The Vanity of Roses

by Lily White

  I knew that strength. I’d tasted it. And I’d also known the amount of restraint it had taken him to fuck me senseless while keeping himself from letting go entirely.

  His arms shook as he continued the pull-ups, but eventually Jacob demanded he stop.

  “That’s enough, Callan. We’re done here.”

  Franklin dragged me from the gym before Callan stopped, his steps a clipped pace as he led me farther away.

  “I didn’t cause that. Whatever the fuck that was. I didn’t do that to him.”

  He grinned, but it was cruelty that bled from his lips.

  “You didn’t know you caused that. You were too wrapped up in being a raging brat that you never noticed when he was injured. But it was your complaints that caused it. Your lies. This was the punishment your father demanded when Callan supposedly misbehaved. It started with a belt with he was seven. And when he was too big for that to affect him, it became a whip.”

  Tears pricked at my eyes. My mind grasping onto the scars across his back while refusing to believe I was the reason they were there.

  Hating the way my voice shook, I asked, “Why did you want me to see that? There’s nothing I can do to change the past.”

  “No,” he snapped, “there’s not. But you can certainly stop what’s going on in the present. You’ll destroy him, Lisbeth. Just like you’ve always done.”

  My fingernails were cutting into my palms from how hard I fisted my hands.

  “Then let me go. Open the fucking doors, and I’ll run out of here.”

  A shake of his head.

  “I can’t do that, and you know it. So the only thing you can do is whatever it takes to make him push you away. Stop fucking him. Stop doing whatever it is you do to make him want you so much.”

  Like I had any control of it. This entire family was insane.

  “Let’s go,” he demanded before walking off.

  “Where are we going?”

  Turning back to me, he stared at me with pure hatred behind his grey eyes.

  “To the family suites. That’s where Callan wanted you waiting before I interceded and had you brought here.”

  Storming up to me, he stopped when we were nose to nose.

  “And don’t you say a fucking word about what you saw. He fights tomorrow, and there’s nobody here who can stop him. One word from you and he’ll be thrown off. You need to understand that if he loses that fight, it’ll mean he’s dead. The pit isn’t a normal ring. Two men walk in and only one walks out again.”

  My body stilled, shock tearing through me with cold fury.

  “They fight to the death?”

  Franklin nodded his head, his expression urgent and serious.

  “Now you understand why he needs to be focused. If you do anything to throw him off, it’ll be the last anybody sees of him.”

  He began to walk away again, but I refused to follow, a knot caught in my throat I couldn’t force down.

  I didn’t want to be the reason Callan died. And I didn’t want to be the reason he hurt.

  It didn’t make sense to me why I mattered to him.

  “I don’t want to go up there. Take me somewhere else. To the fucking dungeon for all I care. I don’t want to be around him.”

  Sympathy flooded Franklin’s face.

  “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid. You’re his personal servant now. He won’t let you go until you force him to never want to see you.”

  Tears ran down my face, my body shaking.

  “Why did you bring me here then? Why did you beg me to come back?”

  Franklin’s head fell forward, exhaustion heavy on his shoulders.

  “I didn’t think he’d fall for you again.”

  Eyes lifting to mine, sincerity shone behind the steel color.

  “Callan might not know it, but the rest of us do. Underneath all the hatred he has for you, there’s more. He was in love with you as a kid. Despite everything you did. And I’m only realizing now that it never went away.”

  Shaking his head, a bark of humorless laughter flew from his chest.

  “Hell if I know the reason why.”

  Callan

  The hot water from the shower stung my back, my teeth clenching as it washed away whatever blood leaked from the small wounds.

  Colton was a master with the whip. He knew how to deliver the pain of it without scarring the skin. Not like the assholes who’d hurt me as a kid. Those bastards had ripped the skin open and laughed when I cried. They’d enjoyed the torment, the punishment.

  If they hadn’t died during the night of Lisbeth’s ball, I would have killed them myself once I was big enough. If you asked me, I’d tell you they got off far too easy, far too quick.

  A bullet is nothing compared to years of having your skin flayed open and stitched together. It’s nothing compared to the agony of returning to work for the girl who’d lied and caused the punishment in the first place.

  Jacob and Franklin - hell, even Colton - hated what I did to prepare for a fight. But it renewed me in a way. It reminded me why I carried such violence.

  The whip was a tap on a keg, the crack of it releasing the pain that needed to flow. It sharpened my mind, made me dangerous until the moment my opponent’s blood was spilled and I could release it all.

  I didn’t just breathe violence, I was violence, the embodiment of it, my body vibrating with the vibrant, red frequency of rage.

  The water ran cold after a while. I shut it off, grabbed a towel and was walking into the bedroom when I noticed the brat standing awkwardly by my door.

  She shouldn’t have been there. I should have known to keep her away until the fight. But it was too late now to send her off, everything inside me ignited, desire fanning the flames and charring the edges of bitter memory.

  As much as I wanted to hurt her, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  It takes a certain type to wear cruelty as their armor. Those that have been hurt or are hurting. The ones who can’t find an outlet or a release so they take it out on others.

