Syn

     I watched her hold the handle of the blade, angling the tip of it to the beginning of a scar on my chest. I froze, the weight of the moment pressing down on me. I'd been cut before, many times actually, but something in me found this time to be more...difficult. It felt like I had something caught in my throat, and it wouldn't clear unless she cut my skin.

I tensed when she was just a hair away from my skin, but then she stopped. I watched her with a careful gaze, yearning to understand this woman who loved me with such intensity. No one ever had, not like she had. It was maddening. I craved it yet repelled it, not understanding why it had to be me she gave herself to so freely.

She tried to readjust the knife in her hand, precision being her main goal and it made me smile as I watched her. The original perpetrators had anything in mind but that, but I kept quiet. With a frustrated sigh, she settled on holding the knife as if it were a paintbrush, her fingers at the tip, letting the blade's double edge pierce her skin and draw blood.

On instinct, I reached out to grab the knife from her before she hurt herself but I was met with a resistance that reminded me I had surrendered my ability to even do that. She glanced up at me, giving me a small nod saying I'm okay before looking back down at my chest. I relaxed a bit, forcing myself to look up at the ceiling which didn't help in the slightest. Her hands were on my stomach and I felt her weight on me...I had to glance at her to remind myself that it was just her.

If it wasn't, I wondered how I'd react. I was walking a thin line between my past and present, tightroping the line between madness and calm. It could only be her. Anyone else and my mind would've eradicated that line and left me seeing red, and nothing but. It had to be her.

I felt it then, the tip of the blade into my skin, but it was only surface level. I could feel her hesitance to cut me even that much but it needed to be a whole lot deeper for the memories I wanted to replace.

"Deeper, Princess," I whispered and she obliged. I held back a wince at the long cut and didn't even realize I was holding my breath until she stilled. I shut my eyes tight. "Next one."

"I thought you said I was in control," she said.

"You are." She was. I wanted her to have it. It wasn't my intention to fall back on my word- I just didn't know the moment when I'd stolen it back.

"Then just trust me," she said. "I already know what you want me to do, but if you want my signature...you need to let me do this my way."

"Okay..." I gave in and relaxed into the bed, trying my hardest to ignore the searing pain.

I felt her tongue against me in the next moment, licking against the area she'd cut- she kissed it afterward and I could've sworn in that moment, she was fucking magical. It was as if her mouth had wiped the pain away.

Then she moved on to the next, repeating the same thing; licking the pain away and giving me a sweet kiss, making my body forget what she'd just done to me only moments ago.

The demons would appear with every jab and cut, only fleeing when she pressed her lips against my skin. Every past unwanted touch was washed away by her gentle hands, every cut of frustration and rage replaced with ones of love and dark understanding.

I didn't know how long it lasted, but I'd counted twenty-eight licks and kisses. My chest and stomach were all searing but the pain was bearable, more bearable than before even which would've seemed insane to anyone else as I bled out. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to care.

All the bad shit that had ever happened to me felt like it was leaving my body through the spilled crimson. My eyes remained closed as I took slow breaths. I wanted to gather myself before looking at her in the unlikely chance that I'd meet her eyes and see something I couldn't live with.

Pity would've been the worst, I didn't want that from her.

I wanted her brown eyes to stay worshipping me as if I were her greatest love and savior. Was I crazy to think I could ask this of her own and still have that?

"There's one more." I heard her say and my breath caught. Of all the twenty-eight cuts, none had been necessarily long. That only meant that the one left was the absolute worst one- the last one I received from Matilda.

"Go ahead," I told her. "I can take it."

I wasn't sure how true the words were, but I'd already shown enough weakness today. The quicker we finished this, the quicker I could hold her again—and I needed that. My body ached for it. But first, I had to face this, whatever it was.

