Chapter 14
Rule fourteen: Men Destroyers are the worst.
S in releases me and pulls me off the sand . He’s still glowing.
Magnus yells from the balcony, “Is the fight over? I think you should keep going. Our little enigma was finally getting into the spirit of things.”
Sin doesn’t look at them; his full focus remaining on me. “The fight is done. Leave now.”
I crane my neck to look wistfully at my potential witnesses as they quickly make their way back into the castle.
Sin hasn’t released my arm. His grip is firm but doesn’t hurt.
“Why?” he asks again, his voice thrums with rage.
I flinch at his tone, and Sin only looks angrier. But he releases me immediately, taking a step back and giving me space .
“It’s not what you think,” I answer, my heart thundering in my chest.
My body feels utterly raw from what Sin just did to me. He used his energy against me to manipulate me. Any hint of safety I felt here is gone.
Sin must see the fear in my eyes because he takes a deep breath, and the tattoos fade. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he grits out.
I narrow my eyes at him. “That’s rich coming from the man who literally choked me two days ago.”
Sin’s eyes darken. “Don’t pretend that was a frightening experience for you. Not when we both know just how much you liked it.”
My spine stiffens. “And what the fuck would you call what you just did to me? Are you going to convince yourself that I liked that too?” I yell, my voice breaking.
Sin throws his hands in the air as he thunders back, “I did it to give you fucking perspective! You are thinking of returning to the people who just did the exact same thing to you. And for some fucked up reason, you seem to think you owe them something! Go ahead and hate me. If it means you will fight back, then I will gladly be the monster you want me to be.”
I huff, not wanting to hear him, and instead try to think of a creative way to tell Sin he can fuck off.
“Why is there an energy siphon on your neck?” he asks again, this time more calmly.
“It isn’t a siphon. It’s a seal,” I snap.
“I have been alive for a very, very long time. And I can assure you, that mark on your neck is a siphon. It diverts your energy to whoever placed it on you,” Sin says, slowly taking a step towards me.
That comment gets my attention, and my mind starts to reel. Leon said the mark was a seal so that I wouldn’t hurt myself with the strange energy that started to manifest from me. He never said anything about a siphon.
I blanch.
I refused to let Leon have his own energy back. So, he decided to steal mine.
“Who?” Sin asks instead, voice low.
Shame wells up inside of me at the realization that, once again, I was blind to what was really happening. “You already know,” I whisper, staring at the sand.
“But why? What could he possibly gain from leeching your energy?” Sin asks as he appraises me. He looks like he’s assessing whether I’m a threat.
I wrap my arms around my middle, hugging myself tightly at the memory. I consider playing dumb, until I remember Magnus already tasted my aura. Everyone here must already know I’m not just a mortal Keeper. And even with that knowledge, no one has tried to hurt or extract information from me. Maybe – maybe they won’t kill me.
I don’t think I’ll get away with a full lie, so I decide to go with a half-truth.
“There have been… incidents with my energy. When I was angry with Leon, back in my own realm, a huge lightning storm erupted. There were purple clouds, and I thought it was Leon, despite having his collar, but he said it was me. ”
Sin looks dumbfounded, and I continue, trying to glance over the second incident, “And then again, in the Otherworld. Leon was getting a little, uhm, physical so that I would unlock his collar. But then I accidentally threw him across the room with a blast of my energy.”
My cheeks heat with the confession, and the guilt I’ve been grappling with for days rears its ugly head again. “I threw the first punch. I hurt Leon first when I blasted him. No wonder he siphoned my energy. He needed to protect himself from me.”
The shame is trying to swallow me whole. I’m drowning.
“You protected yourself,” Sin argues, his tone hard. “Leon tried to use you, and you defended yourself.”
But the shame only drags me down deeper.
“He was trying to protect me. He said he needed to stop my energy so I wouldn’t accidentally hurt myself,” I whisper, in a desperate attempt to find a redeeming quality in the man I’ve been bound to. The man who says I’ll never escape him.
“He protected you by stealing the only power you had to resist the bond enslaving your mind. That isn’t protection. He was ensuring you wouldn’t be able to fight back again,” Sin growls before backing up a step and running his hands through his hair. “When the fuck will you wake up and see that you’ve been used against your will? Repeatedly.”
My shoulders slump, and I’m cold as Sin’s words fully sink in.
Leon used me. He lied to me .
There is nothing he won’t do to make sure I never leave him. He was happy to exploit the twisted bond between us to ensure we were together.
The despair hits again when a familiar thought crosses my mind.
He will never let me go.
Nothing, not even the truth about his relationship with Cassandra, will change his mind when he’s obsessed with keeping me.
I start to shiver, but look at Sin.
“Can you remove it?” I ask, my voice sounding smaller and more defeated than I’ve ever heard it.
Sin nods but says nothing.
He invades my personal bubble again, his body providing some welcome heat.
“Fight back, kitten,” he whispers, just as his tattoos glow red and his hand wraps around my neck.