by Kitty Thomas
“What about the sun?” I asked.
“Oh, you can’t hold out that long. I’ve got plenty of time.” He smiled when he saw my fear.
We both knew he was right.
“Please, set me free for good in the morning. Just let us be done.”
“No!” He walked me back until I was pressed into the corner. His fangs descended, and he pierced my skin and drank.
He laughed when he pulled away, a thin line of my blood dripping down his chin. “You don’t want to go. You love me.”
I shook my head furiously. I didn’t love him. “No. I don’t.”
“Poor lost lamb. You do. You can lie to yourself, but your blood doesn’t know how to lie.”
Tears tracked down my cheeks. It couldn’t be true. I couldn’t love him. I didn’t love him.
“I won’t make you say it tonight. I’ll let you believe your lies. But you will surrender to me. You will call me Master. You will know who you belong to before we leave this room. You will never question it again.”
Gabriel dug through a container in the corner until he came out with a leather strap. He sat in a plush chair that looked like a slight downgrade from the chair I’d ground against for an orgasm not too long ago—except this one didn’t have arm rests. I shut my eyes against that memory. I couldn’t let myself go down that road, couldn’t think those thoughts.
It brought back too much of how I’d felt like his—of how it was all I’d wanted, all I could imagine wanting. Had I been…happy then? How could I be happy with him?
I noticed shackles bolted to the ground beside the chair.
“Undress and come to me like a proper slave.”
“Just release me, please.”
The leather strap hit the side of the chair, and I jumped. “You don’t want to be released. You just want me to be something I’m not.”
“Then hypnotize me. Turn me into your living doll, so I don’t have to know the monster I keep giving myself to. So it’s not my fault.”
His eyes glowed. “I will only say it once more, Helene. Undress and come to your master on your knees.”
My hands shook as I undid the pants and slid them down my legs. I tried to drag out the unfastening of the corset, but Gabriel was on to me. His impatient growl sped my fingers. I pushed the panties down over my hips.
A tear slid down my cheek. “Master, please…”
He smirked. “I told you, you’d call me Master. Now crawl.”
I sank to the floor and crawled to him, my will melting in a puddle around me with each inch closer to my fate.
When I reached the chair, he pulled me across his lap and locked my ankles into the restraints on the ground so I couldn’t pull away. He took both of my wrists in one large hand. A tremble moved through me.
“Master, please. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m sorry for everything I said. Please.”
“I accept your apology, now breathe deep, Helene.”
The strap came down across my bare ass and thighs. The tears arrived as quickly as they always did. It only took ten lashes to drop me back into the space I’d been in with him before when we’d bonded so tightly. It took so little for my body and mind to remember—for the desperate desire for his hands to be on me to flower once again.
He didn’t torment me needlessly. When he felt me break, he put the strap down and rubbed the red, swollen stripes he’d left. I was so ashamed I’d broken so quickly, so easily.
“These I won’t heal. I want you to take them home with you. I want you to remember and hold onto them as long as you can.”
Oh God. I wanted that, too.
He pushed a finger into me. “So wet. You were born to be under my hand. Go. Get in the bed.”
I slid from his lap, crawled to the bed, and climbed in.
I’d thought he might fuck me in some slow, gentle way that some might call making love, but he pinned me down and drove into me as if he couldn’t own me enough. He was relentless in his possession, his conquest, his colonization—bringing my body’s needs in line with his own.
But afterward, he held me forever, pressing soft kisses against my skin.
“Let’s nap together upstairs in a nice bed. It’ll be the last time before you go home,” he said.
Gabriel unlocked my collar and put it back into its box. I hated myself for feeling bereft when he removed it. I’d been so sure I was beyond him. Done. Finished. I’d thought he could never touch that place deep inside me again, but all it had taken was his fangs in my throat and the strap stinging my skin for me to surrender everything back to him again.
I made bargains in my mind, excusing his cruelty once again, believing his rationalizations for the things he did, wanting to stay with him forever.
