Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Lagos
I fist the steering wheel with one hand and grip hers with the other.
She inhales deeply, her chest rising, holding, before falling with a heavy exhale. Dahlia sleeps against my naked side, her body swaying with the movement of the truck, her lashes fan over freckle-laced cheeks.
Focus on the road.
My mind prowls restlessly inside my skull. I am at war. Lost. Confused. My possessive and protective core has morphed into something darker.
Unforgiving.
And savage.
At first, the orders were simple. Obedience and submission were carved into my flesh over the past five months.
Kill her, kill Tomar, and retrieve the stolen Shadow baby for The Trade.
But in the compound?—
I was too reactive.
When they held her knickers in front of my face and sliced fillets from me, I only inhaled harder.
Too in love.
Too human.
For her…
Too hard to control even with the coil, so at three months, they changed their methods. Made me crazed. Used my humanity. Stroked my cock when I killed for them. Allowed me her scent when I obeyed.
A beast with a bone.
They distorted my memories, infiltrating my recall, planting doubt about Tomar and her, Robert and her. Men she is with, fucking, loving.
Too possessive.
I know now… They didn’t edge me to kill her—they edged me to obsess further. Obsess to the point of destruction.
Too volatile.
They made me a bomb. Used my possessiveness. Jealousy. Obsession. Sent me out to find the baby, knowing I would implode emotionally when I saw her.
And I did.
When my cock thrust into her wet, warm pussy, and a voice in my head hissed she likes it rough, Six…
She wants to fuck Six.
Not Lagos. Six.
She is not yours anymore.
She has fucked Tomar.
She has fucked the doctor.
She. Is. Not. Yours.
I snarl at the road ahead, the Redwind flogging the metal sides of the vehicle, lashing sounds that remind me of the pits of hell and the past five months.
Releasing her hand, I wrap my arm around her shoulder, pulling her exhausted little body closer.
Her scent thickens my cock.
Blood. Kill. Is she still mine?
The coil may have been removed, but a dark void remains, and inside that bloodied grey matter, paranoia festers.
I cannot trust my muscles, mind, or memories. Betrayed by my body when it obeys The Trade’s conditioned response to her, my cock leaks, throbbing with the need to be milked, just from the subtle notes of her hair.
Kill.
Fuck.
She needs to keep that taser.
Last time I came out of this haze, I only had myself to consider. That first year, I only cared to sleep, fuck, and try not to kill too many people in the process.
This time, I have her.
And the babies.
I am physically surged with the need to protect her from the darkness I know is out here, from the depravities and evil I know is inside me.
You’re mine until you’re safe.
Words I swore to her, words I meant. Little did I know that there is no such place, that no part of The Cradle is completely safe.
So, she is mine.
We drive all day, and by the time we get to the farmhouse, last-light bleeds into The Crust, succumbing to the dense darkness.
I survey the property, the old brick and wooden structure standing defiantly against the weather and somehow… hidden and untouched. Invisible.
But we saw it.
Found it.
‘It’s ours, Lagos.’
Then, using my body to shield the Redwind, I carry her sleeping form into the house. She trusts me completely, even after… The marks on her neck growl the truth from a missing memory?—
I navigate through the dark interior, details and vision snatched by the hour. The air is thick with dust and promises.
Down in the bunker, a hidden cavity beneath the farmhouse, where the walls are cool, and the latch locks from the inside, I feel a sense of calm… This is right. She can be safe here with the babies, and she can lock me out.
Her guard monster.
At the doorstep.
This is right.
This is good.
I lay her gently on one of the beds, the fabric unused but dusty. Leaving her there, I head back up.
Now for the Shadow baby.
I stand in the open door of the car, muscles tense, staring at him . His wide eyes, ancient and knowing, gaze back at me, filled with as much suspicion as invitation. It’s an electric sense—repulsion and attraction—a silent communication that bubbles in my iron-blood.
When I held him at the Common Community, a primal instinct churned, like hairs on skin rising to duty, an army of impulses at the ready.
“I know you feel it,” I say to the infant, my voice a rough whisper, as I scoop him up. “You helped me find her, not once but three times. I hope you don’t regret that one day. You might want to kill me when you become a man. If you’re smart, you will. Protect your mother against all. Even me. You hear me?”
He babbles.
My chest aches—so vulnerable and simple. Was I like this once?
Who held me?
I know the answers.
I feel the chains that once tied me to a bed in the compound tighten around my lungs, suffocating all reason.
He is mine.
She is mine.
The unborn child is mine.
I take him into the farmhouse under a cloak of near darkness and carry him down into the bunker. I set him on the bed beside her, prop a pillow to wedge him safely against her, and I leave.
I fucking leave them there.
I will not allow myself to go in. We can share the farmhouse, but that is hers and theirs.
My cock pulses like a heartbeat when I slide down to the floor on the inside of the front door. I will not sleep.
I will not move.
Tomorrow, I need to secure the property, fix the wiring, and add latches, chains—measures to keep them all safe.
I stare into the house. Dark void. Shadows that stretch, though nothing moves, and there is no light. My mind tricks me, trips me, fucks with me.
Time rolls by…
Green eyes.
Pain.
Tight pussy.
Pain.
Freckles.
Pain.
A second heartbeat.
I should have left her at the farming community to be with her kind, free and easy. There, where she is safe, but is she? If they are ever attacked, if a man ever wants her, who will risk it all, who will bring entire towns to the ground, step over children, to get to her. Only her… Only me.
That is my darkness.
Her words stir through the steady resonance of wind. “Then why can't we do that now! Find a place. Stay together, and we can have new, great experiences. We can kiss, and I will protect you, and you can protect me, and we will be together.”
I will protect her.
Every small noise is like an itch inside my ears, too deep to scratch. I remember coming out of the torture of Noise Conditioning when I was sixteen.
Every time I hear the faintest of sounds, my muscles awaken with the need to protect. To protect my flower and my children.
Even as a rational part of me hears the wind whistling through the windows, rocking them against the frames.
Knock. Knock.
I know it’s the wind.
A visceral and primal need wins. I climb to my feet, head outside to challenge the Redwind and stalk the perimeter of the farmhouse. I will protect her—them—from the world, from the depravities and evil that I know lurks within my own flesh.
And blood.