Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
-Thalia-
I don’t realize I’m shaking until the ointment cap slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor.
Shock is a strange thing; it doesn’t arrive all at once. It seeps in. First as numbness. Then as static under the skin. Then as the realization that a moment has split your life into before and after.
Before tonight, fear was a memory.
Now it’s an echo.
Xander studies me, not with hunger or anger but confusion, like he’s trying to figure out where he fits in my storm. His hands, raw and bloodied, are steady. Mine aren’t.
I focus on the medical gauze, on the routine of caring for him.
It keeps me from unraveling.
“What’s going on in your head?” he asks.
I want to say nothing, but the truth presses against the back of my teeth.
“I keep hearing the sound,” I whisper.
“What sound?”
“Your fists…” My throat tightens. “Hitting him.”
His jaw flexes. I realize this moment is not about violence.
It’s about what we almost lost.
The sight of his wounds makes a knot form in my stomach—the cuts are jagged, skin split open, and bruises bloom like dark flowers around his knuckles.
He doesn’t flinch as I work, watching me intently. The room begins to tilt, just slightly, the edges softening like someone smeared Vaseline across reality. My brain starts detaching, searching for the exit.
I’ve been here before.
Not here with Xander.
But here in my mind.
Dissociation creeps up like fog, slow and silent. My focus narrows to absurd details. The chipped ceramic mug on the coffee table. The frayed thread on the couch cushion. The ticking of the wall clock, even though it hasn’t worked in months.
Xander shifts closer, lowering his head just enough to meet my downcast eyes.
“Thalia,” he says gently, voice low and steady. “Stay with me.”
It’s not a command.
It’s an invitation.
I match my breathing to his, inhaling when he inhales, exhaling when he does.
The fog retreats. Not fully. But enough.
“I’m here,” I whisper.
His relief is so raw I feel it in my bones.
His eyes are intense and vulnerable, as though I’m the only thing keeping him grounded in this reality. “You shouldn’t have come out,” he murmurs, his voice low and laced with a mixture of concern and guilt, a reminder of the risks I put myself through.
“And you shouldn’t have gone that far,” I respond softly but firmly, meeting his gaze. “We’re even now.” For a split second, Damian’s face flashes in my memory, that smug, unbothered expression he wore whenever he took something from me simply because he could.
The memory hits like cold water.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force it away, but the past doesn’t need permission to reappear. Damian didn’t just violate my body; he rewired my instincts.
Fight.
Freeze.
Comply.
My lungs misfire.
“Hey. Come back,” he pleads.
I swallow hard.
“I hate that he can still reach me, even when he’s nowhere near me,” I admit.
“I was ready to kill him.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “I didn’t care about anything except getting him away from you. I didn’t care who saw. I didn’t care what happened to me.”
He runs a hand through his hair, leaving a streak of dried blood across his temple.
“That scares me,” he confesses.
I’ve seen Xander angry before—sharp, protective, territorial.
But this is different.
This is vulnerable.
“I don’t want to be someone who loses control,” he murmurs.
“I didn’t lose control of you,” I whisper back.
His eyes lock to mine, something unspoken passing between us.
“You grounded me.”
“I know.” My heart races at the thought as I wrap the gauze carefully around his injuries to secure them. “That’s why I had to stop you.”
He leans back against the couch, scrubbing his uninjured hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away the memories of the violence.
“I don’t regret it, Thalia. Not one punch. But if I’d killed him, if I’d lost you to prison instead of him…” His voice cracks, filled with a vulnerability that terrifies me, revealing the depth of his feelings. “That scares me.”
Xander’s throat works around a swallow, and I can see the adrenaline leaving him, the crash hitting hard. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the bandages I wrapped around his hands.
“I didn’t even feel the hits when they landed.
Not until now.” He shakes his head, jaw tight.
“All I could think about was you and the suffering he forced upon you. I wasn’t thinking about consequences.
Or witnesses. Or the fact that I’d ruin everything we finally have.
” When he looks up, there’s something raw in his eyes.
“I wasn’t fighting him. I was destroying him. ”
“You’re here. I’m here. That’s all that matters tonight,” I assure him, hoping to ease the weight of his fears. But my brain hasn’t caught up with my words.
The lamplight feels too bright. Every sound is sharp and distant at the same time, like I’m underwater and wired with electricity. I touch the couch cushion beside me just to feel texture, something real. The fabric is coarse beneath my fingertips.
Grounding.
One thing after another.
Couch. Xander’s breath. The faint hum of the refrigerator.
Focus, Thalia. You’re here.
A soft brush against my knee brings me back. Xander isn’t touching me, not fully, just letting his knuckles rest near my skin. A silent offer, not a demand. The difference shouldn’t make tears build in my throat, but it does.
In this heavy silence, we don’t utter Damian’s name again.
Instead, Xander pulls me close, wrapping his arms around me, burying his face in my hair as if trying to absorb my presence, solid and real.
