Scorch

by Nikki Rae

  Thankfully, I was less nauseous once I was halfway through, but I didn’t feel well enough to finish. I held up a hand when he offered me more and Master Lyon picked over my scraps. It seemed he didn’t have an appetite either. My hands shook less when I next sipped my drink, but nothing else had changed.

  Nothing would for the foreseeable future. Every second that passed chipped away at Marius’ safety. Perhaps that was why, when my Owner’s eyes met mine, they echoed the same haunted dread.

  From his duffel bag, he unzipped the front pouch and I heard the familiar sound of pills in their container. Two white tablets spilled into his palm, and it didn’t register that he wanted me to take them until he was sitting beside me again.

  I swallowed them down and then lay back on my side, curling into the blanket while I wasn’t sure whether I was hot or cold. Alive or dead.

  “You’ll feel better in the morning,” he whispered, leaning over me but too afraid to touch his lips to mine.

  There was no possibility of rest until we were all safe again, but I prayed in the meantime what he’d given me would at least provide sleep.

  Whatever it was, it eventually stopped my trembling and burning limbs. In its wake, it left behind a heavy haze that protected me from everything else. Pieces of reality made sense to me; I could recall that hours had passed since I’d closed my eyes, yet it only felt like I’d blinked. While I swam through this dreamlike state until morning, I wasn’t lucky enough to have it last much longer than that.

  I understood now why Master Lyon had told me about the Cerberus dust as it was used on him. In both instances, we’d been rendered helpless, unable to control our thoughts, bodies, or surroundings. If I was ever able to leave my Owner again and managed to make my way to Odette and Marius, I knew the Wolves would prefer me this way. This was what I had to look forward to if I escaped, which seemed less likely with every member of House Chimera being herded like lambs.

  My eyes fluttered open, and when I tried to roll over my arms and legs were heavy. It took a moment to orient myself in the early morning just beginning to glow through the thick curtains. Master Lyon had left the bathroom light on with the door cracked for me, just in case I needed it in the middle of the night. Somewhat groggy, I found my Owner in the bed across from me. He was shirtless, sheet pulled up to his hips. His brow was furrowed, eyes closed as his fingers clenched the pillow he held to his chest. He was facing me, so it was apparent he’d dozed off while he watched me through the night.

  Sitting up against the headboard was far easier than I’d expected, and I made minimal noise as I threw off the sheets. Another sports drink had been left on the nightstand, and I took a few gulps of it as I watched my Owner’s chest rise and fall, the movement of his eyes beneath the lids.

  His muscles were rigid and he grinded his teeth; he was having a nightmare.

  Replacing the bottle where I’d found it, I slowly swung my legs over the edge of the mattress.

  Another version of Fawn would have formulated a plan during this brief time alone. She would have taken her bag, incapacitated the man who’d purchased her freedom, and run. The same way Master Lyon’s past self would have bound and gagged me to keep me close. Elliot had turned out to been telling the truth about one thing: it really wasn’t that simple.

  My knees wobbled and my ankles cracked as I spanned the short distance between the beds. Master Lyon didn’t stir when I sat down, nor when I crawled under the covers beside him. For an eternity of a second, I studied his face. Then I smoothed the wrinkles from his forehead with a kiss.

  He relaxed a little, and then his arm encircled me, hand cupping my cheek. I could scarcely see him, but the way his breathing had changed, I knew he was awake.

  “I used to have nightmares, too,” I told him once. “About the bad things. The things that shouldn’t happen.”

  We’d been mistaken, believing we’d left it all in the past. The fairytale villains had always been waiting, slipping into our home and stealing our family members. Maybe this was the ultimate punishment the Order could deliver: living on with their ghosts within us, forever haunted.

  “Thank you, Fawn.”

  I almost didn’t hear him over the rumbling of his chest against my ear. For a little while, all he did was stroke my hair, perhaps thinking we’d both go back to sleep. It was hard to make out, but the glossiness of his eyes was impossible to miss. I didn’t know what demons had come to visit in his dreams, but I could only guess keeping the truth about Marius from me had brought it on.

