When We Met

CH 21 Rosaline

I flinched as the old nurse dabbed some foul-smelling antiseptic onto the split skin over my cheekbone. The sting made me hiss through gritted teeth, but I refused to make any other sounds of discomfort. Showing weakness was unacceptable - especially in front of potential enemies.

"Sorry 'bout that, dear," the matronly woman said in a soft Southern drawl that reminded me of happier times. "This is gonna sting a bit more, but it'll help prevent any nasty infections from setting in."

I gave her a curt nod, bracing myself as she set about cleaning the rest of the cuts and abrasions littering my face and torso. Each fresh lash of fiery pain served as a bitter reminder of my humiliating defeat at Logan's hands...among other things.

Trying to ignore the flush of mingled shame and arousal pulsing through me, I focused on taking slow, measured breaths. Calling upon the meditation techniques drilled into me since childhood to suppress disruptive mental distractions. But no matter how fervently I attempted to clear my mind, unbidden flashes from our violent clash kept bubbling to the surface.

The feel of Logan's powerful body straining against mine as we grappled, sweat-slicked muscles coiling with lethal grace. The scorching heat of his skin when he pinned me against that unforgiving wall. The molten flare of primal desire smouldering in those pale eyes as his lips brushed the thudding pulse point of my throat...

I squeezed my eyes shut, shuddering hard enough for the nurse to pause her ministrations with a concerned look. Disgust at my body's involuntary reactions raged war with the searing need those recollections stoked low in my belly. This was Logan Walsh - the scion of the notoriously ruthless criminal dynasty responsible for so much suffering and death. My sworn nemesis. Yet even now, I couldn't stamp out the twisted ember of...longing... sparked by our ferocious encounter.

What was wrong with me? This insidious lapse of control, this wild maelstrom of conflicting impulses and urges...it flew directly in the face of everything I had been so meticulously trained to uphold. Disciplining my mind, body and spirit to act as indomitable weapons in service to something greater than my own selfish whims and base cravings. Anything less than utter conquest over the self made you weak, vulnerable - a liability.

"Everything alright, hun?" the nurse's gentle voice pulled me from my turbulent reverie. "You looked like you were a million miles away just then."

I considered attempting to lie or deflect, to project that aura of unshakable control and self-possession I'd worked so hard to cultivate over the years. But something in this woman's guileless hazel eyes and grandmotherly mien gave me pause, compelling me to honesty in a way I didn't fully understand.

"I'm...not alright," I admitted in a low rasp. "Not even close."

The words spilled out in a torrent, heedless of caution or propriety as I finally let the full weight of my doubts and shames come pouring out.

"This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it. I was expected to remain a step ahead at all times. Utterly in control of every situation, no matter what depravity or violence was inflicted against me. That's what my training was for - to forge me into an unstoppable force that could weather any storm while striking back twice as hard."

My hands clenched into white-knuckled fists as a shudder of disgust and self-loathing rippled through me.

"But Logan...he broke through every last one of my defences as if they were made of tissue paper. And now all I can think about is how easily he stripped me of my poise and discipline to leave me a shivering, craven mess drunk on battle-lust and darker hunger."

I spat the last part like a poisonous venom, nails biting into my palms hard enough to draw blood as waves of shame and anger crashed over me. The wounds the nurse had been tending grew tacky and forgotten as I let the tidal surge of emotion pour out in a hoarse growl.

"I'm supposed to be better than this. Stronger. Unmovable in the face of such debasement. But he...Logan..has reduced me to something pitiable and disgusting despite my decade of brutal forging. And it makes me want to burn this whole forsaken place to ashes to cauterise the corruption taking root inside me!"

As the last echoes of my tirade faded, I realised I'd clenched my eyes shut again, each ragged breath feeling like shards of glass scraping my throat and lungs raw. When I finally willed my gaze open once more, the nurse regarded me with an inscrutable look - not pity or shock as I might have expected, but something closer to understanding.

"You know, it don't surprise me one lick to hear a girl as capable as yourself feeling all twisted up inside over a boy doing what boys are born to do - weaken even the strongest of spirits."

I bristled at her matter-of-fact tone and twinge of folksy wisdom, tamping down the instinctive urge to snap at her for presuming to understand the depths of my inner turmoil. Before I could muster a biting retort, she set aside her supplies and moved to grasp my hands with aged, calloused fingers that belied surprising strength.

"Listen here, darlin' - I may just be a sweet old nursemaid to you and the rest of these snakes, but I've been around the block enough times to recognise a warrior woman when I see one. And that is what you are through and through. You've just had the misfortune of meetin' your match for the first time in that Walsh boy."

She gave my hands a firm squeeze, inching closer to catch my gaze with her own full of grandfatherly sternness and warmth.

"Don't you go letting his impact on you make you feel less-than or weak. True strength lies in the ability to adapt and overcome any obstacle or disruption to your way of being, not staying stuck in rigid lines. No matter what nastiness these men have planned, they ain't dealt with the likes of you before now."

I wanted to scoff at her naively optimistic words, to dismiss them outright as empty platitudes...but something in the steady conviction blazing in those hazel eyes gave me pause. For reasons I couldn't fully grasp, the battered remnants of my fractured spirit somehow felt...galvanised.

Rising from the table, I met the nurse's look with my own air of grim, newly-kindled determination.

"He doesn't just disrupt my way of being - Logan Walsh unmakes me in his presence. As if everything that forged me into an inviolable weapon is rendered meaningless tinsel to be cast aside on a whim." My jaw clenched as visions of our frenzied grappling flashed behind my eyes once more, though this time coloured by an altogether different emotion.

Purpose.

"No more. If we cross paths again, I refuse to be undone. Logan Walsh and whatever brutal endgame his father has planned will meet the full fury of my apotheosis. Let them witness what lies beyond the meres trappings of warrior training."

Giving the old woman a sombre nod of gratitude, I turned on my heel and stalked from the room with my reforged sense of conviction thrumming through me like a raw solar flare. Behind me, I could hear her call out approvingly:

"That's the spirit, darlin'! Give 'em hell..."

Exiting into the dimly lit corridor, I clenched and unclenched my fists as latent energies coalesced and swirled within. Despite not truly understanding this inexplicable metamorphosis taking shape in my psyche and spirit, one grounding fact rang out like a mantra -

Logan Walsh would not corrupt or unmake me so easily again. When next our paths crossed, there would be no vulnerability to exploit, no weakness to lay bare before his searing onslaught of violence and sinful temptation. I would meet his brutality with a ferocity to Eclipse even his most depraved imaginings of dominance.

And if it took plunging headlong into the crucible of depravity myself to emerge reforged into something truly transcendent and unstoppable, then so be it. This new awakening taking shape within me burned with the intensity of a newborn star. And I would harness its blinding animus to ensure Logan Walsh bore witness to the first flickers of its supernova...

...even if we both ended up being utterly atomised by the cataclysmic event horizon.