“Hold on.”
She turned and walked into the kitchen.
Frustration mixed with Cruce’s confusion; he could not follow her, and despite seeming comfortable with him, she’d not deigned to invite him inside. Why were his emotions so volatile? He’d never felt as much concern as he had at the sight of Sophie splattered with blood. The wellbeing of a single mortal shouldn’t have been of any importance to the Lord of the Forest; countless millions of humans had lived and died over the course of his existence, and not one had ever drawn his attention for more than a fleeting instant.
She returned a few moments later carrying a brown box. Turning, she pushed the screen door open with her hip. Cruce moved backward as she stepped onto the porch.
“I went on a walk earlier, and I came across this little guy.” She lowered the box and carefully tilted it to reveal a small brown rabbit nestled in a thin blanket, a bandage around one of its hind legs. Sophie frowned. “He was caught in an old trap. His leg got pretty torn up, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
Cruce extended a tendril of shadow, sliding it toward the creature. The rabbit, nose twitching, pressed itself against the side of box. The animals of Cruce’s domain feared him; he could not fault them for it, as much as it pained him to be reminded of the fact. He was a thing unnatural to them. A predator that preyed upon anything living.
He touched the rabbit gently, running the tendril across its fur. The animal trembled. Its leg was not broken, as she’d guessed, but the rabbit had suffered. And its suffering, like that of so many of his creatures, had been the result of human carelessness.
His shadows roiled, and it took no small amount of effort to bring them under control. Bill and his hunters rose to the forefront of Cruce’s mind — their willful cruelty, the joy and amusement they’d found in the suffering of other creatures, their disregard for his forest. Fury ignited within him.
But he swallowed it, tamped it back down, as he lifted his gaze to Sophie. She was not like them. She was the reason to put aside his anger, to ease himself. “And you rescued this animal. You have tended to it.”
“Well, yeah. I wasn’t going to just leave it there to suffer.”
Her compassion was refreshing after what he’d witnessed; it served as a welcome contrast not only to the cruelty of the other mortals, but to the vengeance Cruce had enacted. Life was a simple thing to take. To end. Helping another creature survive, however, was often far harder. It would’ve taken Sophie less effort to break the rabbit’s neck and be done — or simply walk away and leave it to its fate — than to free it, bring it home, and treat its wound.
Such acts were beyond his capability, now. Thanks to his curse, he could only take; he couldn’t give to his forest and its creatures. Once, he would’ve been able to heal the rabbit. In his current state, he could only have stolen its life force.
The very life force thrumming against his extended tendril; panicked, ephemeral, tempting.
He withdrew from the creature abruptly, shifting his focus back to Sophie. “You have done more than most would, Josephine Davis.”
She looked down at the rabbit. “It’s…easy to ignore when others are suffering. Easier to pretend that nothing’s going on, because that way we don’t have to get involved. But there are people who are willing to help. They’re not always easy to find, but they’re out there.”
“Like your Kate?”
“Yeah, like Kate.” She moved away, sat on an old chair on the far end of the porch, and settled the box in her lap. The wooden chair creaked beneath her weight.
Cruce glided closer to her, pausing in the patch of shadow between the open door and the window. “What did he do to you, Sophie?”
Sophie laughed humorlessly without looking at him. “It’s be easier to ask what he didn’t do to me.” She reached into the box and petted the rabbit. There was a pained creased between her brows, and her lips were turned down. She stared off into the distance with a blankness in her eyes Cruce didn’t care for.
He slid a tendril of shadow to her, trailing it over her ankle. Her warmth was greater than ever, and he could almost feel the texture of her sock. “Tell me, Josephine Davis.”
She glanced at the shadow caressing her ankle before shifting her eyes to him for several moments. Finally, she sighed and dropped her gaze to the rabbit.
“Tyler is a good-looking guy. He has an air about him, a charisma, that draws people in. And there I was, sitting alone in the same ole coffee shop, in the same ole spot I did everyday while I was writing, and all of the sudden…his attention was on me. I was shocked that he took any interest, that he chose me out of all the women there. He flirted with me, and he came back over the next few days. He seemed so interested in me, in my life. That felt so good that I never…never realized what he was actually doing.”
Cruce had been attracted to Sophie from the beginning; she had her own draw that she didn’t seem aware of, a power beyond her control. He guessed that it wasn’t that draw which had lured Tyler in, however. “What was he doing?”
“Targeting me. And I was so gullible, too. I let his charming smile, sweet words, and attentiveness break down whatever meager defenses I had left.” She tilted her head, and a loose tendril of hair drifted down to brush her cheek. “I had just lost my parents a few months before, I had no close friends, no other living relatives, and my work is very solitary by nature. I went to that coffee shop all the time, but I never talked to anyone. It was just… I had felt too isolated at home, after my parents passed, so I went there just to not feel so alone.
“He picked up on that quickly. I had no one, and I was a lot more vulnerable than I realized. If I had had a friend to tell me that things were moving too quickly, that something didn’t seem right about him, someone to show me the signs, I might have made very different choices. But he swept me off my feet so quickly, I didn’t even realize I was falling.
