was a fragile thing.

"I'm okay," he assured me as if he could see the wheels turning in my head. "I've been through hell and back in cells that looked like this one. I can survive this if it's you."

I nodded and he held his wrists out for me. I wrapped the leather around them as I watched him do to me earlier, stealing glances at me. When I was done, I raised his arms above his head and looped the belt around one of the wooden bars. "Good?" I checked with him.

"It'll need to be tighter."

My chest ached as I brought my eyes back to the restraint and made it tighter. "How's that?"

"How do you think it is?" He asked me softly. "I'm giving you control, Queen. Take it. You'll be helping me in the end."

"Okay." I gave in and tightened it more and when he pulled and saw that it didn't give, he gave me a satisfactory nod. Something pained in me knowing that he'd probably have to struggle a bit to get out of the binds. He wasn't as powerful down here. These rooms in particular were designed to suppress supernatural abilities.

I'd tied him up before in handcuffs. It was a playfully romantic moment where I'd known he could easily snap the metal with a flick of the wrist.

This was different.

I was going to be the object of his nightmares and there was nothing romantic about that. I didn't know much about the abuse Syn faced other than the fact that it had happened and that it was from a woman he'd trusted and looked up to. Other than that, he'd guarded the details with a death grip.

"I'm going to tell you a few things," he finally said. "Stick with me."

"Okay."

"I was young when it all happened, but it went on for quite a while," he began. "I was in a cell like this one, always. One that suppressed my powers, rendering me defenseless- and she was a sick woman at the time."

I shut my eyes, anger and guilt stabbing at my chest. In a cell like this one...I had brought him to a place just like the one he'd experienced some of his most horrific memories.

"Don't do that," he said sternly, reading me. "You didn't know."

I blinked my eyes open and nodded, pushing my feelings away. This wasn't about me. "I'm sorry..."

"Sorry for what? You weren't there."

"And I'll never forgive myself for that."

He thought for a moment. "You would've been three or four."

That made him eight or nine. I hated this shit- he was a fucking child. My rage was irrefutable. "At least you wouldn't have been alone."

He paused for a moment before shaking his head. "I'm glad you weren't there."

I swallowed a breath and looked at him for a beat before asking, "What do you want me to do?"

"You'll need a knife," he told me and I froze.

"W-why?"

He didn't answer, he simply pointed his head toward the door. "One of the guards had one. Get it."

I glanced at a door and a realization struck me. "The door can't be opened from the inside, and the guards can't..." they couldn't open the door now because of this maniac.

"Well, good thing your fiancé is not an idiot and put a handkerchief between the locks," he whispered.

I let out a huff of laughter before lifting myself off of him and onto the floor. As he promised, the door opened, a black handkerchief falling to the floor and I tossed him an impressed look over my shoulders. I looked back out of the door to the grizzly, bloody sight and winced as I looked around for the knife.

"Did they need to die?"

"They saw you naked so...absolutely."

"I wasn't naked, I'm wearing panties," I reminded him. "Besides, if that is the standard, you'll have to kill a lot of people."

I heard him hum and my eyes landed on the gleaming knife on a strap wrapped around one of their legs. I grabbed it, cringing at the fact that it was just a leg, and turned back to the room. "No, all of them are dead."

I tilted my head, pursing my lips at the comment. That wasn't true...right?

Then I thought about it, carefully putting the handkerchief back in place and shutting the door. He was right. Every man who had seen me naked...was dead. Well- I laughed a bit. Except one perhaps. "What?"

"Your father, actually."

"Why in the ever-loving-fuck would that--"

"I lived in the palace with him and your mom after you died and he has a bad habit of not knocking," I said, recalling the memory. "Anyway, he screamed- I screamed and we haven't spoken about it since."

Syn rested his head back on the bed as I walked back toward him, sudden determination set in his expression as if he'd made up his mind about something. "He will be dealt with."

I laughed softly, shaking off the tension, and moved to position myself above him again. But I didn't miss the slight shiver that ran through his body when his eyes locked on the knife, and with that, a sense of unease slithered beneath my skin. He settled under me, his breaths deep and measured before his eyes met mine.

"Look down," he instructed.

I did. I took in the intricate maze of tattoos that covered his chest and torso. His voice was soft, almost distant as he spoke.

"It used to look a lot uglier," he said, his fingers tracing the marks as if he could still feel them. "The tattoos helped. But some scars will never disappear."

I gently ran my fingers over the jagged, faded lines, some barely visible, others still raw and pronounced. "You see the ones that have almost faded?" he asked.

I nodded silently.

"The ones on my back? Those were from Julius's beatings. But these... the ones you're touching now, they're from her. They're almost gone, but they still hurt more than the bigger ones ever did."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, a tear slipping down my cheek, tracing the path along the beautiful, tortured art of his skin. I bit my lip to keep the sobs at bay.

"I've never let anyone hurt me like that since," he continued, his voice barely a whisper. "I've had to live with them... like permanent reminders."

I couldn't hold it back anymore. My tears fell freely, mingling with the ink and scars.

He caught my gaze, his eyes impossibly intense. "There is no other person in this world who I'd want to leave a permanent mark on my body. No one but you."

His words hit me like a blow to the chest, and I had to fight to stay steady under the weight of them. "Do you understand what I'm asking of you?" he said, the gravity of it all clear in his voice.

I understood. Completely. But I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him with a permanent mark, of making him hurt because of me...because of anyone who had ever hurt him. But before I could fully process it, my head was nodding—surrendering to his request.

"I'm a mess, Queen," he said, his voice cracking. "But somehow, you've found a way to love every monstrous and ugly part of me. Every scar I carry... make them yours. Mark me. Cover all the broken pieces of me with your signature and don't hold back. If for some unimaginable reason, everything falls apart and I become some tragic statement piece for the Heavens, make it so that whoever dares to look at me will know exactly who I belong to."

His words shattered me. My grip on the knife tightened, but all I could think about was kissing him, holding him. My heart wavered between wanting to erase his pain and wanting to protect him from everything.

"Fix me," he whispered, his voice desperate. "Rewrite me. I want every memory these scars hold to be replaced with the memory of you. And maybe then, somehow, I'll find a way to love myself too."

A sob caught in my throat, but I forced myself to speak through it. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you," I whispered, my voice breaking. "There's nothing to fix. Even if I were God himself, there's nothing I would rewrite about you. I know He meant for your chapter to be the worst. But you're the best one- my favorite. And for that, I would worship His cruelty because it created the most beautiful thing that's ever happened to me."

His expression softened, the ice melting from his eyes just a little. I didn't know if he believed me, but I'd tell him every damn day.

"You're perfect, Syn," I said, my voice steady despite the tears. "Every broken and missing part of me feels whole because of you. And if you'll let me, I want to be that for you. We could be beautifully and perfectly ruined together."

I paused, gathering my thoughts. "I refuse to change anything about you, ever. But if you need me to redact some of the parts you can't bear anymore... I'll do that for you."

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