CHAPTER 07
THE NOCTURNE
POV: Elodie Fray
Location: The West Wing Corridor -> The Music Room
Sensory: The cold brass of the key, the smell of lemon polish and old felt, the vibration of strings through wood.
Mood: Trance & Arousal.
I don't walk to the music room. I flee toward it.
My ballet flats slap against the marble floor, a frantic rhythm that echoes the chaotic hammering of my heart. The small brass key cuts into the palm of my hand—the same hand Alaric marked with his teeth—but I squeeze it tighter, needing the sharp bite of the metal to anchor me to reality.
One hour. He gave me sixty minutes. But he also gave me a warning. Play structure. Do not play chaos.
I reach the double oak doors. My breath is coming in short, ragged gasps, not from the exertion of the run, but from the sheer, crushing weight of anticipation.
It has been twenty-four days. Twenty-four days since I touched ivory.
Twenty-four days since I felt the vibration of a string traveling up my arms and settling in my chest.
For a musician, silence isn't just the absence of sound. It is the absence of oxygen.
I fumble the key into the lock. It turns with a heavy, satisfying thunk. I push the doors open and slip inside, closing them instantly behind me. I lean back against the wood, closing my eyes, inhaling deep.
The air here is different. It doesn't smell like the clinic. It smells of dust, velvet, rosin, and the sharp, chemical scent of lemon wood polish. It smells like a sanctuary. I push off the door and walk toward the platform.
The Steinway Model D sits there like a sleeping black beast. It is massive, nine feet of polished ebony reflecting the grey light from the tall windows.
It is the exact twin of the instrument my father sold, the instrument I spent my childhood weeping over, bleeding over, hating, and loving with a toxicity that rivals my relationship with Alaric.
I approach it with reverence. I sit on the leather bench. It groans softly under my weight. I reach out and stroke the fallboard. The lacquer is cool, smooth like glass. With a trembling hand, I insert the brass key into the lock on the lid. Click. I lift the lid.
The keys grin up at me. Eighty-eight stark black and white teeth. Hello, old friend. Hello, old enemy.
I look up at the corner of the room. A small red light blinks on the security camera mounted near the ceiling. He is watching. Play for me, he said.
I wipe my sweating palms on the grey wool of my dress. Structure. He wants structure.
I position my hands. My fingers feel stiff, foreign. The "withdrawal tremor" is there, a subtle vibration in my ring finger. I take a breath. I begin.
Hanon. The Virtuoso Pianist. Exercise No. 1. It is the most basic, repetitive, mechanical exercise in existence. It is the musical equivalent of scrubbing a floor. C-E-F-G-A-G-F-E...
The sound fills the room, bright and percussive. The acoustics are incredible—warm, rich, forgiving. I play the exercise up the scale. Then down. I play it again. Faster. And again.
My muscles begin to remember. The stiffness melts away, replaced by the fluid, oiled precision that took me twenty years to build. My shoulders drop. My jaw unclenchs. The world outside—the asylum, the locked doors, the bite mark—begins to fade.
I play scales. C Major. A Minor. D Harmonic Minor. I play arpeggios. I play chords.
It is safe. It is boring. It is exactly what he asked for. But it is not enough.
The hunger inside me, the starving, clawing thing that Alaric woke up during our therapy session, begins to rattle its cage. He knows, the voice in my head whispers. He knows you wanted to destroy your father. He knows you aren't a good girl.
I look at the camera again. The red light is unblinking. Is he bored? Is he sitting in his office, swirling a glass of scotch, checking his watch? Play for me.
My hands shift on the keys. Without my permission, without a conscious thought, the melody changes. The mechanical drilling of Hanon dissolves. My left hand finds a low, ominous octave. C Sharp. My right hand finds the sorrow.
Chopin. Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor.
It is a piece that drips with tragedy. It starts slow, a weeping melody that feels like rain sliding down glass. I shouldn't play it. It’s emotional. It’s heavy. But I can't stop.
The music takes me. I close my eyes. I am not in Ward 13 anymore.
I am nowhere. I am the music. I press harder.
The chords swell. The Lento section gives way to the Appassionato.
I pour everything into the keys. The betrayal of my parents.
The terror of the woods. The humiliation of the exam table.
The confusing, twisting heat of Alaric’s body in the bed.
I play the confusion. I play the rage. My fingers fly across the keys, faster, harder. I am attacking the instrument. I am punishing it. The climax of the piece approaches—the scales that run up and down the keyboard like a scream.
I hit the keys with violence. Crash. Boom. I am panting. Sweat trickles down my spine. I am lost in the chaos. I am spiraling, just like I did at the Gala. I am destroying the structure. And it feels glorious.
I raise my hands for the final, thunderous chord—
"I said structure."
The voice is right beside my ear. I didn't hear the door open. I didn't hear footsteps. The music drowned out the predator.
I gasp, my hands freezing in mid-air, inches above the keys.
I snap my eyes open. Alaric is standing next to the bench.
He is not looking at the camera. He is looking at my hands.
His face is a mask of terrifying calm, but his eyes.
.. his eyes are burning with a silver fire that makes the air in the room feel thin.
"You disobeyed," he whispers.
My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird. "I... I got lost. I didn't mean to."
"You played chaos," he says, his voice dropping to a low growl. "You played emotion. You poured your bleeding heart all over my floor."
He reaches out. I flinch, pulling my hands back to my chest to protect them. He's going to crush them. He promised. But he doesn't grab my hands. He grabs my throat.
It’s not a choke. It’s a grip. His large hand wraps around the column of my neck, his thumb pressing against my windpipe, tilting my head back.
He pushes me. I slide backward on the leather bench until my back hits the edge of the keyboard.
