Chapter 14
All I need
LORIEN
“This is unnecessary,” I say, trying to keep my tone even.
Trying to let Jude know I’m in control, while hiding the hurt bubbling through me. The hurt that’s tearing me apart and makes me want to tear myself to pieces.
He chose the cage.
He chose the fucking cage over sharing my bed.
He chose to hurt himself, and me, over healing, and I hate myself.
“Just talk to me.”
Jude rolls over again and his silence grates. It’s insolent. It’s designed to test me and I cannot afford to lose my temper. It’s flaring, and while it would be so easy to lash out and use force to make Jude comply, it would be a losing strategy.
This isn’t a battle of physical strength.
It’s a battle of wills, and now I have to break him.
“It gives me no pleasure to see you like this,” I say, slowly pacing around the cage. “I don’t enjoy watching you torture yourself like this.”
He scoffs.
My claws dig into my skin, and I resist the urge to snarl.
“This is your choice, Jude. You don’t have to stay in there. You can come out any time you want. You have the control here.”
He stutters a breath and I want nothing more than to reach for him. To soothe him. To tell him he’s safe, and that he’s wanted. That he’s cherished.
That this mistake is mine, and it should be me who bears its consequences.
Soren was right.
I’ve forgotten how this works, and I’ve spent too much time focusing on teaching him how to lose himself in pleasure, trying to forge this connection.
I’d ignored the thorny problem of the blood that runs through him, telling myself that he would learn his place over time and that we had more than enough.
There’s so much for him to learn. So much for him to understand.
He needs to trust me, but that’s the last thing he wants to do right now.
“Shall I have food brought to you?”
Jude stiffens, and I note the change in his breathing.
This has gone further than he thought, and now he’s realizing how deep the water surrounding him is. He’s beginning to understand that he’ll swim for a while and then he’ll tire, and I’m just hoping he’ll let me save him when his head goes under.
“You’re actually going to do this?” he snarls. “You’re going to treat me like a fucking caged animal?”
His head snaps around and the eyes that meet mine are whirlpools of pain and hurt. He’s as wounded as I am, as distraught and adrift. Jude’s struggling with this lesson and the worst of it is that it never needed to happen.
Not if he’d been more willing.
Not if I’d been more willing.
“You chose this route, Jude.” My voice is even, my heart rate is not.
“You locked yourself in here and declared that these bars would keep you safe. In here, you are fed and washed and treated in accordance with what this is. You are safe and secure, but you give me control over you. Completely, Jude. Until you decide that you have had enough. That is your control and your lever.”
“And you expect me to trust you?”
I stop walking and slowly, agonizingly slowly, bend down, lowering myself closer to his level.
“Yes,” I say, my tone impassive despite the tempest raging through me. “I expect you to submit. To obey me, and my rule. To call me Master and give me what I want.”
He tosses his head and his dark brown hair ruffles.
I want to run my fingers through it, to comfort him, and it would be a terrible mistake. He’d know I’m softening, and it’ll make him fight harder. It’ll drag this out, and he’ll suffer more.
I can’t afford to flex for him. Not like this. Not yet.
“We can talk without the rules, Jude. But you will accept your place and the rules that bind you before you leave this cage. We will not return here again, not like this.”
“Because you’ve decided that?” he asks.
“Yes,” I agree. “Because I have decided that. That is how this works. You trust me to lead, and I trust you to follow.”
He rolls over and I walk to the door.
I hear him whimper, the note of surprise that I’ve left him to stew.
I nod at the attendant as he opens the door and stand frozen with my back turned as he carries in the small plate of food. It clinks as he places it on the marble floor and he scurries back across the floor.
“Fucking unreal,” Jude curses.
“You chose this,” I say, bracing as I turn around.
Jude’s livid. Hurt. Staring at the plate of food in front of him like it’s an offense. His eyes narrow as they lock onto mine, and he’s contemplating murder. He’s debating whether he can fight his way out of this and I wait, needing him to understand that there is only one way forward now.
