Chapter 3
?
I am a monster.
Lukas
“You did not have to pinch my ear,” I mutter as Viktor frees me in a parlor several rooms down from the kitchen where we’ve taken our meals ever since we were kids.
Even though it was once a cold dark place, that kitchen and the family meals we now have in it are what I miss the most when I’m touring. Now that our parents no longer blacken the table with their exalted presence, there’s warmth. Love. Safety.
I cherish our evening meals almost as much as I dreaded them seven years ago while our parents were still alive and using them like business meetings to decide what to do next with their puppet sons.
Something about everyone sitting around a table laughing and talking over one another fills an aching place in my soul. Family dinner is beautiful chaos—and the beauty has doubled since I’ve been gone, leaving me to relearn the warmth all over again.
It’s remarkable.
People are so fluid. Constantly changing. Constantly growing. Constantly…alive.
I love seeing people be people. Embracing who they are without shame or guilt.
Even when who they are is an irritable prick like Viktor right now.
“Whaaat?” I drawl, crossing my arms over my chest. “Quit giving me that look.”
“What look?” he grumbles.
I flick my finger at his face. “That one. It’s all judgy.”
“Forgive my judgy look. I’m just trying to figure out where I went wrong or if it’s our parents’ fault that now two of my brothers have brought women home to treat like pets.”
Scoffing, I splay my fingers over the firebird painted across my chest. “You wound me. Clara isn’t a pet. She’s a…” I wet my lips. Project does me few favors, and toy does me fewer. So I say, “Person.”
“That pause was not comforting,” Viktor grouses.
I scoff. “Not all of us can be writers and know the words they’re trying to think of instantly, Viktor.”
“First of all, you are a writer. Second of all, tell me what’s going on.”
I sigh, forgoing my hubris. “If you must know…” I sink my fingers into my hair. “…I think Clara was being abused.”
Viktor’s expression hardens further, but the judgment leaves it. “How? Have you seen bruises?”
My head shakes. “No, nothing like that, as far as I can tell. But you’re going to think my reason is stupid.”
“Lukas.” Sincerity and care lace themselves into the way Viktor says my name. “You can tell me anything. I think we all know that abuse isn’t something to take lightly, no matter what form it comes in or how it presents itself.”
Well. Fine then. I give him my stupid truth, “It was in her eyes.”
Viktor’s mouth opens to tell me I’m an idiot, but he collects himself and shuts it before covering his face with his hand and deflating. “Lukas…”
“You’ll see it, too, if you look, Viktor.
She’s terrified. She’s not said a word since she got here, to any of us.
She tenses and flinches in response to everything.
She’s perfectly obedient. You saw how she reacted when I snapped my fingers at her.
Immediately on call. Ready to listen. Ready to please.
” You don’t just become that kind of person.
You aren’t just born as a slave to other people.
That happens after you’re broken into pieces.
That happens after you’ve been chained up and shocked whenever you try to fight the constraints.
I hate it.
I hate seeing that pain in her beautiful gem-blue eyes.
I hate it…but I don’t. My fists crack at my sides as I fight the rush pouring through me and mutter, “In other words, she’s exactly my type.”
Viktor grimaces. “What?”
I force myself to take in a breath and ignore the steady hum beneath my skin. It’s wrong, and I know it’s wrong. It’s selfish and self-gratifying.
“Lukas.” Spreading his fingers, Viktor rakes them through his hair, pleading when he says, “Please don’t continue the cycle. You’re better than that. Better than them.”
Better than them.
Better than our horrific monstrous parents.
Who I am, actually, just like.
Calmly, I say, “How dare you suggest that I would ever, ever continue our parents’ abuse cycle, Viktor?”
Sticking an index finger in the air, he begins counting our many similarities. “You’re controlling.”
Yep. But isn’t everyone?
Another finger. “You’re unpredictable.”
Sure. That’s just part of my charm.
“You’re sadistic.”
My nails bite into my flesh as I lose my facade of calm. “I do try to curb that one.”
“And, yet, you fail. Often.”
“At least I apologize and own up to it when I go too far. I might not be as princely as Zakery when I tease, but I’m not a monster.”
So long as you ignore the fact that I am, exactly, a monster.
Merciless, Viktor lays my sins out for me to see, and hate.
