Chapter 24

Tess

~Own me, take me, you can never break me. Choose me, use me, you will never lose me…~

I existed in blackness.

Nothing else entered apart from the metallic rust of blood and flashes of madness.

Q left me again.

Somehow, I transported back to the room where I shot Blonde Hummingbird, only this time, strapped down and tied up tight was White Man. He leered and cursed, telling me I wasn’t good enough.

That I ought to kill myself because that’s all I was worth.

The vacancy inside swirled like a crazy hurricane, rattling at the walls of my tower, tearing away my chains, smashing bricks to dust.

The guilt I’d been running from sucked me deep and I was sure my heart would stop. I was a murderer, a torturer, I deserved to die paralyzing regret.

But fate had given me a chance to right the wrongs I’d done. I had the puppeteer in front of me. Hatred and fury slithered like reptiles in my blood, and all I wanted was revenge. To make him pay.

The wash of emotions I’d been hiding from crippled me. Dumping me into a pit of grief and insanity.

White Man represented all the evil in the world and I wanted to take and take and take until there was no more. I wanted to extract every last thread of life until he existed no longer.

By killing him, I would gain redemption. I might finally be able to live with the guilt.

He didn’t move as I hit him. He just sneered. My muscles ached from delivering abuse. With every strike another brick crashed free from my tower.

With every lash, cracked and fissured my guilt, allowing me to breathe.

Parallel images of the past kept me company as I hit him over and over and over. I saw myself—emaciated, drugged out of my mind, scratching and breaking…delivering their wrath on innocent women.

I sobbed and hit harder as my apparition shot Blonde Hummingbird. I doubled over with agony as I watched a replay of myself swallowing the gun, pulling the trigger to end my life.

Never again.~ I’m strong enough to survive. I don’t need a tower to exist. I didn’t do anything wrong!~

The thought was a comet, blazing with truth.

~I didn’t do anything wrong.~

It was all them. I did the best I could to survive.

The knowledge that they’d made me doubt, that they’d filled me so full of sin, gave me a new lease of energy.

I struck harder and harder until I couldn’t recognise White Man from all the cuts and blood.

Every time I drew blood, I rested easier, knowing this man would never do to others what he did to me.

When he passed out, I thought I’d killed him. I wanted him dead, but I had to be sure. Checking for life, I cursed when his pulse thrummed beneath my fingertips. I knew what I had to do.

I would wake him, look straight into his eyes, then I would stab him in the heart.

This was my duty, my honour, my destiny.

I taught him the lessons he taught me. Pain equaled power. Pain equaled pleasure.

As I stood above him with sharp scissors in my hands, ready to bury them deep into his chest, he looked up with such panic and love I paused too long.

He screamed.

It bounced around the cavern of blackness, tearing down the veil between me and the real world.

The vision disintegrated, catapulting me from dark to bright. The dungeon switched to become a decadent room with gold and red accents—it seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place why.

I blinked, unable to understand. ~Where the hell am I?~

My body ached, shoulders trembled with holding my arms ready to strike. My hands were cramped and slippery with blood.

Then my heart stopped.

Q lay on the bed in front of me, his naked body covered in blood, completely unrecognizable. He barely breathed, his face swollen, eyes muted, hidden by injury.

I dropped the scissors; they clattered downward, nicking the top of my bare foot before bouncing to the carpet. Air lodged deep in my lungs and I couldn’t breathe.

An earthquake began in my limbs, and the angry, righteous tears I’d shed were replaced with horror. “Q—Oh, my God.” I reached out with shuddering hands to touch his cooling chest.

His beautiful sparrow tattoo hung in tatters with wounds and blood. His beautiful cock hung useless and bloody between his legs.

“What have I done!”

Then I was flying.

My front collided with the front of the bed before I was jerked back and pressed deep into the carpet. Someone wrenched my arms behind my back, pinning my cheek to the floor.

“Don’t move,” a livid man’s voice ordered.

The man sat on my back, holding me in place. He changed position to look toward the bed. He sucked in a rattling breath. “Fuck, Q. What the fuck.”

