The Queen's Conquer

Chapter 25 : My Devotion

Iterum • [it-ur-um]
Again; afresh; anew.

🖤

~+~

I allow myself the time I need to break down my barriers and build them back up again once we return home for the evening. And the only way I know how to do such a thing—the only way I know best—is by distancing myself. Despite how much I know it breaks my mate's heart, I manage to persuade him into giving me an hour to clean myself up so I can burn away the grime and sweat of my session with Lilith that still sticks to my skin.

Samuel grants me space, even though the urgency to comfort me is written all over his face before I part ways with him in the foyer. But I tell him that I'll be ok—that I just want a moment to collect myself after the day I've had.

The last glance I catch while walking up the curved staircase is the image of him walking defeatedly off towards his study, running a weary hand through his dark hair. I know how much it must've killed him to hear me say those words: that I would rather be alone to endure the things Max said to me—what he said about my mate and my friends. But even with a bond tying our souls together, certain pieces of my emotional wreckage need to be handled on my own time.

It's how I survived through my childhood, by relying on no one to pull me out of this kind of hell but myself. And then Max came along, like a bright light I never saw until I fully opened my eyes. But now that light is dimming and blackening, as though it's growing further from view the longer I stare at it.

I continue to tell myself it's not his fault that we wound up in such a mess, but there's only so much of my life that I'm able to control. This is fate though; this is the very thing that would've inevitably ended up happening no matter how much we try to change it.

I remind myself of this as I boil any decaying pieces of skin off of my still-sore body under the hot water of the shower. I don't rush the hurting and the healing, I only permit it to crack me open and close me up. A cycle I'm accustomed to.

A half hour of this seems to be enough in order to compose myself again. But then I find myself soaking in the steamy aftermath against the tiled floor of the shower, naked and numb. In the end, it takes a while until I finally decide to dry off and get dressed, slipping on a comfortable pair of my mate's sweats and a tight long-sleeve in our shared closet.

After brushing through the tangles of my long, wet hair, I return to the first floor and drift down that familiar hallway before knocking three times on one of the study's closed doors.

"Come in," Samuel says through their thickness.

I swing open the large piece of wood and find my mate staring at a laptop's glowing screen, forefinger over his lips as though he's genuinely concentrating on whatever work has his dark eyebrows scrunching together. But I read the uneasiness and worry concealed behind his features—as though even this distraction isn't good enough for him.

I don't make a move to enter quite yet, relishing this picture of him from the doorway for another moment before his attention fixates on mine. He leans back in his large, leather seat, his blue irises scanning over me carefully. The warm lamps and dim ceiling fixtures keep the space lit but shadowy all at once, faintly illuminating that wall of bookshelves I admire so much and the rest of the minimum decor in here.

Neither of us says a word as I finally close the door behind me, walking over to one side of his rich, mahogany desk.

I bet my swollen, red eyes give away everything he needs to know about my shower ordeal, but he doesn't mention the details once they're within view. He only shuts his computer and pushes his chair back a foot, gently taking my hand to bring me between his spread legs. His fingers find the sides of my thighs, drawing circles over top of the material of his sweatpants.