All I needed was some time away from him in the daylight, and I was sure I’d be back to normal, that he didn’t own me in any deeper way. It was just the drama of the night that had unfolded. When things were normal and safe, I’d have space to think and realize how bad he was for me.
I don’t love him. I repeated this thought in my mind like a mantra, like a prayer. I could handle nights with him. Somehow. As long as I had the day to find my own sense of self again. I don’t love him. I couldn’t. He was a monster. Without him and the society he’d set up, my parents would still be here. I could never let myself forget that. He was my enemy. I couldn’t love him. But each time I thought it, it just felt like a bigger lie.
I settled upon, This is wrong. It was the one thought I could make myself believe. It was the only thing that didn’t deny the gravity of things, the reality. And it was the only thing that didn’t deny my conflicted feelings for him.
Gabriel put his hands on either side of my face. “I’m sorry, but I need to do this to ensure the safety of my people. I trust you not to betray me, but it’s not just about me.”
I didn’t realize what he was talking about until I felt that control inside my head, like his hands inside my skull, molding and shaping my brain into putty. It was a weird internal pain as if my mind resisted him.
Could there be any part of me that still resisted him?
“You will not speak of me or my kind to anyone. You will keep the truth of this city and our world to yourself.”
It wasn’t an order or a request. It wasn’t a question. It was a compulsion—something I couldn’t have disobeyed if I’d tried. I realized how much of his puppet he could have made me. And yet he’d gone out of his way to gain my obedience through other means. He’d gone out of his way to keep the truth in front of me. He could have hidden anything he didn’t want me to know about him. He could have made himself out to be perfect and caring. Manipulating my mind and will were simple things to him.
But he hadn’t. Did this mean there was good inside of him or was it just a more clever and multi-layered manipulation?
He removed his hands from my face and stroked my hair. His lips pressed gently against my forehead.
We left the dungeon and went upstairs to his room. He pushed a button on the wall, and I heard a loud grind of metal as solid sheets of iron covered the windows in preparation for the coming day.
“Would you have kept Amari?”
“She never would have agreed. I know her too well. I’m a monster, Helene. I was just twisting the knife. I don’t want anyone else but you.”
I shouldn’t have been happy to hear this, but an irrational exuberance rose inside of me at his words. I didn’t know if they were true, but I wanted desperately to believe them. He saw my inner turmoil and bit into his wrist.
“Here, see for yourself. My blood can’t lie to you, either.”
When I tasted him, I tasted his devotion to me, warped and twisted though it was. I tasted his terror when he’d thought I might die in the death sleep. I tasted the completion he felt when he ruled over me—the same completion I felt under his rule. I didn’t know if this was his version of love, but I saw the truth of his words. He’d never wanted Amari
. He’d only wanted me.
I pulled away. “Why me?” I still didn’t understand what it was about me that had caused him to become so single-minded in his possession. I wasn’t foolish enough or girlish enough to think there was anything excessively special about me.
“I’ve never met a human who, in the end, didn’t beg for their life to be spared. I could never relate to clinging to a world of suffering like they did. I’ve felt the same as you. I’ve struggled with why I should go on at all. I looked into your eyes, and I saw my own reflection. I thought if I could make you want to be here in the world, I could make myself want to be here. But that isn’t what happened. I don’t want to be here because I somehow fixed you and believe there’s hope for me. I just want to be here with you. You make me want to get through day to get back to you.”
I reached out and took his hand as my tears began to fall again, almost without my notice. I wanted to believe he understood—that somehow we could hold onto each other, and it could be enough. Still, I wanted to ask what was so terrible in his life that he’d want to die. From where I stood, his life looked perfect. But even if I didn’t understand, his haunted expression couldn’t be denied.
He squeezed my hand, breaking the moment. “We only have a few hours until day. We should rest. I need to get you out of here before the sun returns to change the rules.”
But we didn’t wake before the sun. We woke to piercing, shrieking screams that sounded like a banshee ripping the universe apart in its screeching pain. It was Amari, dying on the roof of the main house. I turned to Gabriel and leapt out of the bed, horrified.