There is only one way out of this.
For both of us.
He needs to surrender, and then he can be free.
“I’m not eating this,” he says, pushing the plate away.
“Then you will go hungry,” I reply. “And you will stay hungry until you change your mind.”
He grabs the plate and smashes it against the gold bars, raging against his situation.
He screams and roars, pounding the cage as if he could somehow break it.
Jude’s been in there for one night and he’s unraveling fast, losing control as he spirals and fights anything and everything, venting all of his frustration on the bars that contain him.
I don’t interrupt him.
I don’t even try to stop him.
I don’t have to.
All I need to do is walk over and wait. For him to tire. For him to hurt himself badly enough to stop. For him to accept that this is his reality and that there is no escaping it.
He collapses.
He sinks to his knees and hangs his head, resting against the bars, panting as his breathing hitches. He might even be on the verge of tears, and while I’d usually relish them, today they aren’t what I want.
I lower myself again, holding back, keeping the distance between us.
“So this is all there is?” he asks.
“No.”
“This is what you want my life to be? My reality to be?” he stutters.
“No,” I repeat. “This is one version of your reality. One that is far from the worst it could be, Jude. You just need to choose another one. One that lets us move forward, together. Where I lead and you follow. Where you please me, and I please you.”
He scoffs and lifts his head.
“Where you trust me, and I trust you.”
He shakes his head and it breaks my heart. “I can’t trust you, Lorien. Not after this. Not after everything you’ve done.”
There’s hesitation in his tone.
Jude’s breaking. Softly. He’s wavering and he’s looking for a lifeline.
“You can,” I whisper. “Let’s talk it out.”
He shakes his head again, and it’s predictable. “You were going to kill me, Lorien. How do you expect me to trust you after that?”
“I contemplated it, Jude. I’d have been foolish not to. You hold Helena’s magic and that’s more dangerous than I like to admit. But I didn’t act and I won’t. Not unless you try to kill me and leave me no choice, and even then, I would try everything else first.”
“Why?”
His eyes search mine, and he’s looking for deceit. He’s looking for a reason to doubt me. For a reason to avoid doing what he needs to and blaming it on me.
And I won’t give him one.
“Because I don’t want to. Because I value you, and all that you are.
Even when you defy me, even when you infuriate me.
Even when we fight, when we could be pleasing each other instead.
Even though you are Helena and her blood, her magic and her power, and even though you bring more danger than you can imagine to my shores.
I am taken with you, Jude, and no matter what you do, I always will be. ”
Our breathing syncs and our hearts race against each other, both on edge more than either of us would like to admit.
“I want you, and I always will. No matter what you do, what you become. You are mine, and I will do anything to keep you. There are no tides I will not turn, no currents or waters I will not brave. I will have you, Jude, and I will keep you. From now until the day that the ocean claims one of us, and even then, it might not be enough to separate my soul from yours.”
His face floods with hope, and I move a little closer.
“Accept me, as I accept you. Trust me, as I trust you. That is all I ask.”
Jude’s eyebrow arches and his head leans forward.
He’s cracking, whether he wants to or not. His resistance is crumbling and he knows he’s losing this fight. Jude’s mine and he knows it, as I know it, and he just needs to accept it—and that’s what this fight is really about.
He’s scared of what he’s become, of what we’ll become.
And his fear is driving his actions.
“The rules haven’t changed from when you last agreed to them.”
“You didn’t give me a choice,” he complains. “You forced them on me, and I…”
Jude’s mind is spiraling as he realizes that they’re not as terrible as he wants to believe they are.
As his ridiculous human notions tell him they are.
He’s fighting with himself and his confusion is written all over his face as he struggles to distinguish between what’s right and wrong, between what’s pleasurable and what isn’t.
This has been more for him than I thought, and I should have been kinder.
