Chapter 20
The drive back to the Menagerie is a blur of rain-streaked glass and the suffocating, electric heat of Rhys’s presence beside me.
He doesn't say a fucking word the whole way, but his hand is clamped onto my thigh, his fingers digging in just enough to remind me that I’m real, that I’m here, and that I belong to him.
The moment we step through the heavy oak doors of his bedroom, the atmosphere shifts.
The air is thick with the scent of sandalwood, old books, and that metallic tang of danger that always follows him.
He doesn't let me walk; he practically hauls me inside, kicking the door shut with a resounding thud that echoes like a gunshot in the silence of the room.
"Right," he growls, his voice like grinding stones. "Let's get this filth off you."
He doesn't waste a second. He strips me with a frantic, possessive energy, his hands shaking slightly—not from fear, but from the sheer intensity of the rage and lust warring inside him.
He rips the torn fabric of my dress away, cursing under his breath when a button pops and flies across the room.
He doesn't care about the clothes; he only cares about the skin beneath.
He carries me into the bathroom, the cold marble floor a sharp contrast to the heat of his chest. After I brush my teeth and tongue, he doesn't just put me in the shower; he slides in behind me, the water scalding, nearly burning my skin, but I don't flinch. I crave the burn. I want it to drown out the memory of Mary’s touch.
Rhys takes a sponge and a harsh, scented soap, and he begins to scrub.
He’s not gentle—not exactly—but it’s a focused, ritualistic kind of care.
He scrubs my arms, my legs, and the places where that bitch tried to use to take the taste of me, his eyes dark and obsessive as he watches the soap foam turn grey with the grime of the cabin.
"Every fucking inch," he mutters, his breath hot against my ear. "I can still smell her on you, Ophelia. It’s fucking disgusting. I’m going to scrub you until you’re raw, until there’s nothing left of her but a memory I can burn away."
He spends an eternity on my wrists, my pussy, and my neck, his touch becoming more fervent, more desperate.
He’s not just cleaning me; he’s reclaiming me.
When he’s satisfied that I’m clean, he turns me around to face him, the water cascading over us both.
He looks at me—really looks at me—his eyes scanning every bruise and scrape with a hunger that borders on psychotic.
"Look at you," he whispers, his hand sliding down to cup my jaw, forcing me to meet his gaze. "My beautiful, ruined little thing. You’re a fucking mess, aren't you?"
He kisses the cuts on my wrists, his tongue licking the raw skin, tasting the salt and the lingering sting. It’s a sickeningly sweet gesture, a mixture of tenderness and absolute madness. I moan, my head falling back against his shoulder, my body finally beginning to unravel.
He doesn't stop there. He leads me back into the bedroom, dripping wet, and throws me onto the black silk sheets. He looms over me, a dark god of obsession, his eyes locked on mine.
"I told you what I was going to do, didn't I?" he asks, his voice a low, dangerous purr.
He doesn't give me time to answer. He descends on me like a predator, his mouth crashing against mine in a kiss that tastes of desperation and ownership. It’s not a gentle kiss; it’s a collision.
He bites my lip, drawing a tiny bead of blood, and I gasp into his mouth, my fingers clawing at his back.
His hands are everywhere, marking me, bruising me, mapping out the territory that is his and his alone.
He grips my hips so hard I know there will be finger-shaped bruises tomorrow, and he doesn't give a fuck.
He wants me to feel him. He wants the pain and the pleasure to blur until I can't tell where I end and he begins.
Then, he is on my clit, licking it, flicking, sucking it. He tastes his time, he traces my pussy and everything and though reclaiming it.
"You're mine," he groans, his voice breaking as he rips his own clothes off, revealing his hard, lean body. "Every fucking cell. Every drop of blood. You don't belong to the ghosts, you don't belong to that cunt in the woods... you belong to me."
He enters me with one brutal, possessive thrust that knocks the breath out of my lungs.
I scream, but he swallows the sound with another kiss, his body slamming against mine with a relentless, rhythmic violence.
It’s not just sex; it’s an exorcism. He’s driving the memory of the cabin out of me, replacing the terror with an overwhelming, suffocating intensity.
He fucks me with a psychotic devotion, his movements hard and merciless, his eyes never leaving mine. He wants to see the moment I break, the moment I completely succumb to him.
"Tell me," he commands, his voice a guttural snarl as he hammers into me. "Tell me whose you are, you gorgeous little brat."
"Yours!" I sob, my voice cracking, my nails digging into his shoulders. "I'm yours, Rhys! Fuck, please... just don't stop!"
He lets out a dark, triumphant laugh, his pace increasing, his thrusts becoming deeper, more desperate. He’s claiming me, marking me from the inside out, ensuring that every nerve ending in my body is screaming his name.
When he finally peaks, it’s a violent release, his body shuddering against mine as he fills me, his forehead pressed against mine, both of us gasping for air in the wreckage of the sheets.
He doesn't pull away. He stays buried inside me, holding me so tight I can feel his heart hammering against my ribs—a frantic, obsessive beat that matches my own.
"There," he whispers, his voice sounding almost peaceful now, though the madness still lingers in the depths of his eyes. "Now you smell like me. Now you taste like me. Now you're home.”
We stay like that for a while, just kissing.
It’s slow now, a desperate, clinging sort of heat that tastes like salt and obsession.
Every time I think he’s had enough, he pulls me back in, his tongue sliding against mine as if he’s trying to swallow my very soul.
I’m completely spent, my limbs feeling like lead, but I can’t get enough of him.
