Eleven Years Ago
GIVING IN TO MY DESIRES
My legs pump below my once-pristine ivory dress through the overhang of the forest out the back of my Halo manor prison.
I’ve been calling it the manor because it’s like no house I’ve ever seen.
Prison is self-explanatory. The rooms are sprawling and sectioned off by walls.
Plus, the porcelain toilet is located in its own area behind a locked door, with a flushing button that whisks away the contents of your bowels without any fuss or horrible smells.
Back home, we would have to shit in a hole.
So to say I’m taking this new life in my stride is an understatement.
Between the extreme fits of crying and bouts of uncontrollable rage, and the odd attempt at escape, I’ve been the perfect wife.
Night has fallen, and I can barely see beyond the tree branches slapping me in the face, but I persevere.
I won’t let my husband catch me. His face as he told me to run was diabolical.
Like he would cuff me and take whatever depraved pleasure from my body he desired.
The clenching of my thighs had told me the thought was not unwelcome.
I’d been corrupted by the sin of lust, and I wasn’t going to apologise for it.
Beyond the reality that he was my enemy, Melek was also one of the most brutally handsome men I’d ever laid eyes on.
It was the ultimate conundrum. Use him like he used me, or be a virgin for the rest of my life in a world that only valued my womb.
It would be the greatest fuck you to never have sex with Melek, however, there was also something so satisfying about seeing him fall under my spell.
Feral. Ravenous. Unyielding. All because of me.
There was power in that. And I was going to take it.
He wasn’t some disgusting old man, handsy with missing teeth, or one of those hollow keepers who’d brought me to Melek, jeering about all the ways they’d let their friends take turns with me.
He wanted me to abstain from him. I saw it in the way Melek stared at me when he didn’t think I was watching out of the corner of my eye.
Lust was present, but also anguish. I, the lowly factory farmer, was the most revered man in Halo’s downfall.
It was laughable. Yet, in those moments, like called to like, my grief akin to something in him.
I loathed to think he had his own woes. He was part of the problem—the hollows.
Scum. Killers. They weren’t meant to show emotion, and Melek barely did.
Except when those dark, unrelenting pupils landed on me and bored holes into my skin.
Stupid. I was stupid for thinking of him as anything other than a murderer.
Hatred and a stirring in my core were all I felt for him.
I still didn’t plan on giving in to him easily.
I wanted him to break. I wanted him to need me with such ferocity that he burnt up from the inside. Only embers remaining.
He’d forced my hand in stabbing him. Solence had trickled from his wound.
However, that’s not what stood out to me.
It was the pure static energy between us.
Wild. Untamed. He brought out a side of me that was always below the surface.
And for the last year, it has been confined in the cage of my sadness.
For so long, I felt lost in this new world. I still do. A year isn’t enough time to come to grips with the atrocities that have befallen my family. Halo isn’t where I want to remain. It’s a necessary evil I must inhabit. For now.
I am further than ever from the thicket of trees that houses the fairies. That knowledge isn’t going to stop me from trying. And at this particular moment, with my heartbeat swimming in my eardrums, my breaths coming thick and fast, and my feet sinking into the ground, I’d never felt more free.
Imagining the tree line and fairies are all around me, guiding me to safety, fills my throat with laughter.
As far as I’ve seen, this is the only nature in all of Halo.
How it serves Melek’s interests is beyond me.
It serves my own, and that’s all that matters.
Since arriving in this place, I’ve spent every day in the soil outside, digging with my bare hands, the labour my only connection to the people I love.
Crack.
Immobilised to the sound of a branch breaking, I throw my head around, squinting, trying to make out any figures in the full moon that peeks through mist and clouds above.
Having the crack alert me wasn’t necessary.
I know he’s following me. My husband hasn’t missed a chance to chase after my many fruitless attempts at escape.
Not the time I took off down the streets of Halo when he’d gone into a shop without me, while Mary and I waited on the sidewalk.
I was the talk of the town after that particular event.
Many a hollow scum had watched Melek running after me, giving the people around us strict instructions not to touch me and let me go until he finally secured me as his prize.
The old man barely broke a sweat, whereas I was dying from lack of oxygen.
