All Chapters of The Awakening : Chapter 11 - Chapter 16

The darkness is my only witness.It wraps around me like a shroud, cold and absolute, pressing against my swollen throat and my cracked ribs and the places inside me that stopped hurting hours ago because they've gone numb. I lie on the straw, filthy, lice-ridden, damp and I listen to my own breathing rattle in and out of lungs that still remember being denied air.His hands.I can still feel them. The weight of his palms. The steadiness of his fingers. The way he squeezed like he was wringing water from stone, methodical, almost bored, as if strangling me was just another task on his daily list.You should have said yes.The words echo in the dark. I hear them in his voice, that low, conversational tone that terrified me more than any scream ever could. Because screaming means feeling. Screaming means losing control. But Kai of the Bloodmoon Clan doesn't lose control.He chooses.Every squeeze of his fingers. Every breath I couldn't take. Every second of agony was a choice he made, d

"How long?" Her voice is quiet. Controlled. The voice of someone who's been practicing this question for weeks and is only now finding the courage to ask."How long what?""How long have you been going down there?" She turns her head just enough that I can see the profile of her face. The sharp line of her jaw. The tension in her cheek. "How long have you been visiting her in the dark while I sleep alone in our bed?"I should lie. I should tell her it's only been a few times. That it doesn't mean anything. That Lia is just a prisoner, just an enemy, just a problem I'm trying to solve.But June knows me. Not all of me, no one knows all of me, but she knows when I'm lying."Since the beginning," I say. "Since the night I locked her in that cell."June's hand drops from the door handle.She turns to face me fully, and I see her clearly for the first time since we left the dungeon. Her eyes are red-rimmed. Her lips are pressed into a thin, bloodless line. And her face, her beautiful, ge

"You want to tell me what happened?" Dorian's voice is low. Careful. The voice he uses when he's trying to coax a confession out of me."No.""Good. Because I don't actually care what happened." He shifts, turning to face me, and I feel the weight of his gaze even though I'm staring straight ahead. "I care about what you're going to do about it.""Nothing.""Nothing." He repeats the word like it tastes bad. "You're going to do nothing. About your wife. About your prisoner. About the fact that you're sitting on the floor of a hallway at midnight like a pup who lost his first fight."I don't answer.Because what is there to say? He's right. I've done nothing. I've been doing nothing for months, reacting, destroying, lashing out at anyone who gets close. There's no strategy here. No plan. Just the slow, inexorable unraveling of a man who never learned how to hold onto anything good.Dorian stands. Walks a few paces away. Then turns back to face me, his arms crossed over his chest."You