I stilled, bracing for the pain I knew was coming, my entire body taut with tension. I prepared for the memories that would crawl under my skin and tear me apart again. Queen pressed the tip of the blade to my collarbone, and I could feel it. This one, the one she was about to carve into me, was different. It would be worse. I'd felt the others, but I knew this scar—this one would be a beast.

Her hand pressed flat against my stomach, grounding me in the present. Her touch was warm, a reminder that this moment—this small sliver of safety—was real. But my mind... my mind wasn't sure. It wanted to slip, to sink back into that darkness. Back to that fucking woman.

I couldn't let it, but fuck I wanted to.

The pain hit. It was deeper, sharper—earth-shattering. My teeth clenched. I would not break. I can take this. I'd been through worse—tortured in ways no one should endure. I'd survived more than enough. But this scar... this scar felt different. It felt like it was breaking me, even though it shouldn't have.

Then, just as quickly as the pain began, the memories flooded in.

I could feel the scrape of fabric brushing against my lower body, and the roughness of hands—too rough—moving up my skin. Her nails scratched against me, jagged like glass, leaving a trail of burning marks. I could hear her laugh, that cruel, sickening sound that once meant nothing, but now... now it twisted inside me. The room was cold. The floor beneath me was hard, my head aching against the concrete.

I was cold. Alone.

The chains. The chains. Leather? Metal? I couldn't even tell anymore. They bit into my wrists, and my neck, holding me down in that suffocating place. Her face, twisted with some sick smile, was the only thing that lighted the room.

She was here. Always here.

She was my friend... or at least, I thought she was.

But then she wasn't.

My eyes snapped open, but I wasn't in the present anymore. I was in that dark, cold cell. The heaviness of the metal still pressing into my skin, the coldness surrounding me. The face above me—her face—wasn't Queen. It was hers.

Her eyes were wild, full of that sick paranoia I'd seen too many times. She was kneeling over me, her voice a frenzied whisper. "Who did you tell?" she hissed, her hands trembling. "Who? Who did you tell?" She didn't give me a chance to answer, her voice breaking with panic.

I could see the blade now, its gleaming edge catching the faint light. The same cold, hard glint that had been there every time. She didn't stop. She couldn't. I could see the gleam of the knife as it cut down my chest, quick, precise, the pain unbearable. It tore a scream from me.

Her hands, clammy and cold, pressed to my mouth, muffling the noise. "Shh, shh," she whispered, her voice sickly sweet as she muffled me.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't escape. I was trapped—my body was moving on its own now, everything driven by panic, driven by that desperation to be free. She was trying to free me from the chains, but it wasn't freedom. It never was.

Then the chains were gone. Released. But my mind? It wasn't freed.

I moved before I could think—lurching forward, my body no longer my own. I was on top of her. My hand—my hand—was around her throat, squeezing, cutting off her breath.

Her perfume, the one I had once found comforting, now choked me. It made me sick.

"I will kill you," I growled through gritted teeth, my voice raw, thick with rage, hatred, everything I'd buried for so long. I gripped the knife, my fingers tight around it, and pressed the cold steel to her throat.

No more. She would never touch me again. Never.

꧁꧂

Queen

I dragged the blade across the scar, his pain matching my own as the knife bit into my fingertips. I threw the knife down when I was done and prepared to kiss the damage I had caused, but I noticed he hadn't moved. Not when I cut him, and not now. He didn't scream, but he at least squirmed at the others. Not this one though. He was eerily still.

I wiped away my tears and leaned over him, patting his cheeks. "Syn," I called. Nothing. Panic engulfed me as there was no reaction to my slaps and I rushed to undo the binding at his wrists. Big. Fucking. Mistake.

As if he'd risen from the dead, he woke with a purpose- grabbing me by my throat and flipping me onto my back. Shock filled me from head to toe. His grip was tight on my neck, actually squeezing unlike earlier and my hands moved to his.

"Syn," I choked out, attempting to reach him somehow. He was here, but he wasn't. He was looking at me, but he wasn't. He was looking past me and his eyes were red with rage.