Not the time when I’d thought he was sleeping and he’d followed me out the front door in secret. In hindsight, I don’t think he was sleeping because he barely does. He just watches me like a deranged stalker.
Not the time he was at work, and I ran through this exact forest, only for him to meet me at the stone wall at the edge of our property. An apparition of gigantic proportions.
He doesn’t even bother to lock the doors to the outside. It’s like he has some inbuilt tracker for where I am at all times. After my many escapes and having been defeated by the commander at every turn, I stopped trying.
A bruising hand comes around my waist, bringing me against the object of my demise and freedom.
“What happened to not touching me?” I grind the words out.
“Be a good girl for me, and I won’t have to keep manhandling you, wife.” His timbre melts something in me. Good girl. My pussy flutters, waiting for his next allotment of praise. Fuck. I’m done for.
“I will never be your good girl.”
“Never say never.” He releases me, and I stumble out of his hold, gripping onto the trunk of the tree in front of me.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I would never stoop so low.” Liar.
I was already losing the fight against him.
He was consuming my every waking thought.
My grief hadn’t left because it had magically disappeared; it had been replaced with thoughts of him.
Where Melek was when he wasn’t at home. How he licked his spoon while eating ice cream.
How long and thick his hard dick became when he was strutting around our bedroom naked.
Losing myself to him this time last year was unthinkable.
Now, as he stands before me, domineering, glaring at my disheveled dress, my back plastered against the gnarled bark of the tree trunk, all I want to do is let him have me.
Let me have something for myself. Have some pleasure in this waking hellscape I’ve been living in. Give in to sin, to temptation.
He rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt, corded forearms on display, as he takes a step forward like he’s preparing for my decision before I’ve even announced it. The air between us ripples. My heart pounds in agony.
“Stop.” I let the lightness of my voice between us die, floating on the whipping breeze.
“Say it like you mean it, and I will.” Fuck. Melek moves another step closer. “Tell me what you want, wife.” His voice is low and gravelly, travelling down to the tips of my cold, bare toes.
“I—”
He’s so close now our bodies could touch if either of us wanted to, but he keeps an inch between us, his head tilted down. The grey of his eyes are unrecognisable. I swear, the mist clears for a split second, our bodies alight in a glow, the stars themselves spotlighting our destruction.
“I hate you.” This isn’t anything more than two adults meeting each other on a carnal level. Not love. Not family. Just pure sex. Nothing else. Ruination.
A wicked smirk graces his lips. “That’s good. I’m not an easy man to live with.”
“You are, in fact, the worst.” A wayward tendril of onyx hair breezes before my eyes, and he catches it, placing it behind my ear without touching my skin.
Goose bumps alight along my forearms. The glint of the gold snake-circled wedding band catches my attention.
The one on my finger hisses for its match.
My lungs draw in. The aroma of alluring masculine spice and his surly nature only make me need him more. My underwear is a pool of desire. Bringing a solid, exposed forearm up to the trunk next to my face, he leans further in, our noses just wisps apart.
“I am,” he agrees, his warmth and the orange cake we had for dessert washing over my face. Bark pinches my nails as my hands dig into the wood further.
“And I won’t give in.” I scowl, refusing him.
“Good. You should stay away from me. You should tell me to stop.”
If only it were that easy. Melek moves back slightly, assessing me.
“Stay away. You want me to stay away from you?!” When he goes to open his mouth, I shake my head.
I have no intention of him answering that question.
“How am I meant to stay away from you when you sleep with me every night, somehow know the exact whereabouts of my location at all times, and have made me your wife?” I flash him the matching gold band on my right hand.
His response is to sigh, leaning his forehead against mine. At the intimate contact, his grey hollow eyes fixed on my blue, reminding me with a surety what he is, I stiffen.
“I want you willing, wife. But I am not a good man, and I will not be gentle once we fall upon each other.”
“I don’t want you to be gentle,” I admit.
“What do you want?”
“To forget.” My hand goes to rest on solid abs, my long lashes flutter shut, the touch over his clothes a blister to my fingers. “To fuck,” I correct myself, finding bravery in the darkness.