  I had a release in the ring.

  But for the beautiful brat, in the years she’d been under her father’s thumb, I had been the only outlet for her rage.

  Pedestals have their benefits, but like any good thing, they have their dangers. From so high up, you can never plant your feet on the ground and learn to walk untethered.

  For Lisbeth, it was a life lived inside a cage. The gilded bars keeping her safe, while the door kept her trapped inside.

  It was a life that wasn’t her own and never would be.

  Her hair fell over her shoulder as her eyes lifted to me, a quick flutter of long lashes before they snuck down again. I didn’t mind the way she looked at me, the way her breath caught and her cheeks flushed pink.

  “Do you ever wear clothes?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  Her cheeks blushed pure scarlet, and I wanted to know how far down the color ran.

  “It’s not my fault you keep staring when I’m coming out of the shower.”

  I turned to walk into my closet, but a rush of air caught my attention. Twisting to look at Lisbeth, I saw horror written across her face.

  “Your back,” she explained, her eyes running over every mark, new and old. “What happened?”

  “You happened.”

  She flinched, sorrow flooding her eyes. Lisbeth’s voice grew soft, mournful.

  “I’m not talking about the scratches.”

  Neither am I...

  Unwilling to enter into this conversation, I blew her off. “It’s nothing.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  I stepped into the closet to slip on a pair of thin sweatpants. Assuming the brat wouldn’t move from her position at my bedroom door, I was surprised to turn and find her at the entrance of the closet, the first aid kit I used to bandage her chin firmly in hand.

  Lifting my eyes to her face, I saw an emotion I couldn’t name, thoughts I
couldn’t read.

  “Let me help you,” she insisted.

  “Why?”

  Genuine shock overtook me, but then I worried that, despite my warnings, she believed the situation had changed, that what we’d done had somehow broken down the walls that held us apart.

  “Because I’m your servant, remember? And you’re bleeding and need someone to help close the wounds.”

  I blinked, my brows tugging together because she was actually attempting to fill a role I’d created to hurt her.

  This woman.

  This Rose.

  Intentionally making herself subservient.

  Yet, even in that, there was a level of pride that left me breathless.

  “They’ll close on their own-“

  “Just let me do this.”

  Arching a brow in both amusement at her boldness and silent question, I stepped foreword, stole her space, watched as her neck craned up so that she could keep her stare locked to mine.

  Such fierce determination inside her, regardless of everything.

  “You shouldn’t be around me right now. I’m not safe.”

  I wasn’t. My temper was on edge, adrenaline coursing through me that demanded I fuck or fight. One or the other, the violence was always the same.

  “You never are,” she whispered.

  Leaning down, I brushed my lips against her cheek. “Some times are worse than others.

  Her lips parted, the glimmer of moisture lining the fullness of them. Gritting my teeth to keep from knocking the kit from her hands and doing to her all the things I shouldn’t do, I held my body as still as possible.

  “You’re fighting tomorrow,” she said, her voice a whisper of sound lingering between us. “And you shouldn’t go into the ring injured.”

  That was exactly how I needed to go in. Wild animals are at their most dangerous when injured, they’re at their fiercest. Pain drives the instincts better than any other emotion.

  More than love.

  More than hatred.

  Pain is sharp. It’s overbearing. It dances across the nerves with electric sparks that trick the brain into being overtaken. We are at our base selves when pain creeps in to numb everything else.

  Unlike those who do everything to escape it, I’d learned to sip on pain’s robust flavor, I’d learned to forge myself in the fire of its agony and rise from the pile of its ashes.

  “Please,” she begged. “Let me do this.”

  Lisbeth had been the person to teach me what pain meant; yet I found myself nodding in agreement to let her tend to it and take it away.

  “Okay.”

  Something rolled behind the blue color of her eyes. I didn’t recognize it. Couldn’t name it, but something had changed.

  “Go sit on the bed. It’ll be easier there. Otherwise I’ll have to get a stepladder to climb so I can get to all of it.”

  I almost laughed.

  She was facing a man who had only been cruel to her, and yet she still had the strength to joke.

  It was surprising, her strength. Where others would have buckled, Lisbeth marched on, refusing to bow beneath the weight of it.

  Circling her, I refused to release her from my stare. Lisbeth spun as if attached to me by some unseen cord, breathless, her heartbeat erratic from what I could see in the flutter of her neck.

  She woke something inside me.

  A need.

  A pulse.

  A driving hunger.

  Something so devastatingly dark that I trembled beneath the feel of it.

  The want. The desire. The rectification of an insult that had beaten me down with small, petite fists.

  I never wanted to feel this way about her. But like always...I watched. I was mesmerized, struggling to find the definition of beauty that was anything more than the small creature standing before me now.

  “Sit down,” she reminded me, her voice wavering, tone weak.

  She felt it, too...whatever it was.

  A tragedy maybe.

  That’s what we were.

  Destruction and chaos.

  The absolute beauty of misery.

