The Heir She Loved (Shadows of Sin #4)

33 Everett

November 9th, 2022

I held her close in our bed as she slept soundly in my arms, Lucy laying at the end of it, Merlin elsewhere. I wasn’t quite sure where.

He had been on the table when I walked in, but after Olivia collapsed in my arms, I had carried her in and held her as she sobbed.

I didn’t want her falling apart like this at all, but it felt relieving that she was doing it in my arms this time.

I glanced towards the table for the first time in three hours, barely able to see the corner of it from where our heads were. I couldn’t see Merlin, but I was sure he would turn up. I didn’t know much about how the minds of mice worked, but what I did know was that the little rodent loved her. He wouldn’t just disappear without her.

I continued to stroke her hair, her head on my chest, her leg pulled up over mine, her hand resting on my shoulder.

A few mouse shits was worth her comfort.

She thought I wouldn’t love her because she had this rage within her that drove her to kill. Because she was so similar to my brother. She thought I would kill here because I didn’t want her anymore, but how could I possibly not want her?

I couldn’t even picture a world without her in it. I didn’t care if she became as psychotic as Azrael, that didn’t make her any less mine. It certainly would never make me love her any less. I loved every piece of her, psychotic tendencies and all.

Although, I would hold my breath on that. Azrael had a way of manipulating people without them ever knowing they were being manipulated, and while Olivia did have a new, dark rage inside of her, a thirst for some sort of justice, I didn’t think she had reached Azrael’s level, not even with what I had witnessed with Tommy.

She had too much good to be that similar to him.

My new neck tattoo was healed enough to not need the coverings. It still hurt from time to time, but I was glad I could wear it now without fear of it getting damaged in the healing process. I had seen more than a few times, Olivia stealing glances at it when she thought I wasn’t looking, her cheeks growing red.

I wasn’t sure if she could tell, but I knew she was making amazing progress in her healing. Her confidence was growing a little every day, her facial expressions were growing too, and while her eyes still held such pain, I could see little glimmers of light from time to time that caused my heart to falter.

Grey said it was normal. That sometimes, the healing don’t know that they’re healing until long into the process. He was proud of how I was handling this.

And Baily? Well, she couldn’t wait to see her Aunty again. She had asked me just today, during my visit before I went to deal with an issue regarding another debtor, if Rover was doing his job. She had said that if he wasn’t doing his job, then she would give ‘Auntie Alibia’ Beatrice instead.

When I asked who Beatrice was, she brought out this scrap of fabric that had, at one point, been a purple llama. Said it was magic, but that Rover was better at healing than any of her other friends.

After that visit, I had to go beat the shit out of a man for defaulting on his loan.

He had taunted me, said the wrong things, mocked me. All I had wanted was to come home and talk to my girl and he had pushed the wrong buttons.

When I came home hearing her talking to Azrael, it broke me. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, but fuck. What else was I supposed to do?

Holding her now, I never wanted to let her go. I thought I’d be bad at it, but shit, I’d give anything to stay like this for the rest of my days.

Olivia suddenly shifted, her nails digging into my chest, her body tightening into mine before she relaxed a second later.

I wasn’t sure if she was too tired to have nightmares right now, but I’d like to think it was my doing.

I couldn’t count the nights I had sat up watching her scream, only to calm her down and sit back and watch her whimper and struggle in the blankets. Maybe now I could just hold her while she slept. Maybe she would finally join me in the bed. Not for anything nefarious, but just to sleep. Just to be in the other’s presence.

I would love nothing more than to just be like this. Just in her presence.

“I don’t know how to stop it.”

I looked down at the raspy whisper of her sore voice. I needed to get her some tea. “Stop what, pup?”

My heart skipped. She was still talking to me.

“Azrael said he felt it too,”

she whispered, curling into me. “The rage. He said that it was time I stop trying to control it and let it out.”

That was suspiciously good advice from someone like him. “He’s right, baby,”

I mumbled, leaning back into the pillows.

She looked up, those beautiful eyes shining, puffy. “I couldn’t stop,”

she said, her voice breaking. “I held their hearts in my hand. I couldn’t stop.”

I ran the back of my knuckles along her cheek, wiping away the stray tear. “Because you keep holding back. You have to exercise it.”

She swallowed, her hand gripping into my chest. “That’s what he said.”