His arms tighten around me, but it’s not a cage; it’s a shield.
The scent of him pulls me back into my body. Cedar, rain, and adrenaline.
My cheek presses against his chest, and I feel the uneven rhythm of his heartbeat, like his emotions are punching their way out.
“Thalia,” he murmurs.
Just my name.
But it lands like a vow.
I tilt my head up. He’s watching me like he’s memorizing my face, not with hunger but reverence. As if I’m something precious, not something broken.
Heat moves between us. Slow, not rushed, built from everything unsaid.
The world outside still feels dangerous and full of uncertainty, but in this moment, wrapped in his embrace, sheltered from the chaos, I allow myself to breathe, letting the tension melt away, if only for tonight.
My muscles still twitch with leftover panic, as if my body can’t decide whether it’s finally safe or seconds away from shattering again.
The room is quiet, but my mind echoes like a cavern—Damian’s laugh, the roar of fists connecting with flesh, the shock of seeing Xander lose control for me.
All of it loops in fragments like broken film.
I should be terrified of what Xander did.
I should be terrified of what I wanted him to do.
Instead, I’m terrified of how safe I felt.
I press my forehead to his sternum, breathing in the scent of him. The steady beat of his heart anchors me. I count the rhythm like steps, like instructions. Inhale, exhale, stay.
“You’re safe,” he whispers into my hair, even though I didn’t say anything.
But that’s how he is. He hears the words I don’t speak.
I bury my fingers in his shirt and hold on.
I don’t know how to explain the relief of being defended, of knowing someone would bleed before letting me be taken again.
Xander isn’t my shield; he’s my fury. My protection. My proof that I am no longer alone.
The night is still heavy, my body humming with everything that just happened outside.
My mind keeps replaying Damian’s bloody grin, the way Xander’s fists slammed into him.
I should be shaking. I should be falling apart.
But when Xander looks at me, eyes dark and storming, my pulse spikes for a different reason.
Not from fear.
From choice.
There is a difference between being forced and choosing.
When Xander pauses and looks back at me, waiting, something inside me settles.
He won’t move until I do.
That power is mine.
The word shouldn’t affect me like this, shouldn’t ignite heat and fear in the same breath.
I swear I can still taste panic in the back of my throat from earlier. He doesn’t touch me yet. He lets anticipation do the touching.
“You don’t know what it did to me, seeing him. Thinking he could take you again. I need to erase him from your body. From your mind. Will you let me?”
“Yes,” I whisper, breath catching. “Please.”
That’s all he needs.
Clothes come off fast, tossed across the apartment as we move from the living room to the bedroom.
His belt slides free, and my wrists are bound to the headboard before I can catch another breath.
The leather digs just enough to remind me I’ve given up control, and it sends shivers down my spine.
He kneels between my thighs, his calloused hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise, his mouth trailing heat and teeth down my stomach.
When his tongue slides over my clit, I arch against the restraints, already trembling.
“Mine,” he growls against me. “Say it.”
“Yours,” I gasp, again and again, as he pushes me closer. But he doesn’t let me fall over the edge. He pulls back, chest rising and falling like he’s barely in control himself.
His cock presses at my entrance, thick and hard, but he pauses, eyes locked on mine.
“Color?”
The safe word system. The reminder that I’m not trapped. That this is mine too.
“Green,” I breathe, chest aching with how much I want him.
He slams into me in one brutal thrust, and I cry out, pleasure and pain tangled.
His hand closes around my throat, his other gripping my hip as he pounds into me, relentless.
Every thrust is a brand, burning away the shadows Damian left behind.
I’m undone, writhing, gasping and begging as he wrecks me in the best way.
And when he finally commands, “Come for me, baby,” I shatter, screaming his name, my body giving everything to him. Only then does he let go, burying himself deep, groaning as he spills into me.
The room goes quiet again, our ragged breaths filling the air.
He unties my wrists gently, kissing the raw skin where the leather pressed. My hands fall to the mattress slowly, like they’re relearning gravity. I flex my fingers, feeling the blood rush back, pins and needles prickling my skin. Xander watches every micro-movement like it matters, like I matter.
“Water?” he asks.
I nod.
He moves softly around the room, retrieving a blanket, adjusting the pillows, and handing me the water bottle with both hands like it’s fragile.
Nobody ever cared for me after.
Not like this.
“Thank you,” I whisper, voice small and raw.
“You don’t thank someone for loving you,” he answers.
But I do.
Because I’ve never been loved like this.
The absence of restraint feels strange, too light, too open. Xander watches my expression carefully, searching for a flinch, a recoil, any sign that I’m slipping back into fear. I don’t.
He presses his forehead to mine, breath uneven.
“Say something,” he whispers. I cup the back of his neck, letting my thumb brush his skin.
“I’m safe.” He exhales like those two words save him. His hand cradles my cheek, his eyes softer now, full of the man I trust with everything.
“Mine,” he says again, but this time, it’s not rage. It’s love. And I believe him.