Unbroken (Shattered Promises, #2.5)

Chapter 4

***This is from the unedited version and content may change*** **Mature Content Warning*** 17+ for language and sexual content.***

Chapter 4

This world has always been confusing to me—life has always been confusing. Always full of surprises. Always full of risks. There never seems to be a right or wrong way to solve problems and a lot of the time problems aren’t solved intentionally, but by accident. I know nothing about Gemma’s condition, how my father got the mark on her, so I have no idea how to get it off of her. The only thing I can do is try and hope that whatever I do works. It fucking sucks. But I have to try.

I lock eyes with her and force her to look at me. Stare at her until she becomes completely uncomfortable, right where I want her—confused. “So you really think you can hurt me?” I ask, stretching my arm toward one of the ties around her wrist, the one secured around the hand that has the scar on it that was put there when we made out blood promise—the promise we made to be together forever. “Cause me pain? Agony? Hurt me until I take my last breath and die?” I unhitch one of the knots and loosen the fabric, moving slowly, carefully.  She watches my face, not my hands, trying to act tough, but still, she looks so lost, just like when I first met her. “Do you think you could do it?”

She nods her head up and down, eyes fastened on mine, but there’s hesitancy in them. “I can do anything I wanted to and the thing is, you can’t stop me.”

I don’t know why I do it, other then the need to devour her. Make her mine again. Force the possession out of her and bring her back. Do something other than feel so helpless. I hate feeling helpless. So, in a desperate panic, I lean down and kiss her passionately, half expecting her to bite me. She doesn’t. She just lies there beneath me, her hand twitching restlessly in the bind I have untied. Her chest is crashing against mine as she inhales and exhales ravenously, her body heat intoxicating as she rolls her hips, rubbing ever so slightly against mine. It’s mind blowing, the way she makes me feel, the heat flowing between us, the sparks, near explosion. I’m one step away from ripping her close off and fucking her, nearly driven mad by the feel over her, almost completely forgetting the situation as her intoxicating taste overpowers me. Then I feel her shift and her hand slips out of the bind.

I have seconds to respond as her fingers finds my neck and wrap around it. She pulls toward her, looking me in the eye as she digs her fingers inward. “You think I’m weak,” she says in a low voice that doesn’t even sound like it belongs to her. “That a fucking kiss is going to stop me from doing what’s burning in my blood. Stop the painful desire to spill your blood out. Stop the throbbing need to end your life.” She tugs me even closer, our foreheads slamming together. I don’t bother fighting it as my body falls on top of hers, my weight landing on her as she leans up and nips my lip, sucking it into her mouth and grazing her teeth across it. Blood pools out and the taste of salt and rust flood my mouth. “You like me better this way anyway, if you’d just admit it to yourself,” she whispers against my lips.

My veins are pulsating under her rough touch as I gasp for air quietly, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing me weak and powerless. “You have no idea what I like,” I choke, gripping handfuls of the blanket beside her head, trying to hold my weight up off her, a lame attempt to get away.

She tries to wiggle her hand out of the other bind as she continues to strangle me, her eyes filled with both desire and terror. She wants to do this, yet she doesn’t want to, which means my Gemma still lies inside there. Somewhere. And I have to get her out. Somehow.  The only way I can think of is to push her to her limits. Let her get close to killing me. Let her think I’m about to die. Then maybe her true feelings will come out and override what my father did to her. I saw this done once, when a Keeper became possessed by a Lost Soul, which is basically a mummy that possess and steals souls. A witch brought the Keeper back by testing them, pushing them to the point where they were either going to have to completely give into the Lost Soul possession or fight their way back. And I know Gemma is a fighter, but the problem is I don’t know her true feelings for me, or if she even does. I guess I’m about to find out.

I let her keep choking me, suffocating me, strangling me. I see life in her eyes flicker. Then diminish. Her emotions turn on and off. She’s conflicted. This is good. It means she cares about me. Has feelings for me. Wants me enough that she’s not sure she wants me to die. The idea both enthralls me and scares the shit out of me. All my life, I’ve felt nothing. For anyone. And that’s how I liked it because feelings equal hurt. Pain. Loneliness. Shut everyone out and no one can hurt you. Turn it off and you’ll be stronger. That’s what I was taught. It was the great thing about dating Stasha. I never had any feelings for her. She didn’t make me happy. Piss me off. Get under my skin. Floor me to the point where I felt like I was going to explode. But Gemma…. She does all and more. My emotions are so tangled up inside. Because I want her so fucking much, yet I’m afraid to want her so badly.

“You can’t do it,” I choke as my breath dwindles, my lungs constricting. It’s becoming harder to breath. The room is spinning and the lights above our head are dimming. “You care for me to much.”

“Stop saying that,” she growls, her face reddening with anger.

“No,” I say but it sounds more like a groan. “I won’t.”

“Shut up!”

“You care for me. Admit it.”

She leans even closer and speaks slowly. “Think whatever you want, but the truth is I feel nothing for you.” Her grip tightens. Suddenly the lights in her eyes turn off and there’s nothing there anymore. No life inside. No emotion. No Gemma. Maybe I jumped to conclusions. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe she doesn’t care about me like I thought she did. And if so, I’m not sure what to do about it, not when I realized how much I care about her. There’s no reversing that. She owns me now.

It feels like I should fight back, but I don’t. I have no idea why. Whether I’m confused or if I’m so dizzy that my strength is gone. I start to fall. Sink into darkness. I think I’m dying and Gemma is the one doing it—killing me. I can’t breathe and the buzzing of the sparks is fizzling. I need to fight, but I feel nothing…

“I think I might love you,” Gemma whispers in my ear as she holds onto me. “But I’m confused.”

“About what?” I ask, trying not to smile as I kiss her neck, my eyes shut, the cool air brushing across my skin as I breathe in her scent; lavender and vanilla. “About love?”

“Yes,” she says softly. “I’m not sure if what I’m feeling is that. Love or something else… can you tell me?”

I tense, my eyes remaining shut. “Tell you what?”

“What love is?” she whispers with a desperate plea in her voice, begging me to explain it to her, begging me to understand it.

I open my mouth to say something, but no noise comes out. I want to tell her everything—exactly what I feel—but I hesitate. Confused. Terrified. If I say it aloud, then everything changes. I’ll no longer be what I am. I’ll be weak. Vulnerable. She’ll have the power to break me, just like everyone else in my life has. My father. My mother. 

“Gemma, I…” I trail off, pulling back to look at her, but I can’t see anything but darkness. It’s everywhere, yet I know she’s still there because I can feel the faint heat of the sparks and the touch of her breath.

“You don’t love me, do you?” she sounds on the verge of tears. “Oh my God, I’m so stupid.”

No, you’re not, I want to say, but my lips are fasten, my voice dead. I want to shout that I do love her, but for some reason I can’t—can’t go to that place where I surrender. And with each second that slips by, I feel her drifting away…