"I will kill you," his words were a promise and I shuddered in his hold. My vision blurred, both with tears and a lack of oxygen and I cried, no longer able to call for him. He removed a hand, letting me take the little breaths I could before he picked up the knife beside us.

He held it against my throat, piercing my skin and I winced.

I realized that at that moment, he was seeing her. Not me. He was away in some corner of his complex mind finishing a fight that he couldn't begin all those years ago. Happiness began to interlace with my fear like fingers and I relaxed, my one hand wrapping around his where he held the knife and the other around his neck to his hair.

"It's okay, baby," I whispered to him, bracing myself for the pain. It would hurt like a bitch, I'd never had my throat slit before, but I'd be fine. It'd leave a nasty scar...but I'd survive. I'd take it gladly if it brought him a semblance of some peace.

I pressed a kiss to his lips as he remained still. Then I laid back and shut my eyes. I thought of food, unicorns, and rainbows in an attempt to distract myself. But it seemed to be doing more harm than good as the anticipation began killing me. Shit. I forced myself to take deep breaths and after a few moments he moved, and I tensed.

The knife dragged a centimeter across my skin before it lifted from my neck and I heard it clatter to the floor. I stilled for a few seconds. Then I felt a mouth on my neck, warm and wet, his tongue swiping across the spot slowly before he pulled back and placed a lingering kiss there.

Just like I had done for him.

He was back.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his body shaking above mine as he buried his head in the crook of my neck. "I'm sorry." His voice broke, the emotion bursting from his throat like a crack in a dam. "I'm so. Fucking. Sorry."

The moment I wrapped my arms around him, the entire weight of his body pressed down against me as he hugged me back. His body shook as he cried and I stayed silent, tears falling as I tried to soothe him.

There was something heartbreaking in his cries. It was like hearing the roar of a storm that had no end—my heart trembled with every tremor, and each breath he took felt like a blade against my chest.

There was nothing to say at that moment. He had helped me slay the demons that haunted me and I hoped with everything in me that I had helped him slay at least one of his.

We stayed like that for a long time, until his sobs became silent cries and our breathing became one.

After a few more minutes, he lifted his head and I gazed into his eyes, shiny and wet with shed tears. "You are...sworn to secrecy," he said in a hushed voice, and a smile spread across my mouth. "No one will believe you anyway."

"I'll keep yours a secret if you keep mine," I whispered.

He laughed- the light sound of it making my smile bigger. He lifted his pinky finger between us and I lifted my own. When they locked, we looked at one another, unspoken words passing back and forth between us. He, unlike usual, was first to avert his gaze and I frowned. Something was wrong.

He spoke before I could ask him what was on his mind, he got up and moved to the edge of the bed. He leaned forward, his forearms on his legs and strong hands clasped together. What would have he been thinking about so deeply?

I sat up, unsure what to do as I looked around the room. Today had been...a lot. And that was an understatement. I was the reason we were here and even though I had no regrets, that couldn't be overlooked. I had done enough pushing.

"We should probably go home and get cleaned up," I said from behind him. "I can stay in one of the guest rooms for now."

"And why would you do that?" He let out an exasperated breath. "You frustrating woman."

"What? You seem like you need some space."

He groaned in annoyance, reaching behind him to grab my arm. He pulled me behind him, wrapping my arm over his shoulder before placing a kiss on my arm.

"Space is the last thing I need from you, Queen. You're the only person who's seen me like that," he said. "I need you with me at all times, if only to make sure you don't spill my secrets."

I wrapped my other arm around him, hugging as I rested my head on the back of his shoulder. "Then what's bothering you- and don't tell me nothing because it's obvious something is."

He sighed. "I just don't feel like myself right now," he admitted and I frowned. "Don't get me wrong, I am being myself with you- none of it has been a lie...but I'm out of touch with the man I know myself to be. I don't mind baring myself to you here and there, but I'd much rather be him. He's the one fit to be a King. He's also the one you fell in love with."