  His thumb stroked my chin and I realized I’d tightened my arms around myself, too afraid to touch him. “Do you feel better?” I nodded into his hand and he tucked my head under his. “I think the worst is over.”

  We both knew it was a lie. I had the weight of three other people crushing me at all times, and I’d begun to realize how deeply Elliot felt this way too. It was a wonder we could breathe at all.

  I could vaguely recall a movie that had been shown back at the Compound. The details were fuzzy, and I wasn’t sure if I’d made them up, but there was a flood coming to an old-fashioned town. Despite all the residents preparing the best they could, many of them still died.

  We’d tried to prevent the current situation, armed ourselves with security and sealed fortresses only a Members’ money could buy. No matter what, some were fated to drown.

  “Hey,” he whispered, leaning over me to turn on the bedside lamp.

  He attempted to wipe away the moisture on my face that had spilled onto his hand, but I covered my head and rolled over.

  “Is it pain?” he asked after a moment.

  “No,” I practically coughed into the pillow. “I-I’m sorry.”

  “Hush now,” he murmured, curling my body into his so I could hide against his chest. “No more apologizing, Doe. There is nothing to forgive.”

  He wrapped his arm around my waist, keeping it above the blankets. He only wanted to bring me closer, to keep me from shattering again. I was as silent as I could manage as I sucked back my sobs, and he let me cry for as long as I needed, holding on to me like a sinking ship.

  Well after I’d stopped, Master Lyon turned me towards him, settling my head over his shoulder while my legs automatically wove through his. As his fingers trailed along my back, I remembered how he’d cradled me just like this only hours before. Our bodies knew where to go with each other; they fit.

  Even with the foreign hotel soap clinging to his skin, I could still smell my Owner; trees, wind across my face as I rode on horseback, the pages of a book. He was the scent of my freedom. A glimpse into the life I could have.

  With my forehead against his throat, I heard him swallow. “When I started to feel better,” he whispered, “when I started to behave and my Owner was bored by my compliance, I vowed to never be out of control again.”

  At first, I didn’t understand, but then I realized he was talking about being drugged—he still thought this was the reason for my emotions. His chest deflated, perhaps because the statement wasn’t entirely true.

  Master Lyon addressed it before I could. “Outside of…rare circumstances, I don’t enjoy how it feels.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “It is difficult to explain.”

  My eyes traced the contours of his chest, the many marks that belonged to others. The only one that mattered to me was the one he had proclaimed as mine. “You’re never that way with anyone else?”

  I skirted around what I meant, unsure whether asking such things would pull us further apart

  The quietest chuckle left his lungs. “You always make me feel out of control.”

  His finger wound around a curl and carefully moved it away from my neck. I leaned into him without realizing, needing his touch more than I was willing to admit.

  “Me?” I asked, playing coy when I knew he would see through it.

  “You.” Master Lyon graced me with a short-lived, genuine smile. “Always you.”

  We were quiet then, absently ru
nning our hands along each other wherever it was innocent. My fingers raked through his hair, and I became more acquainted with its new length. After a few passes, I was braver, tugging here and there and eliciting a ragged breath from my Owner.

  Without preamble, he pressed his lips to mine. He was soft at first, and then we were tangled in each other. My mouth opened to his and I willingly surrendered all I had. We couldn’t comfort each other in any other way.

  Holding fast to the last remnants of his better judgment, he groaned as he pinned me to the mattress. He held my face between his hands as he hovered over me, parting my legs with his thigh. I held his wrists, afraid he’d let go. Then he did, and it felt like he’d been ripped from me just as I was getting what I wanted.

  I nipped at his lower lip, but Master Lyon pulled away, leaving a chasm of mattress between us. He sat with his back to me, and for a while, I simply lay there catching my breath as I watched him do the same. I joined him on the edge of the bed when he reached for his cigarette case. Before he could lift it from the nightstand, I placed a tentative hand on his arm.

  His eyes shifted to me, waiting for an explanation.