Disharmony. My back presses down on the keys, creating a jarring, ugly sound—a discordant crash of notes that echoes through the room.
"You want to play?" Alaric hisses, leaning over me, his body caging mine against the piano. "You want to make noise?"
"Alaric, please," I beg, my hands clutching at his wrist. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
"No," he agrees. "You won't."
He steps between my legs. The grey wool dress is hiked up to my thighs.
His knees press against the inside of mine, forcing them apart.
"You used this instrument to scream," he murmurs, his eyes tracking the movement of my pulse under his thumb.
"But you are the instrument, Elodie. And I am the only one who gets to play you. "
He releases my throat and grabs my wrists. He pins them behind me, forcing them down onto the keys. Clang. Clang. The piano screams under the abuse. My chest is heaved upward, offering myself to him.
"You like the adrenaline," he accuses. "I saw you. I watched you on the monitor. You were flushing. You were sweating. You were getting high on your own tragedy."
"No..."
"Yes." He leans down and bites the sensitive cord of muscle where my neck meets my shoulder. I cry out—a sound that is half-pain, half-shock. "You want to feel something?" he murmurs against my skin. "Fine. Let's see if you can keep the rhythm now."
His right hand—the surgeon's hand, the hand that can dissect a life—slides up my leg. He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't ask. His hand goes under the heavy wool of the dress. His palm is hot, rough against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh.
I gasp, trying to close my legs, but he is solid rock between them. "Don't," I whimper. "Alaric, stop. The camera..."
"I turned it off," he says, biting my earlobe. "This performance is private."
His hand moves higher. Over the cotton of my panties.
He cups me. My body jolts. The shock is absolute.
I am wet. The realization humiliates me more than the act itself.
Despite the fear, despite the anger, despite the fact that he is threatening me.
.. my body has responded to the violence of his music.
"So wet," he whispers, his fingers tracing the seam of the cotton. "For a girl who hates me, you certainly know how to welcome me."
"It's a reaction," I sob, twisting my wrists against the keys behind me. "It's biology. It's not..."
"It’s truth," he cuts me off.
He pushes the fabric aside. His fingers find me. He doesn't stroke. He doesn't tease. He enters me. One finger. Deep. Sudden.
I scream. The sound tears out of me, echoing off the high ceilings, mixing with the dying resonance of the piano strings. My head falls back. My hips buck—not away from him, but into him. It’s instinct. It’s madness.
"There," he growls. "There's the note I was looking for."
He begins to move. It isn't making love. It isn't even sex. It is a possession. He moves his hand with the same rhythmic, relentless precision of a metronome. In. Out. In. Out. He finds the bundle of nerves that makes my vision blur and presses against it. Rubs it. Punishes it.
"Structure, Elodie," he commands, his voice harsh in my ear. "Focus on the rhythm. Don't you dare fall apart."
I am unraveling. The sensation is too much. It’s sharp, blinding pleasure mixed with the terror of his grip on my wrists. "Alaric... please..." I don't even know what I'm begging for. For him to stop? For him to never stop?
"Please what?" He adds a second finger. He stretches me. "Please, Sir?" he prompts.
"Please... Alaric..."
"Wrong answer." He withdraws his hand abruptly. The loss is a physical blow. I whimper, my body craving the fullness, the friction.
He grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the silver. He looks deranged. He looks starving. "You don't get the release," he says cruelly. "You played chaos. Chaos doesn't get a climax. Chaos gets controlled."
He pulls his hand away completely. I am trembling, hovering on the edge of a cliff, desperate to fall, but he has snatched the ground away. My breath comes in ragged, broken heaves. My skin feels too tight for my body.
Alaric steps back. He adjusts his cuff. He looks at his hand—my slickness on his fingers. He brings his fingers to his mouth and licks them clean. Slowly. Deliberately. Maintaining eye contact.
It is the dirtiest, most degrading thing I have ever seen. And it sets my blood on fire.
"Go back to the room," he says. His voice is back to being cold. Clinical. The switch has been flipped. "Wash yourself. Put on the black dress. We have a dinner engagement."
I slide off the bench. My legs almost give out. I have to grab the piano lid to steady myself. I look at him, my chest heaving, my lips swollen from where I bit them to keep from screaming.
"You... you stopped," I whisper.
"Of course I stopped," Alaric says, walking to the door. "You haven't earned the finale yet."
He opens the door and holds it for me. "And Elodie?"
I look at him, hate and desire warring in my gut.
"Next time you decide to play Chopin..." he smirks. "Make sure you can handle the crescendo."
I walk past him, my body aching, my soul confused. I leave the Music Room. But the music hasn't stopped. It’s just changed. It’s not a Nocturne anymore. It’s a War Anthem.
I stumble back to the suite. I don't run this time. I can't. My body feels heavy, lush, hypersensitive. The friction of the wool dress against my thighs is torture. Every step reminds me of his fingers. So wet.
I reach the room and lock the door. I go straight to the bathroom. I turn on the shower. Cold water. Freezing water. I stand under the spray, clothes and all.
I gasp as the icy water hits me, trying to shock the heat out of my system. trying to wash away the phantom feeling of his hand. But I can't. I slide down the tiled wall, curling into a ball on the floor of the shower.
I touch myself. I have to. The ache is unbearable. I slide my hand down, trying to replicate what he did. Trying to finish what he started so I can think straight again. But it doesn't work. My touch feels clinical. Empty. It doesn't have the danger. It doesn't have the weight.
I scream in frustration, slamming my fist against the wet tiles. He broke me. He didn't just take my freedom. He took my pleasure. He rewired me so that I only work when he is holding the controls.
I lie there in the freezing water, shivering, unfulfilled, and terrified. because the scariest part isn't that he touched me against my will. The scariest part is that when he stopped... I wanted to beg him to come back.