44. Magnus
S he wakes slowly. Her eyes flutter open.
I let her get her bearings, giving her a little space even though I’m desperate to just reach over and touch her and prove that she’s actually alive. As our eyes connect, I expect to see that old fear there, that old Liliana, but there’s nothing there but those soft, trusting eyes looking back at me.
I get up, leaving the cramped chair I’ve occupied for far too long and as I sit on the bed, she shifts just enough to allow me more space.
Her hair is starting to get long enough that she can almost style it. The red glow of it makes her look almost angelic in the evening light.
For a moment, we just stare at one another, with so many unspoken words, so much pain, and hate too, that’s twisted into something undefinable. Something inconceivable.
I love her.
Part of me wants to confess it, to tell her the truth, but would she see me the same if she knew? Or would she reject me just like my wife did? Would she turn her face up in horror at the very notion of me actually having feelings?
I’ve never been a man who cares about taking risks, who plays it safe. I’ll happily kick the damned hornet’s nest for a bit of fun, but right now I feel like I’m the one on trial. That my very future is on the line.
But Liliana and I have never truly conversed, never needed to. The few words we’ve exchanged were always in anger, in the midst of a battle. And in truth, always with me being the one in the position of strength.
It’s unnerving to realise that right now, it’s not me but her who’s suddenly in control. Who holds all the power.
I take her hand, placing the small pistol into it.
She frowns, looking from the weapon, to my face, and then back again.
“What…?”
“You have a choice, Liliana.” I state cutting across her words. “It’s the only mercy I can give you. I’ll grant you a quick death, a painless one. Here and now. Or, you can choose me, you can choose to continue what we have. To become my wife and live on.”
She blinks as her entire body trembles. “Your, your wife?” she whispers.
“It’s the only way.” I state. “You either die now or marry me.”
I don’t add what I want. I don’t state that I want her to live, to choose me, to be by my side. I want her to make that decision by herself. I want her to choose me on her own accord this one final time .
But what are the chances? What is the likelihood? What kind of person would choose to marry their kidnapper and rapist?
The air seems to tense. Milliseconds feel like a damned eternity.
In silence, she slides the gun from her palm onto the duvet like she’s repulsed by it, then fixes her gaze back on me.
“I know what happened to your last wife,” she says quietly. “You murdered her, on your wedding night.”
“I promise you now that you will not meet the same fate.”
“No?” she whispers. “But what if I disobey you? What if I did something you didn’t like? Would you beat me? Hurt me? Rape me again?”
I grit my teeth, clench my jaw, trying my best not to lash out the way I would normally do. For the first time in my life, I want something, not through force, or intimidation, or fear. Besides, is this not exactly the reasons why I want her, because she won’t back down, because she won’t just give in and do whatever I want with no thoughts in her own head?
“I won’t pretend I will change.” I state. “I am not a good man, I have never wanted to be. But I will not hurt you any more than I have.”
“You raped me.” She hisses, before baring her chest, baring that brand that’s still so vividly red. “You did this to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” I snarl. “You want me to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness, is that it?” Have I not shown her the kind of man I am, already? Has she not been paying attention all this time?
“No,” she gasps, and those beautiful tears start to slide down her face. “I don’t need your apologies. Not anymore. But I, I need you to promise not to do that, not to share me, not to…” Her face turns back to that awful pained one again and I realise what her true fear is now.
“He’s dead.” I say.
Her eyes dart up, she looks at me with wary eyes. “Who? ”
“Issac, the man who raped you in Oblivion, the man who fisted you while…”
“While you watched.” She snaps, suddenly slamming her fists into me and God help me, I catch them in my grasp, hold them so tightly, while my head screams at me to make her pay with blood.
I can feel her body trembling against me. I can feel the way she’s teetering over the abyss. Only, I can’t figure out if it’s from the pain or just our proximity in this moment.
“Is that your price?” I ask, searching her face for the answer.
“Price?”
“For your forgiveness.” I explain. “Is that what you want? Me to have them all killed? All the men who hurt you that night?”
I’ll do it. In fact, I should have done it already. Should have had every single one of them butchered because they know what she tastes like, what she feels like. No one should have that knowledge that except me.