A woman’s high-pitched scream made my shaking worse. I gave up crying and turned to sobbing. I did this. I hurt Q so much he looked ready to die. How did this happen? Why did he let me go so far?

“~Merde. ~Q. Oh, my god. Oh, my god,” Suzette cried.

The man got off me, discarding me as if I was nothing. He jumped to his feet, rushing to the bedside.

I fumbled to sit up. I needed to know Q was still alive. That there was a way to fix this.

Franco’s emerald eyes flashed back to me, glittering with ferocity. “~You~ did this?” He shook his head, fingers scrambling at the bindings around Q’s bleeding ankles. “How could you?”

My lungs lodged in my throat; I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t justify what I’d done or even remember how it happened. All I knew was I no longer existed in a lifeless void.

I now lived in an eternity of self-regret and pain.

I’d been given closure and revenge on White Man and what happened in Rio, but I would take that agony all over again if it meant Q wasn’t lying lifeless and ruined by my hand.

“Q! Please, Q.” I scrambled to my feet, wringing my hands as Franco undid Q’s wrists and gently brought his hands to rest by his sides.

Q winced and groaned as Suzette rushed forward with one of the discarded sheets, placing it over him.

Suzette never took her eyes off me, raining with sorrow and disbelief. “Why, Tess. Why? After everything he’s done for you.”

I rushed forward. I had to hold him. Tell him how sorry I was. But Franco shoved me back. “I think you’ve done more than enough, don’t you?”

“But… I have to f—fix this. I didn’t mean to. You have t—to believe me!” My body shook with wracking sobs—I’d never cried so hard.

Not when I was raped or kidnapped or made to do such horrendous things. I cried as if my soul would explode from my body at any moment and leave me dead on the carpet.

Turned out I wouldn’t die from guilt, but from a broken heart.

Q groaned softly, licking his broken lips. “Le—let her be.”

Suzette cried harder while Franco spun to face him, ducking lower to hear. “I’ll call the doctor. We’ll get you help.” He ordered Suzette, “Go and get Dr. Peterson in here. Now.”

Suzette blanched white with shock, but she did as she was told, flying out of the room.

My heart stabbed with self-loathing and my legs wobbled as I darted past Franco to reach the bed. My eyes locked with Q’s and I wailed.

The last barrier unlocked inside, letting forth all the wrongness left inside me.

I awoke from the final haze of vacancy, my tower tumbled to the ground in a clatter of rubble, and my mind swarmed with everything that I’d done.

“Q!” I threw myself on the bed, wincing at his cool skin, his sticky blood. Franco wrenched me off. “Get away.” Looping his arms around my chest, he hauled me backward, heading toward the exit.

“No! I need to stay. I need to fix this.” But his grip never yielded. I scrambled at the doorframe.

“Wait,” a thready voice demanded.

Franco froze; I trembled in his locked embrace. “Q. I’m so sorry. I don’t know. I don’t—”

Q sucked in a breath, hoisting himself up to rest on his elbows. Tracks of tears smudged the blood on his face. He smiled so sweetly, so full of unconditional love, I broke further in Franco’s arms.

“Bring her here,” Q ordered.

After a pause, Franco scooped me up and took me to Q. He placed me on the bed. I could barely see through my tears.

I couldn’t breathe properly from crying so hard, but Q gingerly put his arm around me, holding me weakly against his beaten body. “I forgive you. I did it for you. Don’t cry.”

The unequivocal acceptance set a denotation in my stomach. It mushroom-clouded until it filled my chest, my throat, until it erupted in my brain.

The sobs battered me harder, granting a perfect release.

Q pressed his lips against my forehead, murmuring, “Je t’aime, Tess. Je t’aime.” I love you.

Pain squeezed; I sucked in air, but I was suffocated by the overpowering need to purge.

I cried like I’d never cried before.

Burrowing deep into Q’s side, I let go of everything.

I drenched the bed and let my soul free.

I sobbed myself into nightmares.