I felt a small smile touch my lips. “Lucky for you, I know a family who does it for a living.”

I didn’t expect her to smile back, that would take some more time, so long as she kept talking to me, I’d be okay.

She pushed up from me a moment later, turning away from me, giving me her back, and my heart thudded painfully. Fuck. Was it the wrong thing to say?

I sat up, Lucy watching us carefully, but I didn’t say a word. She needed to work through this too. I would help her, push her along, but she needed to be reminded of the strength she had.

Olivia gripped the edge of the bed tightly, her shoulders tense. “Something takes over,”

she explained, looking over from the corner of her eyes. “I see black.”

Okay, I understood that a little. Not much. I was younger when I got the taste of blood, of death. It was easily taught out of me, but this was a lifetime worth of anger. She was 23, untrained. She had an untethered anger in her that she couldn’t control and that scared her, but it was manageable. “We start first with training,”

I told her, pushing myself to the side of the bed, sitting just beside her. “We move on from there.”

“Training? Like what Rae did with Jack?”

I nodded, giving her a soft smile, glancing to her lips and back. “Exactly. You have to learn how to weaponize it in a less chaotic way, that takes focus, accountability, a clear vision of what you want the outcome to be. Every step calculated, determined. Clear and concise,”

I reminded her softly.

Her eyes flicked down, training on my lips. “Clear and concise communication,”

she corrected. “That’s what you said, and it was ruined.”

“It wasn’t ruined. You didn’t not communicate clearly, Olivia, you stopped altogether, but I always knew what you wanted.”

She watched my lips for a long time, so long that my heart began to beat a little faster. Her eyes fell a little further, to my throat, and her own bobbed. Her hands tightened in her lap, her fingers sanding together.

“It’s okay,”

I told her softly. She was in control. She was. She had to know that, she had to understand that, no matter what happened, she was in charge of where we went, what we did, how we moved around each other now. It was all up to her, but fuck. Before, I had been so hesitant, and now I wondered why? Why had I hated showing her how much I cared about her? All I wanted to do now was touch her, have some form of physical contact with her. In all of that rage I felt during those months she was missing, I had missed the moment when the shift happened in me too.

Grey was right, she had a power over me I could barely understand.

“You said your voice is your only power, but you forgot about another power you possess,”

I went on, her skin slowly flushing. “I was the one tying you to that wall, but you were the one controlling what happened. The moment you say ‘Red’, the second it becomes too much, you stop everything. That’s your power. You control us.”

Her pupils suddenly grew so large, they nearly drowned out the color, causing my cock to throb. Did she want it too? She could take it. She could take it all whenever she wanted. I’d give her the whip if she asked, and then I’d take it right back if that’s what she wanted.

A power shift. It wasn’t uncommon, I had read. There was power in each position, a slightly different kind, and people often found a kind of rush taking on both roles from time to time. Maybe the best way for us both to regain control was for the dynamic to shift until things started to make more sense again.

Sitting on my knees in front of her while blood dripped from her hands, her nails digging into my neck. Fuck, I rubbed myself raw after that. I wondered how much I would have to beg for her to do it again. Get me on my knees, choke me, force me to do whatever she wanted.

“Every pup needs her master,”

she said quietly.

I found her eyes, a smile touching my lips. “Call me a dog and I’ll bark just for you, Olivia. Woof woof.”

Her eyes fell to her right hand, studying it, sanding her fingers together, her eyes flicking to my neck again, her lips parting as her breathing picked up.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I commemorated it,”

I began when I saw that I was losing her, “because it made me realize that things are different now. It’s not a bad thing,”

I assured her as her eyes found mine again. “It’s good. We evolve together. We learn. We don’t need sex, we need trust. Everything else comes later.”

She watched me for a long time before her eyes fell back to my throat, studying the way the artist had depicted her beautiful hand. After another few seconds, she lifted her right hand, hesitantly at first, my heart racing as she slowly closed the distance between it and my throat.

“Don’t react,”

I told myself, but as her hand slowly closed around my throat, her nails pressing into my skin, I felt my eyes roll back, and my lips part on a longing breath.

Fuck.

My cock throbbed painfully as her grip tightened. She certainly wasn’t strong enough to cut off my oxygen, but it didn’t matter. My head was spinning, my skin warming, my cock hardening. I never knew I could like something like this, but fuck me, I wanted her to choke me until I came.