She gulps, visibly paling even more. And then she shakes her head. “I don’t want you to do it, I don’t want to be responsible for their deaths. I’m not like you. I don’t see killing people as an option.”
“You killed Saul.” I point out.
She shudders more, nodding. “And I don’t regret it,” she admits. “I should, I should hate myself…”
My hand presses against her lips and I silence those stupid words. “He was a threat. He was the reason we even knew about you. You were right to kill him…”
“Just as you were right to kill Issac?” She gasps, pulling her face free, cutting across me with all that anger etched into her beautiful face. “Did you not offer me up, was that not the deal? All your buddies got to fuck me. Why then did you kill him?”
“He died because of what he did to you and because of what he is. ”
She frowns, clearly not understanding me, but then how could she? So much has happened while she’s been locked away for her own safety.
“The Brethren are changing. We are at War. Issac was my enemy and as such he had to die.”
“And the others, are they your enemy, too?” she whispers and I swear I hear a hint of hope in her voice. That she wants me to say that they are, that she wants me to have a cause other than just herself because she’s too cowardly to admit that she wants them dead.
“They are not.” I reply. “But I will lay their bodies before you as a wedding gift.”
It’s a hell of a risk, a hell of a sacrifice to make. One I know will have far reaching consequences moving forward but how can I let them live, how can I justify them still breathing our air, if Liliana is to be my wife? No, they have to die. And they will. It’s a sacrifice I will gladly make. A sacrifice I will carry for her. I’ll murder my friends, butcher them as I have my enemies and ensure my soon-to-be wife understands where we stand from now on.
That only I will know what her body feels like, how she tastes, only I will keep that carnal knowledge of her.
Except, that clearly doesn’t please her. Instead, she reacts like she’s going to fight me. Her hands push against me, with all the strength she can muster she tries to shove me off, and then a whimper escapes her lips because, clearly her wound is hurting her, and she’s moving too much.
“I can’t accept, I won’t let you…”
“Are you still so na?ve?” I growl, finally losing some of my patience. “After all this time, are you still trying to cling onto that notion that the world can be saved with peace and cookies?”
She starts to sob, covering her face. “It’s not, it’s not, I don’t…”
I yank at her hands, growing more exasperated by her .
“I know it isn’t like that.” She snarls. “You beat that fact into me, carved it into me. I know what the world is, what hate is, what pain is. And I know what it feels like to want someone dead. How it feels to desire it.”
“You desire my death?” I ask.
She shuts her eyes, hangs her head as if she can’t look me in the face. “I did, once.”
It’s not that I expected a different answer. It’s not that I didn’t know. You don’t do the kinds of things I did to her without such feelings being a consequence. And at the time, I wanted her to hate me. I revelled in that notion. I enjoyed it.
“I am not a good man.” I say again. “The things I have done, the things I will do, I will not change, I cannot change. I will do things that will make you hate me, but I will not do them to you.”
“But why? Why do you do such things?”
“Because that is my purpose. That is what is necessary. I am going to be Chapter Lord. I am going to rule over every Brethren Lord in this country. I must be ruthless. I must be unforgiving. I must be feared.”
And for the first time in my life, I want someone to truly see me for me. I want someone to truly understand me. And I want it to be her.
She lets out a sigh, like I’m asking too much. Needing too much.
“You can’t simply kill someone just for me.”
There it is again, that bullshit. That foolish belief that she should be above her base instincts, that she shouldn’t give into what her heart truly desires, to what her mind has dreamt of in the darkest pits of her despair. As if her pain as taught her nothing.
“Just for you?” I repeat. “I will kill them for both of us. I will kill them because it will make you happy, because it is what you want, even if you’re too proud and too stubborn to admit it. ”
Her eyes flash, she glares at me for a second and then she chews her lip like she knows every word I’m saying is the truth she just can’t admit it.
Her eyes drop, she stares at the weapon on the bed before she reaches out and places it back into my hand.
“I don’t want to die.” she says, and a part of my heart sinks because I wanted her to say something else. To declare that I’m the reason she wants to continue, that it’s me and me alone that drives her every thought and not just her want to live.
Does she not think that? Am I not enough for her?
“You changed me, you broke me.” She gasps. “How am I meant to choose otherwise? How am I meant to be anything but yours?”
