Chapter 37 #2
“I let you survive,” he snaps, voice sharp enough to cut. “You were already halfway gone. If I’d told you then, if I’d said his name, it would’ve undone what little you had left.”
“So you let me be the one to resurrect him.”
Silence.
A colder one now.
Not anger. Not grief.
Something tighter.
“I saw him in your head before you ever said a word,” Damien murmurs, stepping toward me. “In the way you twitched when moths hit the light. In the way you paused when the air got too quiet.”
He crouches in front of me.
Not to comfort.
To confess.
“I thought maybe if I fucked you hard enough,” he says slowly, eyes like a storm, “if I kept you too full of me to remember—he wouldn’t come back.”
My throat tightens.
“And when that didn’t work?”
“I decided to kill him.”
It’s said without drama. Without emphasis.
Just truth.
Bare and brutal.
My breath catches.
“You tried.”
His jaw flexes.
“I thought I did.”
And there it is.
The final lie I didn’t know I was carrying.
He never told me that. Not in the chapel. Not when we ran. Not even when River stood right in front of us and said, remember me.
“I tried to burn him,” Damien says. “I thought he was in the room. I thought I sealed it. But I didn’t know he had a second exit. A second face.”
I blink, trying to process that.
“A second face?”
Damien doesn’t answer right away.
Because it’s not literal.
It’s worse.
“He played me,” he admits. “Pretended to be a patient. A boy with catatonia and a burn scar on his shoulder. No speech. No reaction.”
My stomach twists.
“And?”
“I watched him for weeks. I thought maybe he was harmless. But then he smiled.”
The room stills.
“He smiled at you,” Damien says, voice like a blade through velvet. “While you were sleeping. And I knew.”
I can’t breathe.
“And then what?”
He stands.
Turns.
Breathes.
“I waited until lights-out. Followed him into the laundry chute. I had a scalpel. A plan.”
My skin crawls.
“But?”
“He wasn’t there,” Damien says darkly. “Not the one who smiled. Just the boy again. Blank. Empty. Hollow.”
He turns to face me.
“I don’t think he’s real in one body,” Damien says. “I think River splits. Hides pieces of himself in the places you least expect.”
My blood runs cold.
“Like a ghost.”
“Like a virus.”
I stare at him, heart pounding.
“And now?”
He tilts his head.
“Now he’s back,” Damien says. “And you need to remember what he made you forget—before he takes that choice away again.”
His fingers tease my face, gently and I almost break at the soft way he handles me. “Tonight, I don’t want to own you, Raven. I want to love you.” The tears well up and I sob as I feel his lips kiss away the falling tears.
His fingers slide gently down my neck and I feel the tingles rise through my body, small moans slip from lips at the slight touch.
“Damien.” I breathe as his fingers slowly trail down my body. “God, it feels so good "
“Lay back, baby, I am going to make you feel so good.” He whispers against my skin as his hands rap around my thighs gently spreading them wide. “I know, all our memories are fractured but at least this one is real.”
“Damien—I—”
Shhh baby, don’t think, just feel.”
I lay back and his hands wrap around my wrists dragging my arms above my head, he presses his body against mine. “Open up for me, baby.”
I spread my legs wider feeling him spread me with the head of his swollen cock, the pressure hits me in waves. “Oh god.” I gasp.
“Don’t cum yet, I have barely touched you.” He growls. Fuck, you’re always so fucking wet for me.”
He grips my wrists harder until I can barely feeling anything other than the hard pressure of his fingers against my wrist, I feel him slide his hard cock inside of me inch by agonising fucking inch, the gasps tear from my throat. I feel so fucking fuck, I can barely move.
“You take me so well, baby.” He rasps. “You’re fucking gripping me so tight.” His head dips taking my nipple into his hot wet mouth, scraping his teeth along the bud and teasing me with his tongue.
“Fuck, Damien.” I cry out. His tongue twirls around my nipple and I feel him slowly thrusting, my pussy grips him with every slight movement, he slides one hand down the left of my body sliding his hand down thigh and wrapping my leg around his waist. “Fuck.” I cry out.
“That’s right baby, I want you to feel all of me.
” I shake my head the pressure too fucking much.
