Page 116 of Born in Depravity

DAMIEN

I walked outside the house,feeling so fucking angry, I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

I shouldn’t have gone into that room tonight, shouldn’t have gone in to see her.

The plan had been to stay close to her. That was all. She had been sleeping so peacefully, and for a moment, I didn’t feel like I had to do anything … be anyone.

Then she fucking woke up.

She had asked me to come into bed with her, teasing the monster inside of me. And I was—

Angry.

Fuck, but I was angry.

So fucking angry at her for looking like an innocent, so angry at myself for feeling the way I felt, so angry at the control I could feel slipping.

I was just trying to find a way to get back into control. Get back to the cold, unfeeling man I had been for so long, but Catalina made me emotional.

She made me feel things I didn’t want to feel, and fuck, I had wanted to hurt her for it.

I had wanted her to fight me, to show me that fire in her eyes, to tell me that we hadn’t broken our little doll, as Nikolay liked to refer to her.

And she did fight me.

At first.

How beautifully she’d fought. She’d drawn blood. With every single pain she inflicted on me, I felt myself gaining back the control I had lost.

Until she just gave up.

It was as if she no longer had control over her body. I felt it when she stopped. I’d wished like hell that wasn’t the case, but what made it worst was the fucking tears.

I thought I loved her tears.

She was so fucking pretty when she cried, and I had been addicted to the sight.

Not now.

Every tear she shed tonight was like a punch to the gut, and I didn’t know why that was.

I looked down at the small cross on my forearm.

A fucking mockery of the Catholic Church by a man who was anything but pious.

My hand tightened in a fist, making the muscles in my forearm grow taut.

My phone chimed with a message from Mikhail.

I had texted him as soon as I left the room. No doubt he would be comforting her in ways I didn’t know how.

My hands were made for killing. For torturing. Those were easy, and how I excelled at them.

But for comfort?

What did I know about offering comfort to someone as fragile as the Mute Princess locked away in that room?

I unlocked my phone and looked at the message.

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