"I have fallen in love with every version of you," I reminded him, "but I know how you feel. I told you earlier that there's value in finding a balance between who you were yesterday and who you are now. It doesn't necessarily have to be equal earlier. Move the scale where it's comfortable and I will adjust. Whether you become an emotional hippie...or non-feeling killer, I will find a way to love you even more than I did the day before."

I felt him smile against my arm. "Ugh. You're just so obsessed with me," he bragged, leaning his head back against me and rolling his eyes.

"Duh. Who wouldn't be?" I played along and he grinned as I sat back and wrapped my arms around him. I could still feel the uncertainty as he tried to cover his vulnerability with humor and I wanted to suddenly remedy it. "W-what would make you feel like yourself? Can I help?"

"Mmm. I don't know." He breathed into my skin. "I tried earlier and you were pretty damn resistance. Stabbed my ass and everything."

I scrunched my brows in thought and it all came back to me. The control. Me at his will. Underneath the panic of the moment, I remembered how hard he felt against me...how desperately I wanted him off yet in me. There was an underlying desire in that fear that he caused me. He had enjoyed parts of it and if I were completely honest- I wasn't completely against anything. I trusted him.

I wanted to do this for him.

For myself.

But it was easier to let this be something for him. I wasn't ready to face what it meant for me if that was something I wanted from him.

"I was scared earlier. You seemed really angry," I said honestly.

"I was," he said. "I still am. The audacity to kidnap me of all people, Princess, seriously. And you had done it so beautifully...I am proud, truly. Just don't do it again." The promise of a threat rang clearly in his tone and I laughed softly toying with the sheets.

"No promises," I whispered and he sent me an irritated gaze. Which I ignored, and asked him. "What if we try again?"

"Try what again?" I searched for the words and when I couldn't find them, he sat up and turned to face me. "What?"

My gaze flickered to the dark belt before I looked back at him. His gaze darkened before he shook his head and stood up. "No, you can't tie me up. I don't think I like it. We can try again in a few years--"

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "No, I meant me."

"You..." he said slowly, gathering what I meant as he looked between the belt and me. But he wasn't nice enough to put me out of my misery. An amused glint appeared in his eyes as he looked down at me. "You what? Use your words, love."

"On second thought," I said, standing up from the bed. "Let's go home. I bought a vibrator with your credit card." I walked past him and he wrapped an arm around my waist, lifting me off my feet.

"Excuse me?" He asked me, sitting me down on the bed and placing an arm at my sides, caging me in. "You did what?"

"I figured I should have some company if you were going to be dying on me," I said with a shrug. "I wouldn't move on with another man until at least three months after you were gone. Orgasms are allowed during mourning, right?"

He let out a scoff, his eyes dropping to my lips and I smiled in satisfaction. I knew I shouldn't provoke him, but he just made it so easy. All I had to do was mention another man.

"You and that fucking mouth of yours," he said lowly. "So beautiful...yet so much bullshit coming from it."

I crossed my arms. "Asshole."

"Brat."

My mouth dropped and he raised a challenging brow at me before reaching past me. His breath fanned the side of my face and he inhaled deeply before standing back up. My eyes landed at the belt now in his hands and excitement coursed through me.

"I was going to wait until you begged for it, but the longer I talk to you...the more you piss me off so I'm going to speed this up," he said. "Your outrageous demand has made me learn my lesson." I snorted. "Do I have your consent?"

"Eh." I shrugged my shoulders and tossed my hair over my shoulders. "Beg me first."

He folded the belt and tapped it against the tip of my nose. "Careful." He dragged it down the side of my face to my neck. "I'll have you on your knees begging me to let you come before you hear the word please from me."

I scoffed and crossed my arms. "Wanna bet?"

꧁꧂