Aurora #2
It’s amazing how quickly I’ve changed. I listen to the screams coming from deep within the Citadel—strained, full of pain—and feel nothing but a dull, muffled calm.
Desire hunted for me and killed for me. That’s more than anyone else has ever done.
With him, I’m safe. In return, I owe it to him—and to myself—to at least justify his brutality.
Desire appears in the doorway and freezes, listening to another scream from down the hall.
“I keep forgetting how shitty the soundproofing is here.” He sighs, catching my eye. “You’ve had enough for today. Isaac will drive you home.”
I study him carefully—thank God, no new bloodstains on his clothes; the stitches are holding.
“What did you do to Lucy?” I ask.
He frowns, irritation flashing in his eyes. “Aurora, don’t start again …”
“I know about the killer Zack hired. And that Lucy slept with him, promising me as a bonus. I want to see her. I want to look her in the eye.”
“Why? Where the hell did you learn all this from?” He steps toward me, towering over me with his power.
Instead of ratting out Steve, I step close and slowly run my palm over his chest. The muscles beneath his shirt are hard as boulders. The touch strangely calms me.
“Because you can’t hide the dark side of your life from me forever. You said it yourself—I’m your reward.”
“My prize,” he adds, his voice dropping lower.
“And if I know what you’re willing to do for me …, I can reward you properly.” I tilt my head slightly, caressing the fresh bite mark on my neck with my fingertips.
He drills me with a doubtful stare. The desire to protect me wars with the hunger to possess my dark side. “If you’re horrified by what you see and decide you’ve had enough, you can’t try to leave. I’ll always catch you.”
I exhale. “When you say I want to be afraid of you, that I crave pain from your hands …, it makes me feel like we’re one.
” I find his gaze and try to hold it. “I feel like you understand me like no one else, and that makes me want you even more. Let me give you the same thing. I want to understand you as deeply as you understand me. I want to reward you properly.”
He hesitates, and a flash of hunger shines in his eyes. Desire doesn’t just want to possess my body—he wants to share power with me. He doesn’t just want a prize but an accomplice.
“Alright.” He finally nods. His voice is low. “But gradually. We’ll start tonight, and I’ll take it from there. I set the pace and the course.”
“Of course.” That’s enough for me.
He leads me through the park to a small building made of massive blocks that resemble the masonry of medieval castles. The noise of the party probably never reached here, just the chirping of crickets. We step inside, and I flinch.
Lucy is sitting on the floor, her hands cuffed behind her back and chained to a massive bedpost. Her mouth is sealed with tape, and her eyes, wide with terror, flicker feverishly.
Her bare arms and legs are wrapped here and there with brown-stained bandages.
The only furnishings are an old mattress and a bucket for waste.
“What’s happened to her?” I look at her, and a sticky sense of déjà vu stirs inside me.
More than three months ago, I was chained to a bed like that too.
The difference is, Lucy isn’t wearing a princess’s white dress but a provocatively short black cocktail dress torn at the seams. Was she grabbed at the party?
Desire understands I’m asking about the bandages. “While I was gone, the guys cut strips of skin off her. They wanted to find out where Zack was and if he was behind my disappearance.” He keeps his attentive, studying gaze on me, waiting for me to break.
I nod slowly, though my throat feels as dry as a desert. “That’s … a good reason. Does she know where Zack is?”
“No. Every place she named turned out to be a dead end. She’s useless.” His tone carries a death sentence.
“I want to talk to her.” I lift my chin.
He hesitates for a second, then steps forward and rips the tape off her mouth in one swift motion.
“Please! Aurora, help me!” Her scream ricochets off the stone walls, dissolving into a choking rasp. “These psychos cut me alive! They’re insane!”
I raise my gaze to the bedpost where the steel rings of the handcuffs clank. “Is that the same bed from Alistair’s basement, or am I imagining it?”
“Aurora! What are you talking about?! Help me!” Lucy shrieks, yanking at the chains.
“You’re not imagining it,” Desire replies. “Alistair gave me the idea, so I just ordered the same model to chain up my prisoners.”
“You stupid bitch!” Lucy chokes, staring at me. “Call the cops! Call the police before he kills us both!”
“One more word, and I’ll break your neck,” Desire says, and she falls silent.
I try to keep a straight face, but my heart pounds.
There’s something horrifyingly cyclical about this: Alistair’s daughter is chained to the same kind of iron bedpost he once kept me on.
And it’s all happening here, on a university campus, where students discuss lectures and drink lattes.
The world outside seems like a cardboard facade.
“Aurora,” Lucy whispers, glancing at Desire, “you’ve known me …”
“I read your messages to Zack.” I look into her tear-stained eyes, and not a shred of pity stirs inside me. “You wanted your lover to rape me.”
“Her late lover,” Desire corrects with an icy smirk.
Lucy flinches and drops her head.
“If you’re broke, how did Zack afford to hire Diver?” Desire asks. “Elite killers don’t work on credit.”
“Zack mortgaged everything we had left!” she sobs, choking on her tears.
I freeze. This makes no sense. “Why did you and Zack do this to me?” My voice trembles. “What did I ever do to you? Or did you avenge your father? But I’m not the one who killed Alistair!”
Lucy shakes with sobs. Desire steps forward, grabs her by the chin, and forces her head up to meet my gaze. “Look her in the face and tell the truth.”
“The truth?” I don’t understand what he means.
“Or should I start cutting the skin off your face?” Desire asks with a smirk, and Lucy quakes. “Tell her about Zack. Why did he date Aurora?”