“You’re hereby sentenced to life in prison. You almost beat a man to death. Your lover. The one you’re supposed to protect and adore above all else. What do you have to say for your crimes?”

The magistrate with his big overzealous white wig glared down at me. I stood on a tiny podium with rolling waves of magma and lava licking at my ankles.

It burned, and I knew I would suffer flames and incarnation for eternity.

“I have nothing to say. I did what you said. I deserve to be punished forever.”

The magistrate nodded, looking down his nose. “And forever you shall suffer. You will never love, never be happy. Your smiles will always be laced with sadness, your heart always layered with grief.”

I bowed my head, wanting to hurl myself into the lava. To end my misery, end my shitty life where I hurt so many. “Yes. Punish me. Make me suffer.”

“A thousand years in hell. Where you will rot in fire.” The gravel came down.

A black shadow swirled in like a nasty typhoon, snuffing out the waves of fire and stealing the heat of hell. “I’m the one she gave her life to.

“She’s mine, and I say she doesn’t deserve to be punished.”

I daren't lift my eyes to such a kind reprieve. Instead, I hunched into a ball, pressing my forehead to my knees.

“Tu es à moi.” You are mine. A firm hand landed on my shoulder. “Your life is mine, and I say I’m not ready to give you up.”

I raised my eyes to meet my saviour and cried hot ugly tears. Even though I almost killed him, Q stood before me in an immaculate black suit with a soft smile on his sculpted lips.

No open wounds or oozing blood. He was utterly perfect.

He crouched beside me and cupped my cheek. “It’s over, Tess. It’s in the past. Our future is where we live now.” He kissed my lips, whispering, “Wake up, esclave. Wake up. Don’t leave me.

“Not after everything we’ve been through.

“Wake up.

“Wake—”

My eyes cracked open, gritty and sore. A brief sense of confusion crushed me before I connected with a pale jade gaze.

The moment I looked into Q’s wonderful dark and bright soul, I broke again. My mouth twisted in horror for what I’d done; my eyes were useless waterfalls.

I couldn’t do anything but cry and shake and repair my fractured soul.

We were in bed in the carousel room. I remembered now: the doctor working on Q. Stitching the lashes too deep to heal naturally, bandaging the ones that didn’t.

Was it only yesterday that all of this happened?

“I’ll never be able to fo—forgive myself,” I stuttered between my waterworks.

Q shook his head softly; his face glistened with an array of unhealed scars and scabbed-over cuts. I did that to him. I marred his dark beauty and painted him with violence.

I branded him in my rage, in my sadness, and every time I looked at him I would remember.

I would never forget hurting the man I loved more than I loved myself.

I shut my eyes, unable to bear the agony any longer.

But Q’s gentle fingertips brushed against my eyelids, coaxing them open. “Don’t look away. I want you to accept me. Love me as I am.”

I didn’t deserve this man. I shook uncontrollably.

“Tess. Obey me.” His voice hardened and I looked up, entranced by his angry eyes. “Don’t you dare undo my hard work. You feel again, and you’re going to get through it.”

He was right. Gone was the empty void I’d existed in. I lived in a dagger-filled eternity now. The guilt lived in my lungs, tainting my every breath.

Gritting my teeth, I traced a shallow lash on his cheekbone, my touch shaky and soft. “How can you forgive me for what I did?”

He captured my hand, pressing it harder against his cheek. “How can you forgive me for what I did?” He bowed his head, kissing my neck. “I failed you.

“Those men should never have been able to take you from me. I failed you by not coming sooner. I failed you by keeping you. I failed you every damn time I tied you up and degraded you.

“I’m the one who should ask for forgiveness.”

We stared at each other until my eyes burned and I swallowed gushes of salt water to stop from crying.

“I hurt birds that you save, Q. I tortured them. I broke their bones and killed a girl with a hummingbird tattoo on her hip.” The confession eased some of the guilt and I kept going—spewing my crimes.

