My boy kicked me, telling me he knew I was there.
Kloe smiled, the blue of her eyes glistening with tears of delight. She was so amazingly beautiful when she was happy. And I’d given her that. I was the one who had filled her womb with what she craved, what she had once only ever dreamed of.
Crashing my mouth to hers, she moaned into me, the small puff of air flickering across my tongue and making me hunger for her even more.
“I love you,” she whispered against my lips. Her eyes were fixed on mine, the declaration of her words reflected back at me through her gaze. “I love what you do to me, Anderson. What you’ve given me.”
She waited. Like always.
Her soft lips moved with the touch of a gentle smile. “Even now.” She sighed. “Even now, after it all, you still can’t say it, can you?”
Blood filled my heart, making the next beat painful. I knew I loved her. I knew without a single doubt that she was the only thing that allowed my heart to beat. Yet my soul wouldn’t allow it. Even now.
She sucked in a breath, her eyes closing in ecstasy as I drew the tip of the blade between her breasts, slicing her with such delicacy that even the rush of blood to the surface was lazy and serene. “This….” I ran the blade over more skin, observing the fog of pleasure roll across her pretty face. “…This is all I can give you, Kloe.”
My cock slid between her closed thighs and I used the friction to give me the stimulation I needed. She swung in the harness and I lifted her legs around my waist, steadying her to me. Her huge belly pressed against mine, the trickle of blood smearing between our touching skin, but that only added to my excitement.
Kloe was mine in every way. And what she carried in her was mine. For the first time in thirty years, something belonged to me.
“You know I’ll never let you go, don’t you?” I breathed into the softness of her neck, nipping her skin with my teeth until the familiar taste of copper tingled on my tongue.
Her head fell to the side and she huffed. “And you know I’ll never let go. Never.”
She cried out, her eyes snapping open when I drove my cock inside her. Her walls gripped me like a vice, an act to verify her promise, as her legs tightened around my body. “Never,” she repeated as I started to plunge in and out of her with a fury I couldn’t keep up with.
Only when I was inside her, in the very depths of my wife, did I ever feel complete. Her love, her passion - they soaked me from the inside out, and electrified every one of my senses with feelings.
“Harder,” she cried. “Hate me, Anderson. Hate me!”
“Never!” I hissed through the clench of my jaw, my teeth catching the edge of my tongue and making me shudder.
“Yes,” she cried as she bucked her body against me greedily. “I need it. Please.”
Darkness bubbled in her eyes when I crushed her windpipe under my fingers, the frolic of her pulse beneath my palm making my balls jerk in delight.
“Yes!” she spat through the restriction on her voice box. “YES!”
Driving harder into her, a single tear seeped from the corner of her eye.
“My little wolf,” I growled as I slammed harder, shaking her in the ropes.
She winced and wrenched forwards, her face contorting in pain. She loved pain; it brought her to life, fed the need in her for retribution. Helped her to bury her past.
But this was different.
A shock of agony made her jaw drop and her eyes squeezed closed.
“Anderson…”
Her eyes rolled and I pulled out of her, quickly cutting the ropes. She fell into me, a fierce groan turning into a scream of pain as she doubled over. She dropped to her knees, her arms covering her fat belly as another horrific wail broke from her.
“Anderson…”
“Kloe?”
Blood. It was everywhere. Pooling over the concrete and spreading like a river around her, seeping over the pale grey floor and turning the basement into the epitome of hell it had always been.
“No!”
“I…” she choked out as vomit hurled from her, spraying me with the sickly stench. “Please…”
He’d won.
As I looked down at my wife losing consciousness in my arms and my son losing his life before me. I knew. I knew he’d won. After everything.
He’d won.
Even in death.
Seven months earlier
IT WAS DARK WHEN I woke. My body lay heavy against the softness of the mattress, the silky feel of the sheets cocooning me in their heavenly embrace.
Sighing, I languidly stretched my arms above my head.
My brain kicked into gear and yesterday came filtering back in.
“I don’t have any choice, Kloe. I need to end this. To watch the horror roll over his face when I snub out your life before him. To take from him what he always wanted.”
Fear clogged my throat and I shot upright, pressing my hand to my chest in an attempt to settle the vacuum taking my breath.
“It’s okay, you’re safe.”
Anderson’s voice broke through the blackness around me and I turned to him. “Safe? You’re joking, right?”
He chuckled, enraging me further. “Well, yes. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words.”
Ignoring him, I fell out of the bed and stormed across the room. The door refused to budge when I tugged on the handle.
“Let me go, Anderson.”
“You know I can’t do that, Kloe. Especially now you know why you’re here.”
A feral growl tore out of my mouth as I tugged at the door, my futile attempt at freedom angering me further.
“Did you just growl?” Anderson laughed. “Sweet little Kloe is a wolf underneath all that…”
His hand shot out and he grabbed my wrist when I flung my hand towards him. Nothing but darkness cloaked the room but my anger aided me in seeking out shadows.
“That’s not a good idea, little wolf.”
“Fuck you!” I hissed, yanking my arm away from him.
Another chuckle in the dark, but I refused to rise to it.
