39. “This is not love, Little Quill. It’s stronger. It’s obsession.”
39
“This is not love, Little Quill. It’s stronger. It’s obsession.”
Chapter Playlist:
“The Perfect Drug” – Nine Inch Nails
EVERLEIGH
My knees nearly buckle when we emerge from the underground.
It’s a small castle…just as he’d said.
The scalpel in the pocket of my long-sleeved vintage dress with its embroidered lace is burning a hole in the pocket. When Cal brought me back to the exhibit to change, I put my college acting skills to good use and pretended to be clumsy and knocked over the table, managing to swipe the sharp instrument. Somehow, I hid my shock that he didn’t double-check the number.
I don’t know what I expect to do with it. I won’t escape him. Sometimes, I’m not sure I want to. I try to dismiss it as Stockholm Syndrome, but my inner slutty psycho knows better.
And she chronically reminds me.
Stockholm Syndrome? Nah, this feels more like a full-blown psychosexual crisis. Cherry twirls her hair with one finger and fiddles with her horns with the other. Are you planning revenge or foreplay? The line is really blurry right now.
Trying to block her out, I focus on the surroundings instead.
Cal’s firm grip on my arm guides me through the dimly lit hallways of his sprawling manor, the faint scent of aged wood and incense trailing in his wake. I catch fleeting glimpses of the rooms we pass—ornate parlors with carved mahogany furniture, a library bursting with ancient tomes, a sitting room with a grand marble fireplace. Candlelight flickers in each space, but as much as I want to explore, I have no choice but to follow Cal, keeping pace with him.
When he leads me to double-clear doors, he opens them, and we step onto a balcony.
The world opens up. The cool night air rushes over me, a lover’s caress after weeks of suffocating captivity. My chest tightens, and tears prick my eyes as the wind tangles in my hair.
I tremble from head to toe. My heart can’t take it. The organ ricochets in my chest.
The full harvest moon bathes everything in a flushed rosy glow, its light weaving through the host of stars. The grounds stretch out below in rolling hills, manicured gardens, and shadowed groves—freedom just out of reach. It’s the kind of night poets dream of, beautiful and serene.
It’s a cruel taunt. My heart aches as I clutch the balcony’s edge, desperate to drink in every detail before Cal inevitably drags me back to my gilded cage. I don’t want to go back. I want to run, to explore every inch of this hauntingly beautiful world he’s imprisoned me in. If I have any chance, I need to distract him.
“Who was that guy?”
Cal stiffens, his arms strengthening around me. “Who?”
“The one with the blonde hair, green eyes. I swear I’ve seen him before.”
“Dorian,” he says darkly. “A lesser god. Always chasing my shadow. Never you mind him…or anyone else.”
I nod, vaguely remembering the other performative artist who has opened for Acheron multiple times.
One glimpse at him assures me of his control, how he’s going to take away this taste of freedom at any moment. Emotions twist a storm in me.
Evie, sweetie, you’ve always said you wanted to live in a museum. Well, congratulations—you are the museum now.
I pause, listening to my subconscious psycho. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her on the other side of the balcony, casually leaning against it, her wings catching the air.
Honestly, he looks like he stepped out of a Caravaggio painting. And the exhibit is like a piece of the fucking Louvre. You get to play with this endless supply of artifacts. A treasure trove of everything you love. It’s so romantic… in a very twisted way. She winks at me, her wings buzzing.
I wish my subconscious wasn’t trying to justify it.
But I melt as Cal weaves his arms around my waist from behind. My blood warms, and a deep sigh leaves my throat.
I’m just saying, he could have kept you in some dingy basement. Instead, he’s made you the star of an art installation that people will probably write studies about.
Shutupshutupshutup! But I can’t block her out, the annoying pixie of my mind. I can’t be normalizing this. Cal has stalked me, kidnapped me…he put a tracker in me, ra—fucked me before those disgusting men while carving my very skin, tampered with my birth control, painted me with my own period blood, and turned me into his human pincushion before fucking my ass.
Don’t forget torturing the real asshole who hurt you, Evie. He might be a sadistic control freak, but Cal is YOUR sadistic control freak, and he’s turning you into the centerpiece of the most breathtaking exhibit ever created.
“Everleigh…” Cal summons me, cupping my chin and luring my face to his. His gloved knuckles brush along my cheek, pulling up goosebumps.
“What is she saying?” he murmurs, tipping his brow to mine.
God, how does he do that? Always knowing when I’m dissociating, conflicted, trying to rationalize all this, make sense of it in my mind.
“I-I…I don’t know how to put it into words.”
“Try.”
“The way you look at me—it’s like you’re sculpting me with your eyes. Like you’re writing the ultimate love letter on my skin, my soul…in permanent ink. The exhibit is like this shrine. It’s a gilded cage. You could have kept me in a filthy cage, chained up like some broken bird. But…in some ways, you caged me even more. You make me powerless. Because I could never hurt anything in that beautiful room.” My voice cracks from my emotion, and the tears stream down my cheeks. Cal captures them with his fingertips.