“Everett.”

My eyes flashed open at the whisper of my name to find her eyes locked onto mine. She said my name.

She said my fucking name.

Her nails bit a little deeper into my skin. “I want you to touch me,”

she requested hesitantly.

I couldn’t ignore the excitement that exploded in my chest. “I don’t have to—”

“Please,”

she said, slight panic in her eyes. “I have to learn. I want to learn. You have to let me learn.”

Was this right? Should I allow it or push her to step back? Which option would damage her less? Which option would help her more?

My eyes fell to her lips. “What do you want me to do?”

I could control myself. I would. Whatever she told me to do, I would do that and nothing more.

Her lips parted, her breathing a little ragged. “Get on your knees,”

she told me.

Oh, fuck me.

Without breaking eye contact, and almost in a daze, I slid off the bed to my knees, her hand only digging into my throat more. At this point, I was wondering how she hadn’t drawn blood.

She spread her legs a little, and I settled in front of her, her eyes flashing between panic and lust. Between fear and trying to conquer her own mind.

“You’re doing so good, pup,”

I hummed, her hand tightening.

“Just don’t look away,”

she said on a fear-filled breath. “Don’t look away.”

Never.

Her chest was heaving a bit, her throat hollowing with every breath. “Take out your knife and cut my sweats open,”

she said quickly, her eyes instantly finding my hands.

“I can do this.”

I could almost hear her chanting that in her mind. Over and over again. “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.”

So, with slow motions, as if I were being held at gunpoint, I reached for the pocketknife I always had in my back pocket. I held my left hand up, fingers spread, as I pulled my knife out of my pocket with my left.

Her eyes flicked to the knife and back, her nails digging into my neck, warm suddenly sliding down towards my collar.

My cock throbbed. Fuck, she drew blood. My blood. I thought her dragging her nails down my back was intoxicating, but this? Damn if I didn’t want her to pin me to the ground and ride my face into oblivion.

“I’m cutting your sweats now,”

I told her carefully.

She nodded almost imperceptibly. “Okay.”

Her eyes fell to that knife, widening as she watched it move closer and closer to the space between her legs.

She inhaled sharply and I froze, watching as her eyes found mine. “I’m fine,”

she assured me. “Keep going.”

I searched her eyes. Should I? Was this healthy?

But we had never been the healthiest before, had we? What we had worked for whatever reason, I had to trust her now. I wanted to trust her.

So, I inched forward, her eyes shooting back to the knife. With a quick flick of my wrist, I sliced up the seam, her entire body tensing in reaction to it.

“Get rid of it,”

she ordered me.

I tossed it across the room, towards the door where Lucy sat.

She stared at it for a long time, her breath slowing, before her eyes found mine again.

“I did it,”

her eyes screamed.

Good job, baby.

“Okay,”

she breathed out, her legs relaxing a little more. “Talk me through it,”

she instructed softly. “When you do it, talk me through it.”

Talk her through it? Not like I did before, it was brutal. I was taking then, I wanted to give now.

I wanted to give everything to her. I wanted to give her back the power she was so desperately searching for.

I relaxed my own legs, spreading them a little more to accommodate the rock between my legs. I thought through everything I had ever said to her, my brain moving too fast until I paused, her beautiful eyes waiting for me to lead her. To guide her. To tell her what to do next.

Every thought in my mind quieted at the look in those eyes. “I’ll take care of you,”

I told her softly, bringing my fingers up to my lips. I slid two of them in, wetting them easily. Part of me doubted she was actually wet with all the panic running through her veins. She had surprised me in the past, but I didn’t want to take my chances, not with everything else that had already happened to her.

“Deep breath, Olivia,”

I said, her fingers easing a little as I moved closer to her panties. “Lean back a little for me,”

I instructed, lifting myself a little just to get a better angle. If I was going to finger-fuck her, I was going to do it the right way.

Her beautiful pale throat bobbed, but after a moment of hesitation, she did as she was told, leaning back on one hand, scooting her hips a little towards the edge of the bed.

“Put your feet on my knees,”

I said, placing a hand gently on her knee.

She gasped and jerked her knee away only to shake her head. “Sorry,”

she muttered, her pupils wide. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, take your time.”

She searched my eyes for several seconds before nodding and looking down at her own feet. Seconds ticked by before she finally lifted one, placing it on my knee, and then the other.