“They drugged me so every day I thought you’d abandoned me. They turned me into their employee and I tried to get free. I disobeyed but it only made the punishment for the other girls worse.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel myself again, but you taught me I’m strong enough to live with what I’ve done.”

I snuggled closer, wanting to crawl inside him. “I love you, Q. With everything that I am.”

He sighed heavily, pressing his soft lips against mine. “I know, Tess. I know.”

~From: Tess Snow~

Time: 7:35 p.m.

To: Brax Cliffingstone

Hi,

This is hard to write as it shows me how weak I was to contact you and make you worry. Everything has worked itself out. Q rescued me, Brax. He did something I never thought he would do.

He showed me just how much he loves me.

Thank you for being there for me when I was lost.

I’ll always be around if you need me, but for now, I’m going to heal with the man who brought me back to life.

All the best,

Tess.

From: Brax Cliffingstone

Time: 9:35 p.m.

To: Tess Snow

Tessie,

~I’m so glad to hear you’re in a better place. And it gives me peace of mind to know you’re with a man who adores you. As he should.~

Heal and be happy. :-)

Catch you around,

Brax

Three weeks passed while I found my way back to wholeness.

Q put Frederick permanently in charge of ~Moineau Holdings and stayed home with me.~

A few terse conversations with the local police and they never bothered him again about my kidnapping, or what Q did to find me.

He never talked about work or what happened behind the scenes of ~Moineau Holdings, and I wasn’t ready to bring it up. I didn’t want to know if I was the cause of his reputation being slandered.~

We never left each other's sides. Our closeness cured each other.

We fixed our maladies, became each other’s healing balms. We grew to know each other in those days of soft reprieve.

Chatting softly, asking questions about simpler things like our favorite ice cream and seasons.

Suzette and Franco forgave me for everything I’d done to Q. Franco pretended to run in fear anytime I came close—until Q told him to piss off.

Suzette offered her ear anytime I needed to talk, and I might share my tale one day, but not now.

The guilt was still too sharp—the nightmares far too real. But just knowing she understood made me love her like a sister.

Q and I played cards and listened to music. We read in love-filled silence and touched each other with lingering caresses.

Everything between us was sweet and healing—knitting more than just our bodies, but our minds too. We became intrinsically linked like never before.

However, Q withdrew into himself for the first two weeks. He brooded, never admitting to what ailed him.

I’d catch him watching me with a turbulent look in his eyes, only for it to disappear whenever he saw me staring.

He treated me like spun glass even though something dangerous lurked within him. I knew he suffered with what I’d done. It lived in every action, every memory flitting across his face.

I’d taken something fundamental from his grasp and feared he’d never be the same.

My heart healed in one moment and broke in another with the knowledge I might be the cause of his ruin.

Every day we were never far from each other’s side, but we never moved past a gentle kiss or stolen touch.

We never attempted to have sex.

I think we were both too fragile, still repairing ourselves with sticky tape. After allowing myself to feel again, I’d never taken anything for granted.

Even the lingering ache in my plier-snapped finger meant something—it proved I was strong enough to survive. And Q knew just how to bring me back.

Q healed fast physically. If anything, he became sexier, more alive and real to me.

Once the stitches were removed from the deeper lashes on his chest, his tattoo looked darker, full of pain and misfortune, but also freedom. The puckers of scars only added to the detail.

The gunshot scar in his bicep had a horrible way of linking me back to what happened. Q earned that hunting for me, killing for me. I’d never look at it without reliving the past.

Without remembering how my mind was turned against me. How I lived with history that I couldn’t even recall thanks to the haze of drugs.

But it was his face that made my heart squeeze every time I looked at him.

His perfect, unmarked skin now glistened with tiny scars. Day by day, they muted from pink to silver and only added to his perfection. A constant reminder of what I did and what he gave in return.

Q looked up, smirking. “I can feel you undressing me with your eyes, ~esclave.~”

My tummy somersaulted and I laughed softly. “I must admit, my thoughts are heading to dirty.”

Q’s nostrils flared and the gentle companionship between us turned to lust-laden. For the first time in three weeks, chemistry sprang to a fever.