Then, he pulls away. The sudden lack of his heat makes me shiver. I watch him, my eyes heavy, as he stands up and walks across the room to grab his camera. I sit up slowly, completely bare in the dim light. I don't even try to cover myself; there's no point. I'm his.
He walks back toward me, the camera held in his grip like a weapon. He stops at the edge of the bed, his gaze raking over my body with that familiar, psychotic hunger.
"I want to capture this," he murmurs, his voice a low, rough grate. "This exact moment."
I blink, a small, breathless laugh escaping me. "You want to take a fucking picture of me naked, Rhys? Right now?"
He smirks, that dark, arrogant twist of his lips. "Not just naked, Ophelia. Ruined. Marked. Mine. I want to look at this when you're not in the room, to remind myself exactly how you look when you've finally broken for me."
"You're a proper freak, you know that?" I retort, though there's no heat in it. I feel a thrill of excitement shoot through me. I like that he wants to document my descent. I like that he finds the wreckage of me beautiful.
"And you love it, you little brat," he counters, his eyes flashing. "Now, stay still."
I shift, posing for him. I arch my back slightly, letting my hair—a tangled, damp mess of dark strands—spill over my shoulders and across the sheets like ink.
I tilt my head back, exposing the raw, reddened skin of my throat where he’s been marking me.
I feel exposed, vulnerable, and utterly powerful all at once.
Click.
The flash blinds me for a split second. I jump slightly, my breath hitching.
"Let me see," I demand, reaching for the camera.
He lets me look, holding the screen in front of my face.
I stare at the image and feel a surge of something hot and heavy in my gut.
I look... haunting. My skin is pale, contrasted against the deep black of the silk.
My boobs are pushed up slightly by the way I'm leaning, the nipples dark and peaked from the chill and the lingering arousal.
The bruises on my hips and the faint red scratches on my chest look like art—violent, beautiful art.
I look like a fallen angel in a den of sin.
"I actually... I fucking love it," I whisper, leaning my head against his chest.
"Of course you do," he says, kissing the top of my head. "But I have something else for you. Something more permanent than a photo."
He leads me out of the bed, and I follow him, barefoot and naked, feeling the cool air on my skin. He leads me to a corner of the room where several large packages are waiting. He begins to unpack them, and my jaw nearly hits the floor.
Charcoal sticks, professional-grade graphite pencils, thick, high-quality sketchbooks with heavy cream paper, tubes of oil paints in every conceivable shade, stretched canvases of all sizes, and two sturdy wooden easels.
"I thought these would suit you better," he says simply, stepping back to look at the hoard of supplies.
I stare at the gear, then up at him, completely bewildered. "How the fuck do you know I draw? I only did it twice."
Rhys steps closer, his hand sliding around the back of my neck, pulling me flush against him. "Ophelia, love... I know everything about you. Every secret, every fear, every little habit you think you've hidden."
He looks at the art supplies, then back to me, his expression unusually earnest. "I want you to draw.
I want you to put all that darkness, all those screams in your head, onto a canvas.
This is everything you need. And if you run out of a single pencil or a drop of paint, I'll get you more.
I'll buy the whole fucking factory if I have to. "
He leans in, his breath hot against my skin. "It's the first thing you've ever created instead of just surviving."
The words hit me harder than any of his thrusts. For the first time, I feel seen—not just as a toy or a possession, but as something with a voice.
Suddenly, his phone rings, cutting through the silence. He pulls it out and answers. He barely says two words—just a grunt of acknowledgement—before hanging up. He looks at me, his expression neutral, though his eyes are cold.
"Mary Wells is dead," he says.
I freeze, the air leaving my lungs. “Confirmed?”
"Dead. Her body will be grinded to pieces, torn apart limp from limp. I will tear her tongue out of her gaping mouth that she dared to use to touch my Ophelia. I will deposit her head at the end of a spike that told her to attack my Ophelia. I will boil her bones and feed them to the dogs. I will burn her hands that touched my Ophelia to ashes. I will gauge out her eyeballs that dared to look at my Ophelia. I will rip out the vocal cords that dared to threaten my Ophelia. I will skin her alive. I could let you use her head as a footstool if you want. And I will do all that without blinking.” He smiles.
“Oh, how I wish I could have done all this when she was still alive so she would be in such exquisite pain. But I love how Shadow made sure she died screaming.”
I nod slowly. A strange sense of peace washes over me, followed by a flicker of lingering disgust. I think about her hands on me, her voice in my ear, the way she tried to steal the very essence of who I am.
"Good," I mutter, my voice steady. "I won't let that bitch affect me.
I'm yours. No matter how much she tried to taste me or mimic me, it doesn't change a fucking thing.
She couldn't take what we have." I pause, a scowl crossing my face.
"It just fucking sucks that someone else touched me like that. It feels... greasy."
Rhys's grip on me tightens, his fingers digging into my skin. "She's gone, Ophelia. Erased. And I'll spend the rest of the night scrubbing every lingering memory of her off your skin if that's what it takes."
I look at the sketchbooks and the charcoal, a dark idea forming in my mind. "Well," I say, a small, wicked smile playing on my lips. "I think I'll start by drawing all my fucking nightmares."
Rhys lets out a low, dark chuckle. He loves it. He loves the madness in me because it matches the madness in him. He leans down and kisses me, a hard, possessive seal of approval.
Just as we're lost in each other again, a heavy thud echoes from the bedroom door, followed by a low, rumbling chuff. Shadow. The big bastard wants to come in.