Bruised, Broken... Chosen
Her father thought he could cheat me. Borrow what wasn't his, disappear, and leave nothing but a trail of debt in his wake. Men like him never learn-there's always a cost, always someone left to bleed for their mistakes. He thought it would be him. Instead, it's her. His daughter.
At first, she was nothing but a message. A way to make him suffer, even if he never came back to see it. I broke her down the way I break everything-piece by piece, scream by scream. I wanted her fear, her pain, the ruin in her eyes every time I came close. She hated me, and I fed on it. That's all I believed in: control, power, the reminder that I own what others abandon.
But somewhere between her sobs and her defiance, she changed the rules. She fought me, and I should have killed her for it. Instead, I wanted more. She cried, and instead of silencing her, I listened. She looked at me, even in terror, and for the first time in my life I couldn't look away.
I don't believe in love. I never have. Love is weakness, a lie people tell themselves before the knife comes out. But she... she's different. She's sharp where she should be soft. Brave when she should be broken. She makes me hunger in ways that no amount of blood or vengeance ever could.
I meant to ruin her. To make her pay for the sins of her father. Now I want to claim her as mine. Not because of love-no, I don't use that word. I don't trust it. But because she drags something out of me I thought was dead. Something dangerous.
She wasn't supposed to matter. But she does. And if I have to chain her, break her, and rebuild her until she finally sees me the way I see her, then so be it.
She'll be my wife. My possession. My salvation.
Even if I have to destroy her first.