  Lowering my weight to the mattress, I was hyperaware of her presence, of her delicate energy mingling with the crude and coarse edges of mine.

  The mattress dipped behind me, and I closed my eyes, the opening lid of the first aid kit sharp against the tension of our silence, the items banging around as she searched for what she needed, her breath, every inhale and exhale, awakening me.

  I was a dark force in that moment, an expanding shadow, and I swallowed her whole without thought. My body flinched whenever her fingers spread a cold ointment over my wounds, my heart lurched as she touched me.

  Willingly.

  Without being forced.

  Taking care of a body she’d helped destroy in a time when I was worth nothing.

  She shouldn’t be near me.

  She didn’t understand.

  And yet she continued working to heal something that could never be repaired.

  Her voice was a nervous whisper. “Why do you do this to yourself? Isn’t it dangerous?”

  I laughed. “They’re only minor cuts. Nothing serious.”

  “But you injure yourself before fighting? What if they hit your back?”

  Such an innocent question. She would never understand.

  “If I’m at a point where they can reach my back, then the fight is already over. I’ve lost.”

  Lisbeth was quiet for only a few seconds. “And you’ll die.”

  “Yes.”

  The answer hung between us. I wanted to study her expression, read what was written behind her eyes, but if I turned to her now, I wouldn’t turn back. I wouldn’t stop.

  “Why?”

  The cord snapped when I heard tears in her voice. When I heard fear. When her body stilled in terror behind me, her fingertips grazing my back, stinging the wound she’d been exploring.

  Pain sharpens the senses.

  Every fucking one of them.

  Even the ones you would never know had a hair trigger.

  Spinning on her, I knocked the kit from her hand, her cry of surprise rising up to mingle with the clatter of plastic slapping the ground, of all the boxes and tubes spilling out over the marble.

  I wasn’t in my head at that moment, I was in my heart, my stomach, my black soul that only knew to take, to punish, to assert my will while branding the entire fucking world with my name.

  “Callan,” she crawled away from me, her movement slow and hesitant, her eyes so damn wide, they were mirrors reflecting my face back to me.

  Grinning to see a flurry of contrasting emotions race across her expression, I pinned her in my stare, in my space, moving my body to trap her against my headboard where I could secure her in place before she understood what I was doing.

  “I warned you. I’m not safe. You didn’t listen.”

  A slight shake of her head, denial creeping in, surprise, shock ... want.

  Yes, even now, even when she didn’t know whether to run or fight like hell, she tipped her chin up and challenged me.

  My body pinned her legs in place, my eyes holding hers as I reached out to trap her wrist with one hand and grab a strap with the other.

  How did those eyes possibly widen more? Big blue orbs glimmering with everything you should never show a predator unless you wanted him to hunt.

  Her arm struggled to break free of my hold, but she never stood a chance. Where I was strong, she was weak. Where I knew dominance, she only knew to submit.

  The struggle was just for show. Her vanity wouldn’t allow her to give up without at least pretending she’d fought.

  We kept up appearances. Wore disguises. Flaunted every success and commendable feature while hiding the truth behind sparkling veneers and decorative masks.

  I saw her, just like I always had, and maybe that’s why she punished me so much.

  Lisbeth never had the ability to hide who she really was.

  Not from me
.

  Not from the boy who lived to serve her.

  After securing her right hand, I trapped the left, my lips curling into a smug grin when her body went still and her lungs caught her breath.

  “I can’t have you scratching me again. It wouldn’t be good for the wounds that are already there.”

  She did that pouty thing with her lips that used to drive me so fucking crazy, that scowl, that petulant expression that fashioned her into the brat I both loved and hated.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  I grinned.

  “We shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but it never stopped us.”

  Her dress ripped when I broke the zipper at her back. Gretchen would kill me for destroying another uniform, but I was the one who paid for them, so she could shut the hell up.

  The gasp from Lisbeth’s lungs as I tore the seams and plucked the offensive barrier off of her was worth whatever the uniform would cost.

  Seeing the marks I’d left before still bright and angry against flesh as pale as snow was worth buying a hundred more uniforms if need be.

  Her chest beat with labored breath, voice so silent that it was somehow loud.

  The lacy white bra she wore offended me next, the straps snapping as I ripped them away. Lisbeth scowled like the little brat she was and I only grinned to know she was angry.

  “I’ll have no underthings left if this keeps up.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Jerk.”

  I caught her face with my hand, lowered mine until our breath mingled and my lips brushed hers.

  “Do something about it.”

  She shook her wrists against the restraints.

  “I’m a bit tied up at the moment.”

  “As well you should be. Now do me another favor, brat.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “Shut the fuck up for once in your life.”

  My mouth claimed hers, my lungs stealing her breath as she squirmed beneath me, hips rolling as my teeth nipped at the tip of her tongue with the promise of pain.

  I pulled my mouth away and ground my erection between her legs. She shivered, fucking quaked, her wrists straining against the straps.

  “Tell me you want me.”

  Her eyes lifted to mine. She’d been studying my lips while licking the sting from hers. “Why?”