Page 16 of Dark Bonds

Hope is a dangerous thing, but I can’t help but cling to it.

“Well, will you tell me about the dream?” Matteo’s voice is soft, returning to its usual gentle tone. He’s always so soft spoken, and yet, like that one day in the hall, also quick to defend me.

“It was my first dance class,” I whisper, my voice trembling with the weight of the memories. The words feel like shards of glass in my throat, but I force them out.

“I’m guessing not a childhood dance class.” His tone is carefully neutral, but I can sense the underlying tension and barely contained anger on my behalf.

“No.” I shake my head against his chest and grip his shirt tighter, feeling the warmth of his body seep into my cold fingers. “I don’t know why I can’t stop the nightmares anymore. I don’t know why, after all this time, they won’t die.” The words rush out of me, carrying the weight of my anguish. “Valerie had this man. He’d come teach us how to dance for men and seduce them. The first class was when we’d all been there for over a year. We were exhausted, malnourished, and dying—actively dying.”

Matteo wraps his arms around me, holding me tight as though he needs the assurance for himself. The scent of his cinnamon cologne is calming, grounding me in the present moment.

“He told us all that the first girl to make him come would win a loaf of bread.” The words fall from my lips like I’m pouring Legos from a tub. It’s loud, crackly, and not at all pretty.

The things we did to survive…

Matteo’s arms tighten even more, his breath hot against my hair. I can feel the tension in his body, the barely contained rage at what was done to me.

“I watched the first woman volunteer. She was so thin, and I remember wondering if I looked like that. I did, by the way.” I still haven’t completely recovered. My ribs are still too prominent, and my muscles are too weak. “She didn’t know what she was doing. None of us did, but we were so hungry. She danced, and within two minutes, he had his belt off, and we all heard the crack against her flesh.”

I swallow hard, the sound of the belt still echoing in my ears.

“She passed out after the fifth lash,” I whisper, trying to hold my emotions in, which I know is the reason I keep having these nightmares. “One by one, we all tried.”

“Did you?” Matteo’s voice is tight with barely restrained anger, a stark contrast to his usual calm demeanor. His fingers twitch against my skin, as if he’s fighting the urge to clenchthem into fists, and the shadows in the room seem to deepen, responding to his emotions.

I nod, the movement small and defeated. “Driven by hunger and desperation, I looked like a twig trying to do the limbo. Five lashings,” I whisper. The memory of the pain, both physical and emotional, threatens to overwhelm me, but I push forward, forcing the words out. “When it was all over, he promised when he was done with us, we’d know how to make a man come without ever touching him.” I say the last part with a type of detachment, the horror of it all too much to fully process.

You never forget some lessons, no matter how much you want to.

Matteo kisses the top of my head, his lips warm and gentle. “I didn’t know.” His voice is thick with emotion, a mixture of sorrow and rage that I can feel reverberating through his chest.

“But you knew she had me,” I accuse, pain rippling through me like a physical blow. The words come out sharper than I intended, but I can’t bring myself to soften them.

“I knew.” His admission is quiet, but it holds the weight of a thousand unspoken truths.

“I don’t understand,” I burst out, sitting up to look at him, tears streaming down my face. The darkness of the room seems to press in on us, making the space feel smaller, more suffocating. “I just don’t understand.” My voice cracks, and the emotions I’ve been holding back threaten to spill over.

Matteo sighs, a sound heavy with regret and something else I can’t quite place. His hand finds mine in the darkness, his touch gentle but firm. “We came to find you,” he says, his voice steady and calm. “Not me, our guardians. We know there are shadow shifters out there who were stolen and hidden. You were one of them.”

The revelation hits me like a physical blow. Shadow shifters. Stolen. Hidden. Each word carries the weight of a life I neverknew I had, a history I can’t remember. The room suddenly feels too small, the air too thick. My mind races, trying to piece together this new information with everything I thought I knew about myself.

“Shadow… shifters?” The words feel alien in my mouth. My mind reels, grasping for understanding. “What—” I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry. “What does that even mean?”

Matteo’s grip tightens on my hand. “It means you’re special, Frankie. It means you have abilities you haven’t even begun to discover. The shadows… they are a part of you, just as they are a part of me.”

As if in response to his words, the shadows in the room seem to dance, reaching toward us before retreating. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at once.

“I can’t handle any more secrets tonight,” I whisper into the dark space between us. He just insinuated I was stolen, and that means my entire life has just been one casualty and kidnapping after another. The realization is almost too much to bear.

How many times can a person be broken before they can’t be put back together?

“Do you want to know how we found out about Valerie?” he asks, his voice a gentle murmur. Even in the darkness, I can feel the intensity of his gaze.

“No,” I say, remaining frozen on his chest. My fingers clutch his shirt like a lifeline. The fabric is soft and worn, providing a stark contrast to the harshness of the truths he’s revealing.

“When you popped back up on our radar, our guardians rushed to make sure you had your invite to SLU to bring you home,” he says. “She was stalking you.”

Fear crashes through my system, bitter and unyielding. The thought of Valerie still being out there, still watching me, is terrifying. My breath catches in my throat, and for a moment, I’m back in that room, helpless and afraid.

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