Leaning forward in the deck chair where we’d taken refuge on the patio outside the lounge, Q murmured, “I miss you.”

The late afternoon sun was warm, but the chill in the air meant we had tartan blankets over our legs.

I could imagine my life, fifty years from now, with Q as a distinguished old man and me by his side. Never again would I think about leaving.

No matter how bad things got, I would never switch off or forget Q was my reason for living.

My eyes darted behind him to look into the lounge. Nobody was there.

All the women from Rio, including Sephena, had been returned home to their loved ones, and for the first time in months we were truly alone.

Even Mrs. Sucre, Franco, and Suzette had gone to the village, leaving us to our own devices.

The house was empty, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Q would find more survivors; he would bring them home and heal them. Just like he’d healed me against all odds.

My heart squeezed and I thanked every entity that he’d brought me back. I never wanted to live with such emptiness again.

Q’s face darkened, and he looked away. “I have something for you, but I’m not sure how you’re going to take it.” He sat straighter, dog-earing the page of the property file he was reading.

“I wanted to wait a bit longer, but I don’t think I can.”

Curiosity and the delicious sensation of arousal made me hyper-alert. Placing my sketchpad on my knees, I scowled briefly at the jumble of buildings and how squiggly my lines were.

My finger had healed, but it lost the function to bend fully, and it kept getting in the way.

Q stole the sketchpad, throwing it onto the patio, along with his property reports. He stood, holding out his hand, a dominating air surrounding him.

“What is it?” I smiled. “What’s so urgent?”

He shook his head, plucking the blanket off my legs, adding it to the one on the floor. “I want to show you before I lose my nerve.”

Placing my hand in his, he hauled me up in one yank. I coughed, and his eyes narrowed. Even after weeks of healing, my lungs still acted as if I’d been a smoker all my life. But Q didn’t rush me.

He took such exquisite care of me. Not once did he ask anything that I wasn’t ready to give.

The one and only time I’d tried to kiss him, hoping for more, he’d pushed me away, saying he needed time. Needed time to see me as the strong woman I was and not the invalid I’d been.

He said he loved me, but the twisted part of himself needed me healed and capable of withstanding what he required before he let me back into his bed.

I understood. I accepted it as part of him and didn’t push, but I never stopped wanting him.

But now, with his strong fingers wrapped around mine, I hoped we’d finally be able to put the past behind us and make new memories.

Q didn’t say a word as he guided me through the lounge and up the midnight blue carpeted stairs. When we got to the top, he jerked me close. I gasped as his lips pressed hard against mine.

His hands dropped to my hips, pinning me in place. “I want to do something to you, ~esclave.~” His dark voice wrapped around me, making me eager, wet.

I kissed him back, opening, encouraging him to kiss harder. He broke the connection, dragging me down the corridor.

My heart squeezed painfully as we passed the room where I’d almost killed Q. As far as I knew, the room no longer existed.

A demolition crew had been in, and Q had banned me from ever stepping foot in there again.

We didn’t stop until we headed into the west wing, passing multiple doors.

My stomach tripped in anticipation as Q finally slowed and placed his hand on a knob.

He breathed hard, as if he’d planned this for a while but only now had the courage to go through with it. For Q to be afraid meant he wanted to do something drastic.

I tensed, waiting for the overwhelming fear of pain. The lesson White Man taught me to avoid it at all costs still had a hold on me.

I lived with ghosts of what I’d done, unable to avoid the occasional spasm of regret and horror.

“I won’t force you. You can say no,” Q said, opening the door and pushing me through.

My mouth dropped open as he guided me inside and locked the door.

“You did this?” I whispered.

All around us was a massive, intricate birdcage. The walls were painted with silver bars, and a giant silver bell dropped from the ceiling as a chandelier.

Mirrors hung while oversize spray-painted branches loomed overhead. There were even real metal bars pressed deep into the carpet.

We were effectively trapped, imprisoned just like his beloved birds.