“We married three months later. It felt like a whirlwind romance, but in hindsight I understand that we moved that fast so I wouldn’t have time to see through the cracks in the mask he presented to the world. I never really got to know him. He’d made it all about me. And he didn’t show his true colors right away. In some sick way, he loved me, cherished me…but as a possession, not as a partner.”
She shook her head and caught her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. “I think I knew on some level that things weren’t quite right, but it was subconscious. I mean…I never even told him that I usually went by Sophie. I introduced myself as Josephine, and he started calling me Josie, and I just went with it. I figured it was…our thing, since he was the only one who called me that.”
“Sophie is the name of your heart,” Cruce said, echoing what he’d told her when they’d exchanged true names. “Why Sophie and not Josephine?”
“My parents always called me Sophie,” she replied, a sad smile touching her lips as she briefly looked up at Cruce. “They said when I was really little I couldn’t pronounce Josephine, that it always just came out as Sophie, and they thought it was so cute that it stuck. I loved it. And, you know…I’m glad I never told him. It’s a piece of me that he’ll never get to have. It’s mine, the one thing he didn’t take.”
Cruce gave her ankle a gentle squeeze, eliciting a fresh wave of warmth. “Continue, Sophie.”
“It wasn’t long after we got married that he started to drop hints about me giving up writing. First it was about the money. He made a good salary, and we didn’t need the money I was bringing in. When I repeatedly insisted that I enjoyed it and that I wanted to continue anyway, his tone started to change. It became about me writing smut, filth, and he couldn’t tolerate a wife who imagined other men, who thought about sex with them.
“He forbade me from going to the coffee shop, and pretty soon that extended to almost anywhere. I wasn’t allowed to go out alone because he didn’t want me flirting with other men. It got to the point where if I so much as glanced at another man, Tyler’s mood would s
wing, and he’d accuse me of contemplating infidelity. The only place I was allowed to go by myself was the grocery store while he was at work, but even then, he’d text or call me through the whole trip to make sure I wasn’t doing anything he deemed inappropriate. But he’d always reel it back in afterward and explain that it was just because he loved me so much, because he wanted me safe. And even if I didn’t quite buy that, I went along with it. For years.”
Sophie shifted her hands down to the underside of the box, clenching its corners, but not before Cruce noticed their slight trembling.
He wound the tendril on her ankle farther up her leg as he shifted the rest of his shadows into place behind her chair and rose over her. He settled a shadowy hand on her shoulder, wishing for that last bit of feeling, for those missing sensations that seemed so close. She leaned slightly into his touch.
Cruce understood possessiveness. This forest was his, and he wanted her to be his, too. But possession was no guarantee of satisfaction. If Sophie wasn’t happy… She’d be surviving, but not alive. Like a bird with clipped wings, confined forever to the ground even though its soul was meant to soar. All the beauty that shone from within her, all the light she carried in her heart, would eventually fade until it extinguished.
“One night, about five months after we got married, we went out with a few of his coworkers he was friendly with. I think Tyler wanted to show me off a little — it was okay when he wanted to do it, I guess. Anyway, I got dressed up, and we met his friend at a bar. Things were going well, and I was enjoying myself more than I had in a while. As much of a recluse as I’d been before, it was worse after I married Tyler, so it was nice to get out of the house, to be around people, just laughing and having fun.
“But one of his friends, Dan, kept engaging me in conversation. Tyler didn’t seem to have a problem when I was talking to his coworkers’ wives, and I didn’t think anything of it. I smiled and chatted with Dan, not realizing how stiff Tyler was getting beside me, or how much he was drinking. Tyler jumped into the conversation often, trying to steer it away from anything that would involve me, but Dan was persistent. He kept returning his attention to me.
“I knew Tyler was…upset when he excused us from the table. He took my wrist,” she curled her fingers into a fist, “and I remember how much it hurt. He squeezed so hard.” She paused and slowly unclenched her hand. “He pulled me outside, into the parking lot. Away from the little group of people standing near the doors. He didn’t yell. His rage was in his eyes, his tone, his body language. He accused me of flirting with Dan, said the way we looked at each other suggested we’d already gone behind his back.
“I denied everything. And I was angry, so damn angry. I’d been having fun for the first time in a long while, just being a normal person, and I was hurt that he’d accuse me of all these horrible things. That he was so distrustful of me. I called him paranoid, and he…hit me.”
She touched the tips of her fingers to the corner of her mouth. “It was the first time he’d ever done that. I was shocked, totally stunned. And so was he. He’d hit me hard enough that my teeth cut my lip, and a bit of blood dripped onto my white dress. My mouth tasted like copper, and I felt…sick.
“He dropped to his knees and threw his arms around me, holding me close, apologizing over and over again, telling me that he loved me, that he was sorry, and begged for my forgiveness. He swore he’d never do it again. And I…believed him. I forgave him. I could smell how much he’d been drinking, and it was an accident. He loved me, of course he’d never hurt me on purpose. I was his wife.”