Lucy gives in and cries, looking at me. “Zack …. He wanted to marry you to get at the Vance fortune.”
I freeze, and everything inside me turns to ice.
“But why? You’ve always been well off.”
“No, we’re bankrupt!” Lucy sobs, writhing in Desire’s iron grip.
I blink. Zack never even touched me, but he already planned to spend my family’s money? For some reason, I remember my first meeting with Desire in the basement: he refused a check for saving me, preferring my mouth. Zack wanted the exact opposite.
“That’s absurd. My father would never have blessed that marriage.”
“Keep talking.” Desire winds her hair around his fist. Lucy cries out, her face contorted in pain.
“Your mother …, she would have pushed it through,” she sobs. “She would have convinced him …”
“Why?” I step closer, completely lost. “Why would my mother want Zack as my husband?”
“Because my father kidnapped you to transplant your bone marrow to your mother!” Lucy breaks into sobs. “They were in on it together! She would have done anything to keep it a secret, and Zack could have ratted her out to the Vances and the police!”
The world cracks open around me. I have to grab the iron bedpost to keep from collapsing. Mom? Planned my kidnapping with Alistair?
While I try to process the scale of the betrayal, Lucy sobs hysterically. “Please, Desire! I’ll do anything! I’ll fuck you, I’ll fuck your men, hell, I’ll fuck the whole Kingdom one after another, just let me go!”
“I’m not interested in your whore cunt.” He shakes her like a rag doll and turns his gaze to my pale face. “Rory?”
“Why did she do it?” Tears burn my cheeks. “I would have gone to the hospital myself. I begged her to take my bone marrow before I was even kidnapped. And when I came back, she said they managed without me and found a donor. She just had to ask! This can’t be true! It’s fucking lies!”
“It’s the truth, Rory.” Desire lets go of Lucy and comes to me, covering my hands with his.
“How … how do you know?”
“Remember when I went into your parents’ bedroom? I took a DNA sample from your mother. Suspicions have been gnawing at me ever since Laurent found mention of a secret operation on two ‘anonymous patients’ in Alistair’s clinic. The DNA comparison confirmed it was you and your mother.”
“Those bruises …” I remember my lower body after every “nap hour” in the basement.
“Those were from the bone marrow extraction. Alistair’s doctors drained bone marrow from your pelvis.”
“Right there in the cabin?” I’m stunned.
“No. He drugged you with sedatives to transport you from the cabin to his private clinic. In a sterile operating room, his doctors extracted bone marrow from your pelvis, then he brought you back to the chain. Puncture wounds heal quickly—after three weeks, you can’t find them.
And the operation couldn’t be traced in official databases. That’s why—”
“Why what?!” I freeze, clenching my fists.
“That’s why Alistair didn’t try to rape you before the procedure was complete.
He beat you, venting his sadistic tendencies, but avoided sexual contact.
He was afraid of infections, unplanned pregnancy, or a specific hormonal imbalance that could have ruined the transplant and broken his deal with Eleanor. ”
My heart overflows with pain. I can barely breathe.
“I have to tell my father … and Caleb!” I grab Desire by the shirt. “We’ll show them your proof, and they’ll believe us!”
“No, we’re going to stay quiet.” He cups my face in his hands, forcing me to look only at him. “For now.”
“Why?! She could hurt me or Caleb again. She’s insane!”
“Because we don’t see the whole picture yet.
” He slowly shakes his head. “An underground clinic, a conspiracy with a psychopath is too complicated a scheme. If your mother took such insane risks, she had something to lose besides her own health. She has a dirty secret. And we’re not showing our hand until we find out what it is. We’ll wait.”
I drop my head onto his shoulder, my nose pressing into the stiff fabric.
Tears choke me, a lump in my throat, but I don’t let them fall.
In this world built on lies, greed, and betrayal by my own blood, Desire is the only one who never wore a mask.
My only savior. My worst nightmare, who’s become my anchor in this hell.
“Do you remember what you promised me in the Citadel?” Desire mutters, stroking my hair. I lift my head and nod, not taking my eyes off his dark ones. I promised to accept his darkness. “And do you remember what I promised?”
“To kill anyone who touches me,” I whisper.
“Now I want to kill anyone who even thinks of touching you.”
Desire touches my hair one last time, then pulls away. He moves behind Lucy, yanks her head up by her hair, draws a folding knife from his pocket, and brings the blade to her throat. The steel glints in the dim light.
“No!” she screams, jerking against the handcuffs.
“Who suggested giving Aurora to the killer Diver after he took me out?” His voice is calm.
“Zack …. It was Zack’s plan!”
“Lie. I saw your message, Lucy. You wrote that you’d share your brother’s future wife.”
“It’s … it’s some kind of mistake!”
“Lie again, and I’ll make sure you never speak another word. Last chance, Lucy.”
“Yes! It was me!” she explodes, her face contorted with hatred.
She looks at me as if she wants to burn me to the ground.
“You want to know why Zack never touched you? He couldn’t!
Your father was fucking you, and Zack was sickened by the thought of being second after Daddy!
Even he couldn’t stomach such a filthy mattress. ”
Desire isn’t listening to her venom. He’s looking at me with something like joy in his eyes because he knows the truth none of them ever did. He was my first. Whatever their father did to me, he never got that far. Desire made sure of it.
“Goodbye, Lucy,” Desire says, turning her head away from me.
A short, precise slash of the blade across her throat gives Lucy no time to scream—a bright fountain of blood sprays the wall and gray mattress. Her body convulses several times and goes limp.