  “You don’t need to smoke any more tonight, sir.”

  My Owner appeared skeptical, one eyebrow slightly raised. “I don’t?” But he abandoned the case. “Good of you to inform me.”

  Though he smirked and tried to act playful, it wasn’t quite convincing. His cheeks had flushed a little, still heated where we’d last touched. As I inched closer, he held my hand in silent protest.

  After a moment, he released a long exhale. “You aren’t well. I shouldn’t have done that.” Master Lyon’s jaw flexed with restraint and I wanted to pry open his mouth just to see what it was. “I’m a monster.”

  His voice wavered on the final word, and I got the sense he’d thought this on many occasions.

  My Owner wouldn’t look at me, convinced I would believe his declaration. At one point in my life, I wouldn’t have argued. Before I knew this man, every other who had come before him had only proven how vile and disgusting people could be to each other.

  I felt his prickly skin, climbing into his lap so he could hold me. Legs on either side of him, I gripped his shoulders and pressed my forehead to his. Master Lyon’s breath hitched, and I could feel the faint pulsing beneath me as he fought what his body wanted.

  “No, Maître,” I whispered, wanting to kiss him but refraining. “You chase the monsters away.”

  He gave me a short, humorless laugh. Then he was silent, so I tried to put him at ease. “I don’t just mean the Vultures, Elliot.”

  With a defeated sigh, he met my gaze. There was the slightest tinge of the man I’d come to know staring back at me, not a trace of the wreckage I’d caused. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I realized I was sitting above him—a taboo within the Grimm Order—but I didn’t correct our position and neither did he.

  “What are you referring to then, Doe?”

  Although he kept up the pretense that he could pull the answers out of me simply by asking, we both knew where we really stood. I gave him a half-smile. I didn’t know how to eloquently explain all this man had done for me—for all of us.

  “You make me feel like I wasn’t put on this earth just to live beneath someone else’s boot.”

  For once, I didn’t think as I spoke, letting the words flow out of me as I whispered it all in his ear like a secret. “I’m not saying you aren’t flawed or wrong sometimes,” I couldn’t help adding, “but despite all we’ve done, what’s happened to us and because of us, you’ve chosen to love me.”

  I felt him grin against my cheek. “Fawn,” he murmured, “loving you was never a choice.”

  In our world, the castles were very high, the walls sharp and windows barred. Long after the prisons the Order created were destroyed, we built more within ourselves. Even if we were among the dwindling number of survivors, the scars lasted forever. Some were so deep they rooted us to the ground, rendering us powerless to move forward. Part of me wondered if we were doomed for eternity to return to those haunted places, the creatures who sought to erase our stories.

  Master Lyon lived as if the boy he had been and the man he’d become were separate people, unconnected. Marius had once told me how skillful my Owner was at masking his true emotions. If he could pretend he was someone else, perhaps I could, too.

  Now, even with my body wrapped around him like a wilting vine in search of sun, he watched me with mild caution, afraid I’d leave again. That all this was a dream I’d created around him and I would vanish if he gave in.

  “You were right,” I whispered, pulling away a fraction but unable to look at him.

  His soft chuckle disarmed me. “That must have been hard for you to admit,” he teased, “but right about what, ma petite?”

  I swallowed, nearly regretting I’d brought it up. “I didn’t want to go back.”

  My Owner blinked a few times. “Oh?”

  He wasn’t going to make this easy, and I gave in without much resistance. I was tired of fighting. Of running. Of hurting. “I thought I could save them,” my chest ached and I quickly moved on, “but I never wanted to see Gregor again.”

  Master Lyon moved me so I was sitting beside him on the bed. However, he kept close, arm around my back, our legs tangled. “You don’t need to explain.”

  “I know,” I said. “I want to.”

  A tiny, shallow breath escaped him. “All right. Tell me, Fawn.”

  He reached across me to give me my drink, suddenly reminded of how defenseless I’d been a few hours ago. I sipped it as I contemplated how much I wanted to reveal. How much evidence I needed to show him.

