A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 69: Selfish

Blade didn't look any different. 

I didn't know why I expected him too, just because he was now possibly engaged, possibly married, possibly whatever with Eliza, I expected him to...I don't know. Seem different. Look different. But he looked as handsome and moody as he did the last time I saw him, and was still barely able to look me in the eye. 

I decided he didn't deserve to make eye contact with me, not when he couldn't be bothered to keep me in the loop of life changing events, so I stewed in silence, torn between demanding to know what the fuck was going on and storming off before I did something I'd regret, like cry or yell at him.

Lexi only made about two sly comments about our moods before she let us run through a few regular moves and holds and then tested my escaping abilities from various ties, including the handcuffs that I had grudgingly practiced on my own.

Which turned out to be a mortifying affair since I'd been home alone doing so, until Katie, Jill, and Mick came through the apartment door and found me sitting on the floor in my pjs, trying to pick the lock on my handcuffs with one of Katie's bobby pins jammed between my teeth because hey, maybe I wouldn't be able to use my hands for whatever reason, and they weren't quite sure what they had been walking in on. Then both Katie and Mick wanted to try because it seemed fun, while Jill very sternly refused to partake.

At least Lexi was impressed by my initiative when I showed her my new party trick.

"Since you're doing so well, I've decided it's time," Lexi said mysteriously, something sinister in her smile, and I did not like it one bit. She turned and headed for her mess of supplies, rifling through her bag before she returned.

"Here, time to level up," Lexi said, slapping something hard into my palm before I'd even really gotten to look at what she had. And when I did, my heart nearly stopped.

Tension crackled through the air, like the silence after a lightning strike, waiting for that deafening boom of thunder.

Expertly made, the wood was gleaming and smooth, the point deadly and precisely sharp. It was the perfect weapon to kill.

My fingers curled around the stake on instinct, but all I wanted to do was throw it far away. Bury it. Set it on fire.

Glancing up at Blade, he had already stumbled back a step, his eyes dead set on it, every line of his body tense, fingers twitching as his hand came up then jerked back down, clenching tight in a fist, a deep inhale making his chest expand, a reminder to us both that it was still possible.

Blade never told me exactly what had happened in the dungeon, had given me the vaguest of descriptions on short panicked breaths, broad strokes of the brush when words were difficult, but his nightmares had been nothing short of traumatic since, as real as if he were still there, still being beaten to an inch of his life and then left to rot.

The infection caused by the stake, deep and progressive as it was, had left its mark; a ragged black circle, small branches breaking off like fractures before giving way to healthy clean flesh and muscle.

It had taken months for him to allow me to go near it, much less touch it, and even accidentally brushing the area had sent him into panic attacks a few times.

But we worked through it.

Whenever he was feeling calm, I'd work my way up to it, slow and steady, making sure he was okay before proceeding, and it was rocky but we made progress; eventually getting to the point where he was comfortable with me not only resting my palm against his ribs to feel his breath, but letting me pepper the mark with kisses, healing the emotional scar of it as the physical had already been healed months before to the best it could.