Sophie shook her head. Her voice had grown huskier, and when she sniffed, unshed tears gleamed in her eyes. “That was the first time, but it was only a little taste of what was to come. He seemed to drink a lot more often after that night, and alcohol seemed to bring out the worst in him…but even when he wasn’t drinking, I always seemed to do something that displeased him. I think he began to like the power he had over me. That he could bring me to heel, that I’d cower at his feet, whimpering, and do whatever he wanted to avoid another outburst. And he’d usually beg for forgiveness afterward, sometimes giving me little gifts, and I always said I forgave him. I think I died a little more on the inside every time I let him get away with it. And then…”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped the back of her hand across her face before dropping it to clutch the box again. “I denied him sex. I couldn’t…couldn’t bring myself to be intimate with him anymore. He was crushing me, killing me from the inside out. His touch was hurtful and sickening, especially when he caressed me as though he loved me. I knew by then that I’d never really loved him. I’d never really known him. And that night when I said no, when I drew away from him…he forced me. He put his hand around my throat and raped me.”
Cruce’s rage at the hunter’s actions earlier was nothing compared to what roared through him in reaction to Sophie’s story. It was anger like he’d never experienced, beyond what he’d felt even when he’d been cursed, beyond anything he could have felt on his own behalf. To have had a being so precious as Sophie and to have treated her so terribly, with such undue cruelty and malice, was unthinkable to him.
Perhaps it was part of why her life force burned so brightly. Part of why she was so appealing to him. Her survival had strengthened her in many ways, he did not doubt that, but it had also left her with these scars, had left her to carry this terrible, crushing burden on her own.
“Cruce?” she asked uncertainly. “You’re…you’re getting colder.”
He withdrew his touch from her abruptly and returned to the shadows between window and doorway. He didn’t want to hear more, but he had to listen. Had to know. “I am sorry, Sophie. Continue.”
She stared at him for a time, her tear-filled eyes sparkled with reflected light. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because in sharing this part of yourself, you will allow me to carry some of your burden,” he replied.
“And what about your burden? Your curse? You still haven’t told me how it can be broken.”
“Finish your story, Josephine Davis.”
She frowned, running her gaze over him before turning her face back to the rabbit. “That night taught me it was easier — less painful — to give in to him. And I think he craved that control. I think he was…aroused by my helplessness, by the damage he could inflict upon me without consequence. He hurt me often. He treated the marks he left on my body like brands of ownership, proof that I was his. Welts from his belt, bruises from his hands, marks from his teeth. But he was the only one allowed to see them.”
She released a shuddering breath. “Kate moved in across the street from us after we’d been together for a couple of years. She came to the house one day to introduce herself. Tyler was home, and he laid on that easy charm. He even introduced me to her. Once the door was closed, he told me that he was my only friend, and I wasn’t to talk to that woman again. My place was at his side and nowhere else.
“About a week later, I was outside getting the mail out of the mail box, and Kate approached me. She was so warm and friendly, so bright and full of life. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like in her eyes. I hardly recognized myself when I looked in the mirror. I excused myself as fast as I could and returned to the house. Kate never gave up though. She visited often, finding excuses to talk to me — bringing fresh picked flowers, cookies, a casserole, inviting me over for tea. And I craved her company so badly that I…I accepted it, even knowing what the consequences would be if Tyler found out.
“I did everything I could to keep our friendship secret. She works for an accounting firm, but they let her work from home pretty often, so I was able to visit with her while Tyler was away at work. I just had to make sure I left in time to have dinner ready for him when he came home. I never once spoke about her to Tyler, and I never said anything to her about the way he treated me. But…she knew. Even before she saw the bruising, I think she knew. And I was terrified. I made her promise
not to tell anyone, not to call the police. I didn’t know what Tyler would do if he found out.
“Then one day, he came home drunk. Drunker than I’d ever seen him. I had dinner on the table, warm and ready, I smiled and acted like the perfect wife, but… I don’t know what happened. Maybe I flinched when he touched me, maybe he saw in my eyes how much I hated him and my life, or maybe I cooked the green beans a few minutes too long. For whatever reason, he snapped. He punched me in the stomach and accused me of faking, then hit me a few more times. He trashed the kitchen around me, throwing every plate and bowl of food I’d prepared across the room. Then I was his target again.”
Her tears continued to flow, and her voice had grown so small. “By the time he sat down with his back against the wall and passed out with another bottle of booze in his hand — he’d tried to break it over my head, but it was tougher than he’d thought it would be — I was covered in blood. Every part of my body was in agony, and I was pretty sure I would die. I used what little strength I had to crawl out of the house and get to Kate’s. I remember the feeling of the pavement digging into my palms and knees…it felt like broken glass, but it was just white noise against all the pain I was already in.
“Kate almost broke down when she opened her door and saw me. She helped me inside, locked the door, and called the police. They arrested Tyler, and I went to the hospital to recover for a few weeks.
“After that, I stayed with Kate, and we planned my escape. Thankfully, Tyler never knew about the bank account I’d had from before met, where my book royalties were deposited. Kate helped me find a good lawyer, helped me navigate the legal processes, and bought this cabin to rent out to me so there’d be no ownership trail for Tyler to follow. And…here I am. Hiding. Hoping to eventually regain what I lost…to start a new life.”
His Darkest Craving Page 10