My eyes meet hers and I can see the tears streaming down her face. She looks more broken than ever, and yet so damned fucking defiant. My cock seems to come alive, and I can feel it straining in my pants, desperate to get out.
“What are you saying, Liliana?” I growl, starting to lose my patience. Is she choosing me or not?
“I’m saying that I’ll do it. I’ll marry you. I’ll be your wife.”
“Because you don’t want to die or because you want to be with me?” I don’t know why it matters. It shouldn’t matter. It’s never fucking mattered before. Either way I’ve won this, so why do I give a fuck what the reason behind it is?
And yet, I have to hear her say it.
I have to know the truth.
Even if it is purely her survival instincts, I have to know exactly where we stand. She knows I’m a monster. She knows everything that I am capable of. But I have to know if even now, if after everything I’ve done, am I beyond redemption, am I beyond her love?
“I…” she starts, silently sobbing, wiping her tears like whatever she’s about to say is the worst thing imaginable. “I love you.” She ga sps. “I love you. I hate myself for it, I hate what you’ve done to me, but I can’t go back, I can’t undo it. You, you ruined me.” She spits the last, spits it like a curse but God does it change me.
I reach out, grabbing her jaw and roughly pull her face back up so that she has to face me.
“Not ruined you.” I state fiercely. “I created you. I moulded you. I’ve made every inch of you. You’re my perfect creature. Mine.”
She sobs harder at that and I pull her in, claiming her mouth and silencing those pitiful sounds.
This woman is mine. All fucking mine. She’ll stand by my side, more loyal and more trusted than any other person. I’ll hurt her, I’ll use her, I’ll care for her, and I’ll never let her go, not until her dying breath leaves her body, just as I first declared in the cathedral all that time ago.
She kisses me back. Her tongue twists with mine and it’s that same defiant, fierce stubbornness I’ve enjoyed so much. My hand wraps around the back of her neck and I close the little distance between us, pressing her body into mine.
I never thought I was capable of love. In so many ways I still don’t believe I am. And yet this woman, she is everything I’ve wanted, she is everything I need. I’ve created my perfect partner without even realising that that’s what I was doing.
When we break apart, she looks up at me with tears still in her eyes. “What about the Brethren?” she says. “Will they allow this? You’re meant to execute me…”
I shake my head to silence the last of that sentence. “I’ll be Chapter Lord soon enough. No one will dare challenge me on this.” I state as if that is all there is to it.
She frowns, chewing on her lip, but I don’t let her speak further because I’m too desperate to seal this.
I yank the covers back, revealing her battered body in its entirety. It’s wrapped in bandages from where they had to operate and remove the bullet. I know fucking her right now will only give her pain, but I need this, I need her, and I don’t give a fuck about anything else.
So I force myself inside her, feeling that delicious way her cunt welcomes me and, though I’m being as gentle as I can in the circumstances, she still whimpers.
“You’re mine, Liliana.” I groan. “All fucking mine. For now and forever, do you hear me?”
For a second, I consider taking out the IUD, forcing another thing onto her, forcing her to bear my children on top of everything else, but the thought of sharing her, of seeing her body change and morph, and sacrifice for someone other than me—no, I won’t do it. I want her all to myself. Every single part of her. Besides, I don’t actually have any desire to be a parent. It’s never been a want of mine. And with Conrad soon to be married it’s a burden he can take on, a chance for him to finally give back to our family for a change.
She digs her hands into my back like she wants to tear my flesh off and it reminds me of all those times I’ve had her, all those times I’ve forced her, all those times I’ve made this woman submit to me.
I’ve ruined her in every imaginable way possible and yet she still loves me, would still die for me.
What more could I ask from a life partner than that?
What more could I possibly want?
She is pure perfection. Created exactly the way I need.
I thought I wanted someone to simply submit, to give in to my every want, and yet I realise now that what I enjoyed all along was her defiance, her fight. She’s everything I needed. And more than that, she’s a true equal to me in every way.
So I’ll take all those sharp edges, I’ll take all those unguarded words she has, and I’ll make sure future wife is seen as that, is honoured as that. Is worshipped alongside me, as an esteemed and revered Chapter Lady .
And with her beside me, watching my back, I know our future is secure, our destiny is assured. I’ll be the most powerful man in England.
And with Liliana at my side, I’ll also be the richest.