Slower. I should have explained more and taken more care.
Soren was right and this has been unfair on him, and I will not make this mistake again.
I will not let these waters threaten what we are again, nor will I allow them to do this to the person who’s become the thing I care about more than anything else.
Jude is many things: a threat, a problem, a human who should be beneath me. He’s belligerent, stubborn, na?ve, and unsure of himself.
But he is mine, and he is the only thing I want.
And he is the only person who soothes my soul. Who calms me and comforts me, who lights my darkness and shines a light on my failings. Who can overrule me without saying a single word or turn me with one single look.
Even now, even when the power difference between us has never been clearer, he’s shown me all the errors I’ve made.
He’s more precious than he knows, and I cannot let him slip through my fingers.
“You can end this now, Jude,” I whisper. “This ends the moment you accept what we are.”
His head leans forward, and I bring my forehead dangerously close to his. Our gazes meet, and we’re both pleading with each other. I need him to follow and he needs me to show him how to obey, to be strong enough to lead and sure enough to be safe.
“Accept my rules,” I breathe against him.
“What if I can’t?” he says. “What if I make a mistake?”
“Then we will fix it.”
“What if I can’t control… whatever this thing… I don’t even know what it is, Lorien? I didn’t even know Helena was anything other than my aunt, that there was this world… I can’t…”
I grab his hair and pull his head against me, nuzzling his face with mine. He moans softly and it takes every ounce of resolve I have not to groan.
“You can, and we will find a way. Together. If I try. If you try.”
I stroke his hair gently, my touch a stark contrast to the chaos that swirls between us.
Jude’s body is tense, trembling as he fights the war within himself, a battle I can see playing out in the storm of his eyes.
He’s close, so close to surrender, but his human heart clings to its pride and fear, refusing to let go of the anchor that keeps him adrift in the rising tide of our connection.
“I don’t want to lose myself,” he whispers, his voice cracking.
“You won’t,” I murmur, tilting his head up so his gaze meets mine. “You’ll find yourself, Jude. I’ll make sure of it.”
His breathing is shallow and a blaze of heat radiates from him, the strain of his resolve still crumbling. Slowly, painfully, he lifts his hand, pressing his palm to my chest, just above my heart. His touch is hesitant, uncertain, but it’s there.
“You won’t hurt me?” he asks, his voice barely audible.
“I will, as you will hurt me. We’ll be the only people who can truly wound the other, and the pain we cause each other will be agony.
But that is love, Jude. That is intimacy.
It is terrifying and tremendous; it is brutal and it is beautiful.
It is more powerful than any force of nature and even the ocean and its depths cannot compare to it, and that is what we will have.
It is what we have. It is why we’re fighting, and why you are afraid. ”
For a moment, neither of us moves. The air between us is heavy, charged, and when he finally nods, it’s a small, fragile motion. But it’s a start.
I lean in, brushing my lips against his in a kiss so soft it feels like a promise.
His breath hitches, and then he leans into me, his mouth opening slightly as he lets me take the lead.
The kiss deepens, slow and deliberate, and I pour every ounce of my restraint, my desire, and my devotion into it.
When I pull back, his eyes are glassy, his lips slightly swollen. He looks up at me with a vulnerability that makes my chest ache.
“Shall we get you out of this fucking awful predicament?”
He presses his lips together and he knows my ask.
He knows what I require of him.
He knows this is his step to take.
And he knows I have done all I can to help him.
“Please, Master.”
We exhale together and I crash my lips onto his, certain that with two little words, he’s finally mine. The storm between us stills, the tide turning in our favor as his surrender fills the space that separates us with something raw and potent.
I unlock the cage with a deliberate slowness, savoring every second of his trust. As the bars swing open, he steps into my arms, his body trembling, and for the first time, I hold him without resistance. Without hesitation or reserve.
Jude is unsteady and unsure, but he’s not holding back.
Not anymore.
And that was all I needed from him.