Page 12 of Fighting Shadows

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he shouts once he checks my temperature, but it sounds as if he’s underwater.

He paces restlessly beside my bedside, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. I can barely focus; my head swims and black spots form at the sides of my eyes.

The last thing I see is Charlie’s panicked face looming over mine, his mouth moving, but I don’t hear what he’s saying as the darkness pulls me under.

Chapter 6

Charlie

“Autumn!” I shout, panicked as her eyes roll into the back of her head.

Her face is flushed, and her once brunette hair, now blonde, is tangled and unkempt. It sticks to her face, which is slick with sweat.

This was never supposed to happen. She was supposed to fall into my arms and smile up at me with that innocent smile of hers that I love so much, just like she did when she was a child, but then those idiots got their claws into her.

They poisoned her mind against me, turning me into a monster instead of her savior.

I was everything to her when she was a child. She would look up at me with those big hazel eyes filled with so much adoration, and every worry I had would melt away.

She was my girl, my Little One until her mother threatened to press charges against me.

Not because what I was doing with her was wrong but because she was jealous.

Jealous that I no longer wanted her, but how could I? I had Autumn.

She loved me and looked at me like I was her knight in shining armor, but now all she can look at me like is shit on the bottom of her shoe.

Where did it all go so wrong?

She was mine; she is mine.

She needs to realize that we are meant to be together—a happy family: me, her, and the baby I’m going to put inside of her so she canneverleave me.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter, pounding the side of my head with my fist.

How did it all go so wrong?

She was supposed to have come around by now. Begging me to let her out of those chains and take her body like I once did; now, she flinches any time I come near her.

I don’t want her to fear me. I love her too much for that, but I can’t hold myself back from her anymore.

She’s temptation incarnate. She’s been my damnation since I first walked into her mother's house. She handed me a drawing of a daisy field, and I decided there and then that she was mine.

Autumn groans, twisting her head from side to side as she wakes up.

She’s barely lucid as she asks for ‘Atty,’ a plea in her tone as she does.

“He’s not here, Little One. I am, and I’m going to look after you,” I say before I storm from the room to get a damp cloth and some water for her.

Her punishment has lasted long enough, and she’s in no state to try to run again.

Maybe showing some kindness will help her remember that I’m better for her and that staying with me here where we can be happy is for the best.

Her eyes flutter when I step back into the room, but she’s far too sick to understand who is beside her.

She moans as I press the damp cloth to her head, the sound going straight to my cock, but I restrain myself from now. Even if I want nothing more than to unzip my trousers and slide my aching cock between her parted lips.

I’ve put in too much work for her to leave me now because she’s sick, but I know I can’t take her to a doctor.

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