“So, what?” I seethed. “You’re just going to hold me here again? Repeat history.” I laughed with as much bitterness as I could muster. “That’s a little boring for you, isn’t it? Even if it does tend to run in your family!”
I blinked when a soft light filtered into the room from the overhead light, the dark shade overshadowing the brightness of the bulb. Anderson grinned at me from where he stood beside the light switch. “On the contrary, Kloe. Nothing with you is ever boring. And as far as family tradition goes, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Understand?” I scoffed, exhaustion riding my anger and seeing me drop to the bed. “I’ll never understand you, Anderson. You wanted me to, for so long. I yield, okay? I give in. I failed you. I don’t understand. Any of it.”
He stared at me, the fierceness of his eyes penetrating their way through my tired gaze.
When I thought he was just going to stand and stare at me all night, he sighed. Slipping a key from his trouser pocket, he turned and unlocked the door. “Come.”
My eyes widened at his blunt order. However, before I could retort, he had disappeared through the previously locked door, and the sound of his soft footfalls on the stairs faded the more he descended.
The quiet left behind brought reality to my mind and the sting of pity burned the back of my eyes. Staring at the carpet, silent tears fell down my face, and my heart, hidden under the skin and bone of my broken body, splintered into tiny, unforgiving pieces. Pain ruptured every part of me, the invisible agony devastating my soul into surrender.
He wouldn’t ever leave me in peace. To him, I was his enemy. The one who had taken from him. I had taken his trust, I had taken his hope, and I had taken the love of his father. He was wrong, of course. But I knew he wouldn’t ever see it any other way. His own father had thrown him away like rotting garbage, but had held onto me like a prized possession. Anderson wouldn’t ever se
e the sin and sickness that bound me to his father. He would only ever hear a story that was narrated with lies and false words, the revolting truths never murmured in his ear, or his heart.
“Come on, little wolf!”
His stupid pet name had me clenching my teeth, another growl vibrating in my chest.
Giving in, I slowly made my way down to him. He was in the lounge and he turned to me when I entered. “Sit.”
“You’re not my master, Anderson. Stop ordering me around.”
Rolling his eyes, he huffed. “Please take a seat, Kloe.”
Waiting a moment just to make my point, I finally lowered into the chair opposite him. A coffee table sat between us and I glanced down. Fire caught my breath and singed my lungs.
“It’s time for you to understand.”
Photos and documents littered the black glass table, papers and different objects scattered in any order across the four-foot expanse. A box sat tossed aside, the lid thrown on the floor. A bottle of whisky, half empty, and two crystal glasses finished the ensemble.
“Understand?” I whispered, unable to raise my voice any higher.
His eyes blazed with green fire as he captured my stare. “Understand why. Understand who I really am. Understand who you are. And understand why I have to do this.”
“What… what is this?” I asked, dropping my eyes to the table.
Anderson leaned forward and poured a measure of whisky into each glass. “This…” Emotion flowed through his voice and his words came out raspy and full of defeat. “…This is my story. My life.” Once again his eyes lifted to mine, and he passed me a glass. “And the sanction for your death.”
I PLACED THE FIRST PAPER down in the top left corner of the table. “My birth certificate. The only thing I have of Judd Asher.”
“Where did you get it?”
She stared at the certificate, avoiding my eyes, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Her beautiful face captured me, the softness of her serene blue eyes held me hostage, and the way her bottom lip disappeared behind her top teeth when she sucked on it ruthlessly made my cock hard.
Throughout my life I had fought for everything. To breathe, to stop the pain, to have hope. But this, Kloe, was my biggest fight yet. She ruled the battle I had with myself daily. She stabbed my heart over and over with her compassion and her gentleness. But I had only one choice. I had to ruin her. It was the only way for me to finally move forward.
“Oh, it’s not the original, unfortunately. It’s a copy.”
Then placing the next paper down next to the certificate, I watched the sadness seep into her pretty eyes. “A newspaper clipping about my disappearance.”
She swallowed but nodded slowly, still her gaze anywhere but on me.
And then I placed another clipping down at the very right-hand edge of the table, leaving a long gap between both articles. “And a random newspaper piece when I was found in Hank and Mary’s basement.”
Kloe took a breath and then a large mouthful of the whisky, her gulp loud in the quiet room. Slowly she nodded again. “And the in-between?”
Rolling my eyes dramatically, I tutted. “You of all people should know there is no evidence of an in-between. I have nothing, only memories. Horrific and bloody memories to fill that gap, Kloe.”
Her eyes finally snapped to mine. “Anderson…”
“But,” I held a finger up to shush her, “I needed to fill that gap with something other than random and broken memories, Kloe. That nothing would forever haunt me, choke me, chew up my mind with all the lies and cruel thoughts that never leave.”
She lifted her hand, leaving it stuttering in the air between us before she sighed and lowered it back to her lap. I had to gulp back the need to take her offered hand. But her touch wouldn’t make this any easier. Far from it.
“So,” I continued as I poured us more alcohol, “I started to dig into my past to find anything, any hope that I had once been a normal little boy. With a family who loved me. Maybe a big hairy dog that would have been my best friend. Hell, even maybe a sister who I could hunt out. Anything. Any tiny - little - thing.” Taking another gulp of whisky, I tipped my head and watched her. “Do you know what I found?”
