EUPHORIA

shower

The house was quiet. Still. It didn’t feel like a prison, but Raven couldn’t shake the instinct to be cautious.

She had spent her life being owned, being used. Every place had rules. Every person had expectations. But Damian… he hadn’t made any demands. He had only told her one thing.

Rest.

She didn’t know how.

Her skin felt tight, dirty, stained with the weight of the last sixteen hours. She needed to wash it off.

Moving carefully, she padded down the dimly lit hallway until she found the bathroom. The door was open just a crack, as if left that way on purpose, and inside, steam curled from the running shower.

Had he turned it on for her?

Raven hesitated. Her fingers hovered over the edge of the door, waiting for some invisible force to pull it away from her. Nothing happened.

She stepped inside.

The bathroom was warm, filled with the scent of something clean—soap and pine. A stack of neatly folded towels rested on the counter, but what caught her eye were the clothes beside them.

They weren’t just any clothes. They were his.

A soft, dark shirt. A pair of loose drawstring pants. Too big for her, but intentionally left.

Raven swallowed hard. He wanted her to wear them.

Not in a controlling way. Not in a way that said, You belong to me. But in a way that said, Get used to me.

A test. An offering. A strange kind of comfort.

Slowly, she turned to the mirror, staring at herself. She looked… wrong. Out of place. A ghost of what she used to be.

Shaking the thought away, she peeled off her tattered clothes and stepped into the shower.

The water was hot. Almost too hot. But she didn’t care. It burned away the dirt, the sweat, the blood. It burned away the hands that had grabbed her, the weight of unfamiliar voices, the feeling of being on display for strangers.

She pressed her forehead against the tiled wall and took a slow, shaky breath.

She didn’t cry. She refused to.

Instead, she scrubbed herself raw, washing away everything she could. The soap smelled like him—clean and warm, something subtle and unfamiliar. It clung to her skin as she rinsed off, like an invisible tether tying her to this place.

By the time she turned off the water, her hands had stopped shaking.

She reached for the towel, drying off before hesitantly picking up the clothes he had left. The shirt was soft, worn in, and when she pulled it over her head, the fabric swallowed her whole.

It smelled like him.

It was grounding in a way she didn’t expect.

The pants were too big, but she tied them at the waist, rolling them up at the bottom before stepping barefoot back into the hall.

Damian was waiting.

She froze.

He stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets, eyes sharp as they flickered over her. He was assessing, watching—but not in the way others had. Not with ownership. Just… observation.

His gaze lingered on the clothes. Something unreadable passed over his face before he spoke.

“They fit?”

Raven didn’t know how to answer. She swallowed and nodded once.

Damian’s lips pressed into a thin line, but he didn’t push. Instead, he simply turned, gesturing down the hall.

“There’s food in the kitchen.” A pause. Then, softer, “If you want it.”

He wasn’t forcing her. He was letting her choose.

That, more than anything, unsettled her.

She didn’t trust him. Not yet.

But she was starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t a prisoner here.

And for now… that was enough.