Chapter 37
Symond
Pain came before consciousness. It lived in Symond’s throat, scraping raw with each shallow breath, dust coating his lungs like he’d swallowed the remnants of the explosion.
The mechanical humming penetrated the darkness first—steady, persistent, like the forge bellows after hours of work.
He tried to place it but his mind felt fractured, memories slipping through the cracks.
“H-help—” The word died in a rasp that sent fire lancing through his ribcage. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, tacky and thick. The air tasted of lightning strikes and heated metal—like the forge after adding a potion into the mix, that moment when magic and matter collided.
His eyelids peeled apart, then snapped shut.
Blue. Too blue. The color had stabbed straight through his pupils and twisted behind his eyes, leaving ghost-images dancing across the darkness.
Where was he? The rally, the explosion, the screams—all of it felt distant, like something half-remembered from another life.
The platform had collapsed beneath him, he recalled that much. After that, nothing.
“Mmm, look who’s finally awake. I’ve been waiting so... patiently for you to open those pretty eyes.”
The voice coiled around him like familiar poison—honeyed tones barely concealing the venom beneath. Under its casual surface rippled an undertow of threat. His stomach hollowed out, lungs forgetting their purpose as that voice registered in his mind.
No. Not possible.
Eyes still sealed shut, Symond measured each breath, fighting to maintain control.
Just another nightmare, he told himself.
They’d plagued him for years—so realistic he could taste fear on his tongue, so detailed his body responded with genuine terror.
Sometimes the line between nightmare and memory blurred beyond recognition, especially when his sleeping mind excavated the horrors he’d tried to bury.
But this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.
He felt a presence close in, hovering near enough that the air shifted against his skin.
Warm breath ghosted across his neck, lingering there with deliberate intimacy.
Dream logic, he told himself. That’s all this was.
A lie his mind reached for because the alternative—that Gerard was here, that those familiar hands would soon claim him again—was worse.
Until a hand grabbed his jaw, thumb stroking his bottom lip before fingers scratched roughly against his stubble, grip firm enough to bruise.
This wasn’t a dream.
Symond froze at the contact, just as his instincts had taught him to respond under Gerard’s touch. He tried to move his arms and heard the telltale rattle of chains, metal biting into his wrists. They bound his arms behind him, securing him to what felt like a metal pole.
He took a staggering deep breath, his heart hammering so hard it hurt, and forced his eyes open. The blue light wasn’t as blinding now, or perhaps his eyes had adjusted. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the face inches from his own.
Gerard stared back at him, a nightmare made flesh.
The familiar copper hair caught the blue light, his lips curled into that same possessive smirk Symond had never forgotten.
One eye gleamed with predatory satisfaction while the other remained hidden behind a leather patch—something new, something Symond’s mind couldn’t process right now.
Not with Gerard crouched before him, fingers digging into his jaw, already reclaiming ownership.
His body surrendered under Gerard’s hold, it was always easier that way, his body remembered the pattern.
He didn’t try to speak again, didn’t need to be reminded of what speaking costs.
Because of course Gerard had known. He didn’t know how, but he knew choosing to speak, choosing the truth would require correcting. It always did.
Gerard let go of Symond’s jaw and rose, returning to what he was doing.
Symond’s gaze swept the unfamiliar chamber.
A hulking machine that dominated the space, a tangle of copper coils and glass tubes pulsing with electric blue light that cast everything in an eerie glow.
He scanned the walls for an exit. There was no door.
The octagonal room offered windows on every side, each a perfect rectangle of obsidian night, stars cold and distant beyond the glass.
No silhouettes of the city’s signature spires broke the horizon.
He must be somewhere impossibly high, perhaps higher than any conventional building.
Gerard hummed as he adjusted something on the table in front of him.
The sound crawled under Symond’s skin—intimate, casual—like they were back in his quarters at The Institute.
Like he was stepping into Symond’s dorm the way a professor stepped into a classroom.
To instruct. To demonstrate. Symond’s muscles tensed as Gerard’s fingers lingered over each instrument, caressing them with the same dominating touch he’d once used on Symond’s bare skin.
I know who you are now, he reminded himself. And I know who never deserved it.
“Speaking at rallies now?” Gerard clicked his tongue. “Eager to share our long nights with the public?”
Symond swallowed, throat burning with thirst. How long had he been here? Hours? Days? The explosion at the rally felt distant, smothered beneath layers of pain and disorientation. Florence. Violette. They would notice he hadn’t come back.
“Now, now, Symond,” Gerard said gently, mistaking the flicker in his eyes for hope. “You know no one ever intervenes.”
He wasn’t waiting for anyone to come. He learned that years ago.
“Nothing to say?” Gerard’s smile widened, revealing teeth too white, too perfect—the kind that had once grazed Symond’s neck, leaving marks only they could see.
“After all that grandstanding at the rally? You were so eager to tell everyone what happened at The Institute.” Gerard sauntered back over to him, squatting down to meet Symond’s eyes.
“Do you remember when Thorn first gave you to me?” Gerard asked, tucking a blond curl behind Symond’s ear, then slid down to rest at the pulse point of his neck. “You were so defiant then. It took months to teach you the value of silence.”
“Go ahead, Symond.” He leaned closer, lips brushing Symond’s earlobe as he spoke. “What were you going to tell them?”
The scent of Gerard’s cologne—smoky cedar and a hint of iron—filled his nostrils.
Gerard’s thumb traced Symond’s lower lip, pressing just hard enough to part them slightly.
Symond’s body remembered this prelude, how Gerard’s gentleness always preceded violation.
His muscles tensed with anticipatory dread, throat tightening as if already choking on submission.
Instincts told him to look away, to make himself small.
He wouldn’t. He wanted Gerard to see the certainty in his eyes.
“The truth.”
Gerard nearly laughed. He leaned in closer, his breath hot against Symond’s ear, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below.
“The truth is that you’re mine,” he whispered, one hand sliding up Symond’s thigh with familiar possession.
“Every inch of you remembers my touch, doesn’t it?
” His fingers trailed higher, lingering at the junction where leg met torso.
“I suppose I’ll have to remind your body what your mind seems to have forgotten.
But first, I’m going to make sure you understand what speaking costs. ”
Symond held his gaze, even as his muscles betrayed him with an involuntary tremor.
Gerard could do what he wanted.
It wouldn’t change what Symond knew now.