I gave her a reassuring smile. “You’re doing so good, pup.”

Her eyes lifted back to me, flicking to my lips quickly before settling.

Okay, so I couldn’t touch her knee, that was fine, I didn’t need to touch her body anywhere else but where she wanted me too.

Rather, I gently sat up a bit and grabbed the edge of the bed on the outside of her knee. “Touch is something you control,”

I told her, slowly inching my way back towards her pussy. “You have to learn that in this new role of yours. You are in control. Tell me where to put anything, and that’s where it will be. My hands, my feet, my cock. Tell me where to put my tongue, and I will do it.”

“I’m not you,”

she panted, her hand tightening around my neck again.

“We learn to find our own paths,”

I replied, sliding my fingers passed the hole in her sweats. “What works for some won’t work for others. You can tell me what to do and say please afterwards, and I can beg you to say it again.”

She inhaled sharply when my fingers teased the outside of her panties. “I just want to feel normal again,”

she whispered as I slowly dragged my finger up the center of her.

Her panties were wet. That was a good sign, I think. I hoped. “You will never feel like you did, Olivia,”

I explained, adding a little more pressure, watching her lips part on a silent moan. “You have to find a new way to feel. A new normal.”

“Evolve,”

she said on a breath.

I nodded, carefully, slowly, moving her panties to one side, her legs tensing, my hand gripping into the mattress. Fuck me. I would need my own release later.

“Breathe deep,”

I instructed, her pupils so wide, I could hardly see the colors in her eyes. “That’s a good girl,”

I mumbled, sliding my fingers up the center of her again, feeling her warm cunt react to my touch.

“Keep talking,”

she pleaded, my fingers sliding in just a little.

“You’re mine, pup,”

I told her, a shiver running down my spine, her nails digging into the wounds she had already made, my fingers sliding into her beautiful wet cunt slowly. “Such a beautiful, good little whore.”

She released a breath, angling her hips a little more, her eyes locked unblinkingly onto mine. “Deeper,”

she asked.

Slow and steady, draw it out, make it feel good. Make it feel unlike anything she’s had before. Give.

I slid my fingers in deeper, watching her face shift, her mouth drop, her body relax. “You’re so beautiful, baby,”

I hummed, curling my fingers just enough to add to her pleasure. “Let me hear you moan, please,”

I added, a breath escaping her throat. “I want to hear how good I’m doing.”

I needed to know if she was okay. I needed to know what was going through her mind.

“Just…”

She released a breath, a soft moan falling with it. “Don’t stop. Please, Everett, don’t—”

She groaned through her teeth “Fuck, that’s it.”

It was an effort to keep the pace. My cock was throbbing painfully in my pants, my eyes trained on hers, memorizing her face, memorizing everything about her. She was coming back to me, piece by piece, and I would help rebuild her in every way she needed.

“You’re doing so good for me, baby,”

I hummed, my voice thick with lust, my nails digging into the bed as hers dug deeper into my neck, my collar cold with blood. “Keep breathing, feel how deep my fingers are inside of you. My fingers, because you are mine, and I am yours. Yours to control, to use. Your toy.”

Her other hand gripped into the bed, her cunt clamping down around my fingers, her body going tense. “Oh, fuck,”

she panted.

“Keep looking at me,”

I instructed, my heart racing, my body on fire. “Keep watching me, baby girl, that’s it. Fuck, that’s it, just like that.”

Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit.

She came all over my hand, her moans coming out in cracked whimpers, as if she were terrified to allow herself to feel it. That was okay, we could work on that again. I didn’t mind.

I kept fucking her for a few seconds long before I pulled my fingers out and sat back, removing myself completely, unsure if she would want me near her now that she was falling from her high.

She collapsed, breathing hard, her face red, her grip on my neck easing until she finally removed her legs and hand from me and closed her legs, her eyes falling.

I watched her, my heart dropping. “Don’t retreat in on yourself, Olivia,”

I requested. “Please. You did so well, stay with me.”

But she wouldn’t even look me in the eyes. She pulled her legs up into the bed. “Can I please have a little bit?”

My brows pulled together, but I smoothed them out as quickly as I could. “Of course.”

I pushed myself to a stand and took a few steps back, watching as she turned away from me and crawled further into the bed.

Fuck. “You’re going to be okay,”

I told her quietly. “I promise.”