Page 88 of Depravity

“Brynn…”

“Please, I’m begging you, please help me. Please. I know you were free once, I know you weren’t even part of the Brethren. You have to help me. You have to…”

Her hand clamps around my mouth, silencing my pitiful words as she looks over my shoulder to the door behind us.

Is she worried they can hear? Is she worried they’ll come crashing in, that both of them will start beating us?

I know her face is a mirror of my own. She looks just as broken as I am in this moment, only, there’s a fire there, something that tells me she was stronger than me. Perhaps that’s the difference. Perhaps that’s why Magnus is better to her than Conrad is to me. If I were stronger, if I were smarter, hell, if I were anyone other than who I am, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation.

“I am as much a prisoner as you are.” She says. “You think I want to be married to a man such as he is?”

“But you did.” I state.

Sorrow, resignation, despair too, it all shows in her face. “Yes. Yes I did. I married him because he broke me. I married him because as much as I hate him, I love him too. And I hate myself for that fact. I hate myself. He forced his way into my head, forced his claws into my soul.” She clenches her hands into fists. “I cannot escape him, just as you cannot escape Conrad.”

“So, your advice is just to what, to smile and accept it? To let him continue on, until one day he grows so angry he really does kill me?”

She winces, and for the first time I see her fragility too. This great strong woman they all talked about, this great wife of Magnus’s, it feels like the veneer comes away, that I see the broken creature that has been hiding there all along.

“Don’t give him cause to hurt you.” She says. “Whatever he does, whatever he says, you have to accept it, because you have no other choice.”

I shake my head, refusing to accept that advice. This can’t be my fate. It can’t be.

Her hands grip me once more and I’m all but forced to look into her eyes. “Accept what this is. Please Brynn. You don’t want Conrad to do to you what Magnus did to me. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

What could possibly be worse than what I have now?

What could she possibly have gone through that is worse than what Conrad has already done to me?

My eyes drop once more to that brand on her chest and I open my mouth to ask, but then Conrad is there. At the door, half-glaring at us.

I can’t hide the shiver of revulsion, nor the fear as he holds out his hand to silently summon me away.

“Be brave, Brynn.” Liliana whispers as I pass her.

Bravery. That was never my forte. Never a skill I possessed.

I’m not brave, I’m broken. I’m literally existing in the very pits of hell and I don’t know how I can possibly escape this.

How I can even begin to save myself.

Idon’t speak to her as we walk back to the car. She’s shaking, shivering, and I’m pretty certain she’s crying too.

I want to grab her face, to slam her against the wall and make her see sense.

Does she not realise what I have given her? How I have raised her up? She’s a Blake now. She’s as close to God as anyone can possibly hope to be.

We step outside, and the cool wind whips around us. She brings her spare arm up to protect herself and if I were a better man, I’d offer her my jacket.

But she deserves to be cold. She deserves to suffer.

Tonight did not go to plan, and a lot of that was because of her.

A servant opens the back door of the car, and I shove her inside before clambering in. As we start driving off, those silent tears turn to something louder, something more pitiful.

I run a hand down my face, contemplating Magnus’s words. One month. I have one month to breed my wife. It shouldn’t be that hard to achieve considering I’ve been fucking her at every opportunity, but I don’t understand why she isn’t carrying my child already. She’s had a god damn fertility jab, for fucks sake.

As she sniffs again, I lose what little patience I have left, and I unclip her seat belt, shove her into the footwell and undo my belt.

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