Forbidden: Tormented

Chapter Two

It was chilling to hear his speak of ending her life so easily. Especially with how gentle he was with her only moments ago. He pulled her closer to the bed. "Even now, after helping me, you don't care, do you?" Eloa finally asked. "It meant nothing."

"Care?" There was amusement in his voice. "No. I don't." He looked back at her. "Last night, when you felt the need to do you angelic duty and enter my home uninvited, I had just washed the blood of a demon from my skin followed by a jerk off session to the visions in my head. No, angel. I don't care." He motioned to the bed they were standing beside. "I could slit your throat, fuck your dead body, and sleep comfortable in your cold blood." He pulled her closer and bent to her ear, breath hot on her skin. "Don't test me."

Her mouth went dry and her heart pounded in her chest.

He pulled her the last few steps and stopped. Holding his hand out, she watched as a length of chain formed. He fastened the end to her shackle and the other to the headboard. "This is the guest room and is now your cage. The length of the chain will give you space to move around." He stepped away from her and she let her breath out as normally as she could. "I don't care right now, but I also don't want to kill you. I might care later, or I might end you. It changes. I told you some things to help keep the latter from happening, but I won't promise that it will work."

He turned on the lamp and walked to the door. His head drooped and he spoke one last time. "I almost wish you hadn't found me, angel." He turned off the overhead light and left the room.

After pulling her wings in, she dropped to the edge of the bed. Damn her. No, damn him. He could have let her go. She didn't doubt for a moment that he meant what he said. But the sadness on his face, the look so out of place with his words, was real. It pulled at her. Then when he spoke of what he could do to her, there was a flatness in his eyes that told her he spoke the truth.

Don't make a sound.

She lay on the bed and curled around a pillow. Her tears were silent.

Valafar stood in the door and watched her back shake. His hands fisted at his side. He told her. No, he told her to be quiet. And she was. He shouldn't be standing here watching her. But it was his house.

She was uninvited.

~

Sleep didn't come easy for Eloa that night. Not that she expected it to. Or wanted it to.

Fear of making some sound in her sleep, especially with the nightmares she was certain were coming, kept her eyes from closing most of the night. And while she didn't fear death, she did the painful way he all but promised her.

But despite her efforts and the lack of sleep from before, exhaustion eventually dragged her under.

~

Valafar woke with a shout, body on fire and aching.

Angel. She was here. Right? Not a dream? He appeared in her room and took a deep breath at finding her asleep. Not a dream. Real.

Not understanding why he made an effort at civility, he left the room and tried to shower away the sick film he could feel across his skin. No amount of scrubbing could make him feel clean, however. He knew he would never feel that way again. Not with the vile, delicious visions in his dreams.

This was his reward for protecting Andras, his younger brother. The challenges he never knew Valafar accepted for him. The fight that scarred him, changed him, was supposed to be for Andras. But that was what he did. He watched after his little brother. And now he was crazy.