Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
There was no roar or explosion of anger, no shouted castigation about the dangers of boys, just a long silence and unbroken stare.
“Did you hear me? I let anyone I found in the dark touch me in any way they wanted.” Why wasn’t he storming around the room and threatening me with pain?
Calm, his voice gentle, he said, “I could not be there for you in that way when you were younger. I’m sorry.”
“What?”
Reaching for a serving spoon, he began to fill his plate with the leftover food between us. “If you care about them at all, never let me know their names.”
I didn’t even know their names.
Filling his plate, he said, “I will admit there were errors regarding the mental effects of female containment.” The smile was gone, and his eyes dimmed. “At our last appointment, you claimed you had been trained to fear grown men, thus avoiding the list despite the fact that you clearly had unmet physical needs. I’ve thought over your statement a great deal. Perhaps I should have seduced you once you came of age, instead of allowing you four more years to develop an unhealthy fear of men and a misinformed obsession with the fog.”
I had been trying to strike at him, but he had turned the blade and stabbed me straight in the hearts. “How dare you! You may have controlled my environment and watched me grow up, but don’t think you understand my desires at all. You may have mated me against my will, and I might be trapped in your house for now, but I will go into the fog. You can’t stop me forever!”
Still collected, despite my open hostility, he gently offered, “I do know you. Your favorite color is pink, a hard color to come by at the academy and the reason you stole that particular geode off my shelf when we first met. I know you will take any sweets offered to you by humans when you think no one is looking. You hum when you’re bored and manipulate your test scores for amusement. I know you lean to the left before you lunge and leave your side open every time you parry. I know you are deeply devoted to your sisters. Brave enough to confront me about the terms of their keeping. You think we keep the females stressed by forcing them to accommodate male training schedules and clothing standards. It’s never that I didn’t want you to embrace your feminine nature. It’s that my self-control extended only so far.”
His gaze grew starved, but not for the food on his plate. “Your presence has a power over me that you cannot imagine. The number of times I almost dragged you into the shadows to steal a kiss.... It was better for both of us if you were outfitted in a minimally appealing manner. And I know that, statistically, at least ten other males—both children and adults—at the academy are stalking their mate through her formative years. Protocols are in place to reduce the potential for incidents. Contrary to what you believe, I do not enjoy hanging recruits. You are lucky nothing happened when you experimented in the dark. Unlike you, I have seen the damage an inexperienced male can inflict, even when he is well-meaning, upon a girl. Not to mention males who rape just for the fun of it.”
Squaring my shoulders, I looked him dead in the eye. “Was it fun when you raped me?”
That caught him, stopped him right in his holier-than-thou tracks.
His next words were chosen with care. “I lured you and seduced you. I confused you and used force. You were frightened when I held you down, and cried when my cock worked its way inside a part of your body that had just known great pain. But when you were not resistant or afraid, you felt pleasure and were gloriously responsive. As your fear of me diminishes, you will find that nature knew exactly what it was doing when it created us for one another.”
I had no response to his convenient change of subject. Telling his side of a history that was supposed to… what? Impress me? “You should have chosen someone else.”
But it didn’t work that way. Ultimately, the sad irony was that he had no more choice than I had. The song chose for the male.
Looking at me with adoration, he said, “I am so sorry it could not have been a different way between us.”
I don’t know why I was suddenly so sad, but anger failed to protect me from those words. Vulnerable and sunken in that chair. A little kid being reprimanded by a grown-up. Told that my punishment was for my own good. The dynamic between us was indeed deeply distorted and wrong. “I would have fought you, regardless of when.”