“Helene, it’s okay,” he said. But his voice sounded like sandpaper.
How could it be okay? He was old and shriveled and weak—as if he were a normal human who had reached the end of a very long life. It seemed as if he was dead and melting away into nothing, but it was only the sharp contrast from the strength and vitality of the night. He’d seemed tired before we slept—as if the coming sun had already begun draining his energy.
I was sure I could overpower and drag him into the sun and give him the same fate as the queen. And yet, the idea repulsed me.
I offered my vein in hope that it would heal whatever this was, but he shook his head and pushed me away with some effort.
“A-are you dying?”
Gabriel groaned and doubled over. “No. I’ll be fine. This always happens. Once I’m underground I’ll feel a bit stronger. I’ll survive it. The farther I can get from the sun, the better.”
I wasn’t buying it. This happened to him every day? For a thousand hours? How could anyone stand this? How could anyone get through it over and over again?
“Now you know the real price of the curse. When the sun was only up for short periods and we were below ground, we could sleep through the worst of it. It wasn’t that bad. But now… The other gods couldn’t have this place so they wanted to destroy it. My kind. Your kind. Everything.”
And yet he and the others had done what they could to save it. Were they afraid of their own mortality? Even if they were ageless at night and could live possibly forever, they could die. Did they fear there was nothing beyond that veil? Did they think suffering was better than not being?
I wasn’t sure I believed he’d be much better off underground.
“Let me stay and take care of you.” I wanted to see Simone, but how could I leave him like this?
“No. You must go. It’s not safe for you here. I know you think I seem weak now, but when the pain gets to be too much, I have bursts of strength. More than normal. I’ll lose control and hurt you. Really hurt you.”
He meant kill. We both knew it. He just couldn’t say the word, and I wasn’t sure I could hear it.
I’d been living inside my bubble, convinced I was the only one who knew what suffering meant. And if not only me, then only my kind. Certainly not Gabriel or any of his kind. They were unstoppable and powerful and never felt anything but happiness and the pleasures of their own hedonism. For the first time, I thought humanity got the better deal in all this.
I’d obsessed each day about the clock ticking down to night and all the fear it brought until I was too tired to feel fear at all. Meanwhile, each night, a similar terror clock ticked down for Gabriel.
“What will you eat?”
“We keep stored blood, but I’ll eat mostly what you eat. I can’t keep a lot of blood down during the day. I will be fine. It’s not this bad underground.”
“I don’t want to leave you like this.”
He struggled out of the bed and descended the stairs in a lilting old-man hobble. I got dressed and followed him. He paused at the door and gave me the bag. It was heavier for him than for me. He seemed so brittle and fragile, I was afraid he’d break apart if I touched him.
“There is a balance in even the most extreme worlds. It’s my turn to be in the cage and your turn to be free for a while. Enjoy your freedom and your time in the sun while it lasts. I’ll see you tonight. I promise.”
Gabriel always kept his promises.
“I love you, Master.”
A slow, sad smile. “I told you.” He tucked my hair behind my ear—his awkward attempt at tenderness. “We’ll be together again soon.”
With a final burst of energy, he opened the door and shoved me into the harsh brightness of the day.
I’d longed for the sun, with its warmth and safety on my face. Now all I could think about was Gabriel alone underground, suffering incessantly until night gave him the freedom that day gave me. There was more grinding metal, and an iron sheet covered the door, sealing him into the cottage and me outside of it.
I took the countdown clock from my pocket and flicked the gold square open.
I don’t know how I’ll survive the forty sleeps until I see him again.
Author’s Note:
For a full list of my books and to sign up for my New Release List, please visit: kittythomas.com
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Thank you so much for reading and supporting my work!
Kitty ^.^
Acknowledgments:
Thank you to the following people for their help with Dark Night of the Soul:
Robin Ludwig @ gobookcoverdesign.com for the fabulous cover art! I love it!
Thank you to Cathy for copyedits!
Thank you to Karen and Michelle as always for their great beta read suggestions.
And thank you to M for digital formatting! Love you!