“Lukas, you prey on attention. We know that. You seek out ownership, just like our parents used to. You thrill in the spotlights. You soak up adoration. And even when you do own up to it, there is still an amount of damage that winds up done when you go too far.” He blows out a breath and cusses.
“You demand loyalty in unhealthy ways. If Clara has been abused, is she here because you’re actually interested in helping her?
Or…are you just trying to become her next master? ”
The idea of being someone’s master sends a wicked sensation hurtling through me, but I fight it.
I fight the desire to own, to control. I fight the monster inside me.
Because I hate it. I hate it. I have to hate it.
Especially right now. Because right now?
An innocent, beautiful woman hangs in the balance of my selfish decisions.
“I can’t believe you’d suggest I’m trying to take advantage of her. ”
“Are you?”
Bitterness swells in my mouth, tasting like iron, and I give up. I can’t convince myself any better than I’ll be able to convince Viktor.
So.
What’s the point of pretending?
I close the foot of space between Viktor and me, looming the few inches I have above him to hiss, “I love that look in her eyes… I’m going to give her everything.
I’m going to make her strong enough to get rid of it.
And then…then I’m going to see if it comes back just for me.
If it does, I’m going to make it mine. And if I ever find out who caused it…
I’m going to crush them into dust for her.
” I rake in a shaking breath. “I was struck the moment I saw her, Viktor. Never before has someone been so capable of awakening this beast in me. I can’t stop thinking about her.
I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful she might become for my sake.
I want to own her—once there’s an actual her to own.
” My eyes narrow. “Do you have a problem with that, big bro?”
Pain trickles into Viktor’s dark eyes, but all he murmurs is, “I worry about you.”
My lip curls. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about her.” I swallow, step back, look away. “Worry about her and…stop me if you know I won’t be able to live with myself afterward.”
“I think you should stop yourself before there’s a chance of that, Lukas.”
Lifting my chin, I turn on my heel and say, “No, thanks. I’m going to do what I always do: make bad decisions first, and hate myself later.”
“I’m here for you,” he says as I start walking back toward the kitchen. “I love you.”
Oh sure. Now he loves me. After telling me how awful and rotten I am.
“Don’t be a sap, Viktor,” I grumble.
“Say it back,” he demands.
The monster within me stills, and I sigh, for the moment tame. “Love you, too.”
?
Clara is so timid, like a little bunny, with a tiny wiggling nose. I love it.
Checking the price on a dress, Clara’s eyes widen, and she oh-so-carefully removes her hand from the fabric. Hesitation—and the awareness that she’s being watched—controls her every frightened motion as she peruses the next article of clothing.
While she’s all but whimpering over the cost of the dresses in here, one of my songs comes on in the store, and a tiny gasp fills her as recognition sparks in her eyes.
Interesting.
This song isn’t even one of my more popular singles, and it barely took three notes for her to clock it.
Fan of mine, are you?
I’m sure that knowledge won’t do anything good for the beast inside me.
I fricken love her. More and more with each moment. She’s a dream. A fantasy. Something small and fragile and precious. Both wanting what’s best for her and wanting this glimmering devotion she’s capable of to be mine clash within me. The war is painful and unending.
Smirking, I wait patiently for her to meander through most of the store, checking prices as though they matter.
Then I wait patiently for her to gather her nerve and turn her big blue doe eyes on me.
Twisting her fingers in front of her midsection, she murmurs, “Things here are really expensive, King.”
My smile stretches as her use of my stage name strokes my already raging ego. Yeah, I know. Viktor’s right about me. In every way.
I need therapy, meds, to stop everything and assess what in the world is wrong with me.
I’m addicted to attention and adulation—probably because I spent my formative years shoved in front of it.
Our parents poured that stuff like a constant IV into my bloodstream, never stopping for a moment to think what it might do to a kid.
To make matters worse, when the public didn’t love me enough?
When I didn’t milk people for attention and praise?
My parents would beat me.
So. Nowadays. If I’m not being worshipped, I get physically unwell, like my body is still waiting for the torture it expects to come in the absence of standing ovations.
“I’m sorry to ask…” She drops her pretty, pretty eyes toward her toes. “…is there somewhere else we can go? Somewhere…less…name brand?”