He cleared his throat, burning a hole into me with the intensity of his gaze. “I wanted a room that symbolized us.

“The cage is a promise.” His body tensed, drawing need from me to him, building rapidly until my heart flurried. “You said you’d let me do this once. I’m hoping you won’t refuse.”

He captured my cheeks with harsh fingers, reminding me he might’ve been gentle and kind the last few weeks, but he wasn’t truly that man.

He’d kept the anger, the darkness away from me, carefully guarding whatever thoughts he entertained. “I told you I couldn’t let you into my bed again until I was able to see past what happened.

“You know I need someone strong, unbroken, courageous.”

I nodded, my pulse thudding thickly in my veins.

“I see the old Tess. For the first time in weeks, when you looked at me, I saw her. And I want her.

“So fucking much.” He crashed his mouth against mine, sending my need for him spiraling out of control.

He broke the kiss, growling. “I need to be inside you, but I need to do something else first.”

I breathed shallowly, trying to figure out what he wanted. “I’ll give you whatever you ask.”

His mouth twisted as his pale eyes glowed with darkness. “Is that the truth, ~esclave~?”

“String you up and bring you completely into my world?”

I couldn’t stop a conflict of emotions filling me. The old Tess, the one who got off on pain, wanted everything Q offered.

But this gentler Tess—the one who’d killed and hurt—wanted nothing to do with blood or screams for the rest of her life.

But it didn’t matter. I knew my answer. “Yes. I would.”

Q kissed me fiercely, darting his tongue into my mouth, making me drink his need and passion. Whatever he was about to ask meant a lot to him. I could taste it.

“You’re mine, Tess, but you’ve never been a true submissive. Somehow, you give me everything you can, all the while keeping everything out of reach.

“You drive me fucking insane, and that’s why I need to do this.”

“You don’t need my permission.” My voice dropped to a husky whisper; my core clenched at the thought of him tying me up and fucking me. I needed to connect. I needed him inside me.

“You already have it.”

He opened his arms, and I curled into his embrace. For a man who’d never hugged before, he held me often. He didn’t hold me with just love, though. He held me with possession, aggression, obsession.

Q pulled away, his jaw tight. “This will hurt. But you’ve given me your word.”

Fear replaced the love in my heart as Q gave me one last look before heading to the fireplace. With a click, the gas caught, and eager flames sprouted into being.

Resting on the mantle were two long pokers.

Q picked one up, returning to me with it in his outstretched hands. “Take it.”

I cursed my trembling but took the pole, turning it to see the emblem at the bottom. The instant I saw it, I remembered what I’d promised. That Q could scar my skin to put his mind at rest.

That he could mark me so he’d always know I was his.

I ran my fingers over the sigil. “Oh.”

Q froze, bristling with black energy, restraining himself from desires I didn’t comprehend. After what happened in the gold and red room, he wore his edginess, his temper, like a cloak.

I didn’t know how badly I’d damaged him, but even while he was being gentle and considerate, he lurked in the shadows, living in a place I didn’t know if I could find.

The emblem was a capital Q with a sparrow swooping toward the ground as the tail of the letter.

My eyes flashed to his, drowning in his gaze.

His shoulders bunched as he brushed away hair from my neck, running his thumb along the scar left from the tracker.

“I want to brand you. I need to have something of mine permanently on your skin.” He bent his head to press a kiss on the scar. “I need to know you’re mine.”

“I am yours. You know that.”

He shook his head, echoing unhappiness in his eyes. “You were going to leave me. I had to give you my life to make you stay. I need to see you’re mine every time I look at you.

“Every time someone else looks at you, I need them to know you’re taken. Call it barbaric and horrific and tell me I’m a selfish fuck-up, but, Tess, I ~need~ this. I can’t come back to you otherwise.”

I didn’t wait another second. If he needed this simple thing, so be it. I wanted it, too.

Pushing the poker into his hands, I said, “Do it. It would be the highest honor to wear your mark.”