“God, baby, your pussy was fucking made for my cock. You were made for my cock.” I start rocking against him, desperate to feel more of him as the tingles of pleasure shoot through my body. “Fuck, baby, fuck yourself on my cock.”
The screams slide out of my throat and he presses his lips to my face kissing every inch of skin he can find while his cock thrust deeper massaging that sweet spot that makes me scream, clenching around his cock. “Fuck, that’s it, cum all over my cock.” He breathes against my skin.
He rocks me through the first wave of pleasure my body trembling as I feel a gush of desire slide out of my body, my body trying to bend but fucking stuck tight against him.
His hands move to my throat. “Fuck. You fucking soaked me.” He gasps, adding pressure to my throat, thrusting so fucking hard and deep the pleasure erupts inside of me, my body is still trembling when I hear him roar against my skin feeling the hot sticky desire flow out of him.
“Fuck, Raven, I fucking love you.” My eyes widen. “If you don’t know what’s real—know this. I love you, I’ve always loved you.” He looks at me softly, “It was always you, baby.”
I don’t realise I’m crying at first.
There’s no sound to it. No sob. Just heat sliding down my temples, dampening the pillow beneath my head. My body is still pinned, still humming, still trembling with the aftershock of being taken so completely I can’t tell where I end and Damien begins.
He hasn’t moved.
That’s what scares me.
His weight is still there, heavy and deliberate, his forearm braced beside my head, his other hand wrapped around my throat. Not choking. Not squeezing. Just there. A reminder. A claim. Like he hasn’t finished deciding what to do with me yet.
I swallow.
It hurts.
My throat feels raw. Used. Like every word I never said has been dragged out of me in gasps instead. I can still feel him inside me — not physically, but deeper than that. Like he rewired something. Like the shape of him is carved into places I didn’t know existed.
He tilts his head, watching me like I’m something locked that he finally broke open.
“There you are,” he murmurs.
My breath stutters.
I hate that two words undo me more than everything else he’s done.
“I lost you for a second.” His thumb brushes beneath my eye, catching one of the tears. He studies it on his skin like it fascinates him. “Where did you go?”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Because if I tell him the truth — if I tell him I went somewhere small and white and familiar, somewhere with walls that watched and hands that pretended to be holy — he’ll burn the world again. And I don’t know if I can survive watching him do that.
So I lie.
“I’m here.”
His gaze sharpens instantly. “No,” he says quietly. “You’re not.”
His hand leaves my throat and slides down my chest, over my ribs, my stomach — pressing just hard enough to make me flinch.
“There’s a part of you,” he continues, voice calm, almost gentle, “that still thinks you can disappear from me. That if you go quiet enough, if you go somewhere I can’t reach, you’ll be safe.”
My pulse jumps violently.
He smiles.
“I don’t share.”
My legs are weak. I know because when he shifts his weight and pulls back just enough for air to rush in, my thighs shake uncontrollably, like my body is panicking without his restraint.
He straightens slowly, deliberately, giving me time to feel the loss of his heat. His hands don’t leave me though. They trail up my legs, grounding me, owning me, keeping me right here in the present where he can see me.
“Look at me.”
I don’t.
His fingers tighten at the backs of my thighs.
“Raven.”
My eyes snap up.
There’s something different in his expression now. Not soft but focused. Like he’s made a decision I won’t get a vote in.
“You think tonight was about taking you,” he says. “About fucking you until you stopped shaking.”
My breath comes shallow.
He leans in, close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips.
“This was about reminding you,” he whispers, “that there is nowhere you can go where I won’t follow.”
A sound breaks out of me before I can stop it. Half-whimper, half-laugh. Hysterical. Ugly. Real.
“You’re insane,” I breathe.
He kisses the corner of my mouth.
“I know.”
Then his forehead rests against mine, just for a moment, and his voice drops — low, dangerous, intimate.
“And you still don’t realise what that means.”
Something shifts.
Not him.
Me.
Because beneath the exhaustion, beneath the fear, beneath the ache, there’s something else blooming in my chest. Something traitorous. Something that feels like relief.
Like I don’t have to fight anymore.
Like being caught might be easier than running.
He feels it.
I know he does.
His smile is slow.
“We’re not done,” he tells me.