A Shade Darker ✔️

{Chapter Thirty Five}

The Village Of Bad Dreams

July 10th, 2017

Ashley

Keeping Mike in the dark was hard and I found myself staying on my toes, never feeling relaxed or completely at ease. I was always looking over my shoulder, and the dreams were returning.

Dreams of Billie's fangs in my neck, the life being sucked from me and falling limp to the ground. Mike at a distance, never being able to reach me in time, or save me. Sometimes a force field between us, other times shackles keeping him at bay.

With each growing day it had become harder and harder to keep the secrets from him. To lie and tell him that everything was okay when I woke up sweating. I felt like I was betraying him, breaking vows that I had taken and promised him. But what could I do?

Walk up to him and just tell him that "Hey, it's no big deal, but you remember your brother that tried to kill me more than once? Yeah, I kinda made a deal with the court to let him out of his keepings so I could have the sunlight for the garden. And now he at or may not show up one day to try and kill me again". Oh yeah, because that would go over smoothly.

No doubt Mike was a calm, cool, and collected man/ husband at times. A friend even, someone I trusted. But he could also get angry, throw tantrums and destroy things from what Liz has described, and now when he realizes that I've lied and gone behind his back that person I'm almost sure will come to life.

And that side of him was scary.

That side of him was a monster.

And what if I didn't get the chance to tell Mike at all? What if Billie just showed up one day?

"What's the matter with you, child? Are ye sick?" Lucile asks as always from the stove.

I sigh out of my thoughts and watch her rinse her hands with water. She wipes them on her apron and I've concluded that she didn't forget she had asked me a question.

"No, I guess I've just got a lot weighing me down...things you wouldn't understand" Lucile purses her lips, feels my forehead.

"Well, ye havena got the fever...headaches?" She begins probing at my body and I slowly ease away from her fingers and hands.

"Yes, headaches if we're being completely honest. But really, Lucile, I think this is something I just need to handle on my own. I'll know when the time comes what I should do...what I should say...how I'm going to tell him" I mumble, rubbing my hands over my face.

I feel Lucile's presence sit down next to me at one of the stools.

She places a hand on my shoulder and I smile at her briefly. Her eyes are serious, questioning.

"Do ye reckon you're with child then? And you are figuring ways to tell?" I shake my head at her.

"No, it's not that. It's something else. But I swear I'll take care of it...one way or another. I just don't know how yet"

****

I peer out the back doors through the living room where I sat being groomed and caressed almost to sleep by Mike. The sunlight had vanished from the garden, only to be replaced by a small snippet of the moon high above the trees. I had missed the moon, too, I thought.

The top of my breasts were almost all but bulging out of the top of my dress, the binding and staffs in my corset causing them to push up and be held down tightly. It also made them highly visible and tempting to Mike's teeth, and with each feel of his fangs grazing my skin, memories flash in my mind and I shudder once or twice.

"You know what I think about sometimes when I am free of you? When I don't have your company I think of your skin, of that lilac soap you use. And I think about your breasts and your stomach because the skin is so soft and thin...and I think about the future when you will nurse our child at your breast" My heart rate rises a little and I feel the tips of his fangs hook on the neck of my dress where it ends, attempting to pull it away.

"Oh, I agree" A different voice says, one that alarms me and makes me gasping fear, shock and astonishment.

Mike's caress stops, his body is frozen, paralyzed only for a moment before his head lifts to look at the figure standing at the edge of the porch that overlooks the courtyard.

Billie smirks and dread fills me as Mike begins easing his body off of me, stiff with defense.

"Oh no, don't stop on my account. I'll come back later" And he's gone with one jump. Billie and his red, angry eyes vanish into the darkness.

Mike glances at the garden with narrowed eyes, then down at me. He's hurt I can tell as he moves off of me with more quickness than before.

The lust, red cheeks and hard body were gone, and I was to blame.

I sit up, reach out to him.

"Mike, please just-"

"No...do not speak..." His eyes were growing darker and the he appeared so tense and angry was scaring me.

"I was going to tell you-" I start again, his voice booming like a crack of thunder that makes me jump and fall back into the couch.

"I ordered you not to speak!" His jaw ticks and he grabs my arm, squeezing my bicep until I cried out in pain.

I desperately try to pry his fingers away, but his grip is too strong and his eyes were glazed over.

"You have deceived me for the last time, lied and gone without punishment. That must be why you keep doing it" My hair falls in my face as he pulls me off the couch.

When his grip loosens I dart from his hold and run to the fireplace, grabbing the shovel and pointing it at him.

He blinks and stops walking towards me in his tracks.

I blinked back, my grip only tightening. I was aware of the memories flooding back, to my first night here. The night of our wedding as I had tried to protect myself.

"Don't touch me...I'll use this" The delay in him is gone and he rips the shovel from my grasp, leaving my hands stinging.

"Let me go!" Itself a struggle, a fight between the two of us to the ground where he holds me.

I hear the metal buckle of his belt and panic induces itself into my veins.

"You will never lie to me again, you are done being let go of punishment when you do wrong" My cheek I'm sure has rug burn from the carpet and I can't choke out my words.

He lifts my dress still as I struggle and I gasp and scream as I feel the leather of his belt whip against my bare bottom.