Eagerness took root in her expression. Her lips parted to accommodate a small suck of air, her excitement to hear my discovery bright in her eyes. “What did you find?”
I scoffed, tipping back more alcohol. “Nothing.”
The excitement in her gaze vanished, and in its place a shimmer of water blurred her eyes. “I…”
“Nothing. I was wiped from the earth so easily, Kloe. No one cared that Judd Asher had just vanished. He died that day. My life just… suddenly hadn’t been. No one mourned me. No one bothered to look too hard. Judd Asher melted into the background, and the nothing took him.”
She downed her drink and picked up the bottle that sat on the table, filling her glass to the top.
“So, I needed something, anything, to fill that gap.” Her eyes snapped back to mine again. “And that’s where you came in.”
“Me?”
“Mmm. If I couldn’t fill it with my life, then maybe I could fill it with yours. I needed to fill that gaping chasm with anything, just to make my existence real. To know that life still went on while mine stopped.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice was quiet, her confusion evident in her narrow eyes.
“The world could have blown up. Aliens could have taken every living person on this cruel fucking planet, and I wouldn’t have had a clue while I rotted away in there. Twenty years is a long time, Kloe. So long that you begin to think that maybe the nothing took over everything else.” Another drink. “And maybe if I filled that nothing with your life, then maybe mine wasn’t as unimportant to the world. That my existence had a meaning after all.”
I could see she still didn’t comprehend what I was saying. Maybe it didn’t make sense for me to fill the gap in my life with someone else’s, but to me it made perfect sense. A story to scribe on the blank pages of twenty-one years. Lyrics to accompany the piece of music that didn’t otherwise flow fluidly from the orchestra. A life to fill a life.
Pushing my birth certificate slightly to the right, I placed hers down before mine.
“Is that my birth certificate?”
“It is,” I answered without glancing at her. “You were born two years before me so, of course, you go first.”
She sat, stunned into silence, as she watched me place the next paper down at the side of Judd’s disappearance article.
“You were seven when your mother, Josie Rowan, married Brian Smith.”
Pain flickered over her face when she looked at the marriage certificate. I hated it, the sorrow that seeped from her, so quickly lowering my eyes again, I placed the next item down.
“Where did you get that?” Her voice was choked, horror cloaking her soft voice as she started to shake beside me.
“It’s best not to ask that,” I answered, giving her a quick grin.
The medical record of Samantha Rowan mocked us both. Mocked her lies and her childhood.
“You were such a sweet little thing,” I murmured as I flipped open the file. “I couldn’t quite push myself to read it. Although I admit I’ve had it a while. But when you told me what my… father,” I spat out the word, making her flinch, “had done to you, I made myself look.”
My eyes slid to hers when I placed the police report down next, and I had to clench my fists together. “Care to tell me which is lying. You, or the report?”
She stiffened, her back slamming ramrod straight as she turned her face away from mine.
She gasped when I grabbed her jaw and forced her to look at me. “Why – did – you – lie?”
Tears rolled over her cheeks, wetting my hands with her suffering as she tried to shake herself from my grip.
“Tell me!”
“Fuck you!” she spat, agony pouring from her with her tears. “Stop it! Stop this!”
�
��Tell me, Kloe.” She wrestled with me, trying to scramble back, but she couldn’t escape, not this time. “Tell me the fucking truth. Stop lying to yourself. Face it!”
“No!” she screamed as her fists fought to connect with any part of me she could.
The evidence of her pain was crippling me, but she needed to face it. She needed to stop hiding from herself. She would never heal if she didn’t cede to the correct memories.
“It was all bullshit, Kloe. All lies you told yourself to stop it from hurting. But hurting is good. It’s the only thing that can help you to accept the truth.”
She pushed at me, desperate to escape what I was forcing her to remember. She’d built so many walls that even now she struggled to knock them down and allow the truth to seep inside. I understood her, I did, and I knew when she bore the real story of her life that it would crush her. Maybe that’s why I was forcing her to see, or maybe I actually wanted to help her, or maybe it was both, but either way, she had to admit to the past.
“Your mother never called you Honey Cup, did she? She never held you and loved you. She never comforted you in the hours you spent alone in that attic. Because she was as bad as him. Wasn’t she? She hurt you as much as he did. Didn’t she? DIDN’T SHE?”
The wail that left her broke something inside me. It was raw and unbridled, the devastation she had locked away, hidden from even herself, spewing from her as I cracked open the part of her mind she had locked away, and compelled her to see the truth.
“Stop!” she cried, shaking her head. Her eyes implored, begged for me to stop. “Please…”
“It’s time to see the real you, Kloe. Time to allow Samantha the truth she deserves.”
I didn’t see it coming. I should have. I should have been prepared for it.
The glass in her hand smashed against my temple. The scent of whisky and blood stung my nostrils. The room swam when her fist followed it, her knuckles hitting my temple in such a way that stars burst behind my eyes.
Chained (Caged Book 2) Page 2