“I should hate it. I should hate you ,” I spit out, but the guilt knots my throat, my stomach lining turning to rot. Because my fingers twitch, plotting my attack with the scalpel. “But you’ve tortured me in the most beautiful ways. And make me want more. And I hate you for it. But I hate myself more.”
He cups my face. “Don’t. Everleigh. There is nothing shameful about your desires, about the masterpiece I’ve unleashed within you. Only a true master could see the beauty and truth of your heart and soul.” He tilts my head, seducing me with his dark eyes, the scarlet glints inside them. “This is not love, Little Quill. It’s stronger. It’s obsession. It’s a fine art. The rarest kind. I found it the moment you stepped through the mist like a wondrous spirit with the quill in one hand and your leather journal in the other.”
Before I can fall apart, before he can lean in to kiss me and scramble my thoughts and my senses, I lift my chin and part my lips. “Something else. Um…I haven’t asked yet. I don’t know why. There’s so much speculation about it, but no real answers.”
He presses his lips into a soft smile. “You may ask me anything, Everleigh Lennox.”
“How old are you?”
He smirks, shaking his head and chuffing a laugh before deadpanning. “Old enough to rule you, young enough to fuck you.”
I roll my eyes. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I’m twenty-eight. Is he forty? Younger? Older?
“I suppose it will remain a mystery. For now,” he chuckles darkly, thumbing my chin.
Cal kisses me. It’s a slow kiss, almost romantic but too possessive to be romantic. He’s so alluring, his dark masculine musk filling my senses. My limbs soften as I’m bewildered by the kiss, utterly seduced as his tongue traces the seam of my lips. He seeks, and I open, bowing to him. To my astonishment, I respond and meet his tongue in a slow, alluring dance. Twirling, licking, tasting, exploring.
He slides his hands to the small of my back, bringing me closer until I feel his hardness through his pants, grinding against my upper stomach.
A soft moan leaves my throat, echoing into his mouth.
Cal pulls back, his lips a breath above mine. “Everleigh,” he whispers. “Mine.”
“Yours,” I breathe.
I stiffen when he folds his hand into mine and gestures to the doors. “Come now. Time to go back inside.”
A bolt of fear fires through me. No matter how beautiful the exhibit is, I don’t want to go back underground. I don’t want to leave the chilled night air, the moon, and the stars. I want to see more. From this view, the grounds are beautiful with extensive gardens and sculptures. I want more.
And I…I don’t know if I have the courage to go back. It’s been over a month now. Despite having plenty of work to do, I’ve grown more anxious, longing to get outside. Now that I’m here, I don’t want to let it go. My past trauma with enclosed spaces returns to me with a vengeance, surging fire and ice through my blood.
I shake my head, pulling back. “Please, no. I don’t want to…I want to stay here.”
His dark eyes sharpen against mine. “Do not try my patience, Everleigh. I will do terrible, brutal things to you if you do not obey and return to the gilded cage I know you love.”
“Can’t we just go for a walk?” I plead, a Hail Mary while my fingertips curve to my pocket, envisioning how to seize a few more minutes of freedom—even if I know I will pay dearly for it.
“No. Not tonight.” He takes my other hand in his firm hold, claiming my chin with his other. “But if you submit and obey me now, I will show you a few more rooms in my estate before returning you to the exhibit. And I will stay with you tonight. I won’t rest until you are fast asleep and dreaming of me in your mind, in your blood.”
“Don’t take me back down,” I say through tears, the darkness of my past, of those horrible three days splintering through me like broken glass.
Stone walls. After twelve hours, the room feels smaller, the walls constricting, closing in around me. The stale air, mixed with the scent of decay, will never fully leave my lungs. I’m never going to escape, am I? Never going to feel the free air or the sun on my face beyond the invincible bars of the only window in this…forever resting place. My muscles ache from curling up and sleeping against the stone coffin with the cold, dank floor beneath my body.
Evie! Evie! Cherry’s voice pierces the dark fabric of my trauma. Cal isn’t locking you away; he’s preserving you. Like the rarest artifact, you belong in a place where you are worshipped. Come on, you can do this. It’s not a cold, dark tomb. You’re not trapped, darling. You’re adored, and deep down, you know it.
But the walls close in. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. All I know is I can’t go back down.
So I panic. I snap. I grab the scalpel from my pocket and plunge it into the right side of Cal’s chest, watching the white shock flash in his eyes.
Before I can second guess myself, I bolt. And escape down the balcony stairs and run onto the path between the nearest hedges. The God of Art’s deep growl thunders through the air, and I know he’s not just following me.
He’s hunting me.
And when he catches me, he will deal his punishment…tenfold.