His jaw worked as if he held back a huge weight of emotion. His pale eyes glittered. ~“Je te remercie du fond de mon cœur. ”~ Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Together we walked to the fireplace. My pulse pumped faster as he placed the brand in the flames.

His fingers squeezed mine as he reached for another poker and passed it to me. I took it as tears sprang to my eyes.

This one had a capital T with a birdcage hanging from it. A pure symbol that I’d captured him completely.

I stared deep into his eyes. “Are you sure?”

He shook his head gently, stealing the pole, placing it in the flames beside the other one. “You shouldn’t have to ask me that, ~esclave.”~

My throat closed, and we didn’t say a word as the metal went from matte black to glowing red.

Q let me go to disappear into the bathroom. He came back with salve and medical patches for afterward.

My skin flushed thinking how painful it would be, but I stopped the thought. After everything I’d endured, a burn wouldn’t scare me.

Once everything was laid out, Q turned to me, pointing at the floor. “Kneel.”

I did as he asked, kneeling before the man who owned my heart and soul. The master of me completely.

With concentration etching his eyes and his lips pursed tight, Q lifted the hot poker, and with no hesitation, pressed it hard and fast against my neck.

The searing, scorching heat made my eyesight black out for a second, and the sickening sound of my skin hissing almost made me retch. But then it was over, and Q tossed the poker back into the fire.

Immediately, he grabbed the medical supplies and applied antiseptic cream then the bandage.

I daren’t look in his eyes as he tended to me. I could taste his eagerness, his sublime joy at what he’d just done.

I wanted to see. I wanted to look in a mirror and inspect what marked me permanently as his, but Q stood and gathered the other poker. Kneeling in front of me, he offered the handle.

I stood slowly upright.

Biting my lip, I shuddered with the thought of causing him yet more pain. ~Can I really do this?~ My own neck thundered with agony, cauterized and stinging.

With strong, sure fingers, Q unbuttoned his white shirt. Once spread wide, giving glimpses of sparrows and barbwire, he traced his fingers over his heart.

“This belongs to you, Tess. Brand me there so you’ll also know.”

My stomach rolled at the thought of burning him, but I tensed my muscles and angled the glowing symbol above his heart.

Q pushed his chest out, curling his fists on his thighs. “Fast and hard, ~esclave.~ ”

I nodded and lunged. The symbol melted through his skin in a second. The smell of acrid hair singeing filled the room. A second later I withdrew, relinquishing the terrible brand back into the fire.

Q grunted as he stood and his shirt swung forward, sticking to the raw skin. I twirled around to collect the salve and bandages, before tending to Q.

Pushing his shirt gently off his shoulders, I winced.

He never took his eyes off me as I massaged the cooling balm onto his wound. The design was flawless, every bar of the cage etched deep into his flesh; the T a perfect feminine cursive.

Tears fell unbidden as I covered up the mark, sticking the bandage into place.

He’d given me himself. Forever.

Q pulled me into his arms. “Already I can feel the darkness coming back to life. Knowing you’re mine. That you willingly gave me your pain once again.” He buried his nose in my hair, inhaling deep.

“I thought I’d lost that urge. Lost that part of myself.”

I didn’t need to ask what part Q had lost. I always knew he lived with demons in his soul.

Q shifted, walking me backward to the bed. The mattress no longer rested on the floor—it had been designed as a miniature cage. Hanging from the ceiling were bars and chains.

Swags of material cocooned the space like a perfect trap—a trap to keep us safe together.

“I want you,” Q murmured, his fingers already working my blouse buttons. Everything jolted to life. I leaned into him, rubbing my nipples against his knuckles.

He sucked in a breath, pushing aside the material to cup my bra-covered breast.

My hands went to his bare chest, inching down to his belt. He waited while I undid the buckle, pulling the leather free. His chest rose and fell as I held the leather in my hands.

His tension, awareness all sprang to high alert, and I saw the man I’d thought I’d killed when I whipped him to an inch of his life.

Q, my master, wanted to use his belt. And I wanted him to.

With a wistful plea in my eyes and love exploding in my heart, I presented the belt with outstretched hands.