  I was, after all, telling the truth. Gregor’s House was true to its namesake. The Wolves led little things like me to their deaths, leaving nothing but marrow and bone.

  “Do you know how long I was with Jäger?” I asked, not knowing where else to start.

  He nodded. Of course he did. “Less than a week, if I remember right.”

  “Exactly a week,” I corrected. “Seven entire days of pure hell.”

  Behind my back, his fingers became more tense; he didn’t want me to describe it. Knowing these things happened was enough for him, but not me.

  “On day one, he took all my clothing and burned it.”

  He lifted the hair from the back of my neck, restless and unable to stop what I was about to tell him.

  “I’d fought him off until day four, when he held me under water when I refused to bathe.”

  I’d already described this to my Owner, when he threw me into the pool in the greenhouse and brought all the memories flooding back.

  “By day six, I had been beaten, touched, and humiliated. He didn’t…” I couldn’t make the words leave my mouth. “He said he wouldn’t rip away my petals until I was the pet he’d purchased. He called me a dog and I had begun to believe I was something…inhuman. Once he saw that, he knew he’d broken me.”

  I’d never allowed myself to think about my time as a child either, let alone spoken it aloud. I could see Jäger with his crooked yellow grin. The cigar he smoked from his red and gold throne he had servants cart to any room he wished.

  Master Lyon’s slight frown forced me to continue. I didn’t want sympathy; I wanted understanding.

  “He asked me to boil water for his tea as a test. To see if I would do as he said.”

  If I closed my eyes, I could smell the strong scent of the herbs he’d instructed I steep; I still didn’t know what they’d been and I hadn’t encountered them since, but to this day the acrid aroma stung my nose whenever I thought about it.

  “And you burned him,” Master Lyon interjected in a soft voice. He wanted to end the conversation, but I wasn’t done.

  “Yes,” I acknowledged. “He’d ordered me to pour it into his cup. I didn’t wear clothes any longer, and I remember his black jacket hanging by the entrance as he groped me. I’d thought about running, but I had no plan.” Tha
t was also difficult to admit; I liked to think I’d spent sleepless nights in my cage formulating a way out, but it didn’t occur to me that the world outside might be safer than I was made to believe. “I was terrified,” I blurted. “I’d never been without the Order, and I knew there was a good chance I would fail.”

  He watched me more intently now, interested in the specific details he hadn’t read about in my file. His fingers wove through mine and he squeezed, patiently waiting for me to continue. It so deeply reminded me of Marius and the way we told our secrets to each other. I could have cried, but I’d had enough tears for one evening.

  “And then the decision was made. I didn’t care that I’d hurt myself in the process and would never be the same again. It didn’t matter that I was burned as long as I got away.”

  I licked my dry lips and then remembered the sports drink balanced between my thighs. I took a few gulps and set it back on the nightstand.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I finally said. “I mean that.”

  Twining a curl around his finger, he set it free. “I know, Fawn.”

  But it still didn’t feel like enough. “House Wolf would have devoured me if not for Odette and the Chaos. I…I wanted to—”

  “Return the favor, as it were.” Master Lyon wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said. “She would do it for me.”

  Master Lyon clenched his jaw. I’d plucked at a thread he hadn’t known was loose. “I have no doubt that any of us would.”

  Neither did I. That was what made this so hard. They’d sacrifice themselves when I was the one who had started this all. Only I could end it.

  “I forgive you,” he said. “I know your heart.”

  Slowly, he tilted his head to me and opened his mouth to go on, but I kissed him before he could. I pulled myself back into his lap, pressing closer until I was sure we would fall backwards. He held to me, squeezing my hips for balance. I was sure it would leave bruises, and I wanted them. I hoped they lasted. Maybe we didn’t have as many choices as we thought.

  My arms encircled the back of his head, teeth tugging on his lower lip. I grasped at his hair, directing him the way I wanted as he’d done to me countless times. He managed to pull us apart, but only by clutching the nape of my neck so I needed to follow him to avoid pain.