The hot tears splashing onto her hand felt like a brand. Genevieve didn't pull away. She tightened her grip, a silent promise, and slowly rose to her feet, gently tugging him up with her.
Angelo followed, pliant and boneless with shock, his gaze fixed on the ground as if he were being led to the gallows.
She led him to the main bed, the throne of furs that had once been his personal hell. She pressed down on his shoulder, a clear gesture for him to sit.
The moment his skin touched the soft pelt, he recoiled as if he'd been electrocuted, scrambling to stand back up. This was a forbidden zone. A place he was only allowed near when he was being punished.
Genevieve sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion. She put her hands on his shoulders again, this time with more force, and looked directly into his terrified, reptilian eyes.
"Sit down," she said, her voice intentionally firm, falling back on the tone of command he understood. "That's an order."
The word "order" was magic. His body, conditioned by years of abuse, obeyed instantly. He sat, stiff and straight, on the very edge of the fur-covered ledge.
Genevieve turned back to the fire. She picked up a flat stone she had placed near the embers to warm and a clean, albeit ragged, piece of cloth.
When she turned back, holding the items, Angelo's face drained of all color. The hot stone. In his mind, it could only be for one thing. A brand. A new mark of ownership and pain.
He scrambled backward on the bed, his hands flying up to shield his chest. "No," he shrieked, his voice high and thin with terror. "Please, Mistress, don't! Don't burn me!"
Genevieve froze. The hot stone slipped from her numb fingers and clattered to the floor. She dropped the cloth. She stared at him, at his frantic, panicked eyes, and her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a fist.
She immediately raised her hands, palms open, showing him she was unarmed.
"I won't burn you," she said quickly, her voice laced with an urgency that surprised even herself. "I won't. I'm not doing anything."
She moved back to the bed and sat beside him. He flinched away, but she was faster, her hands closing around his wrists, gently pulling his arms away from his chest.
The firelight illuminated what he had been hiding.
Her breath caught in her throat. His torso was a roadmap of pain. Crisscrossing whip marks, some old and faded white, others new, red and angry, still oozing blood.
"Does it hurt?" she whispered, the question torn from her. Her fingers hovered over the brutalized flesh, trembling, afraid to touch, afraid to cause even a fraction more pain.
Angelo stared at her, his panicked breathing hitched. The question didn't compute. In his entire life, no one had ever asked him that. They were the cause of the pain; they were not concerned with its effect.
The simple, impossible question broke the last of his composure.
A gut-wrenching sob tore from his throat, and he doubled over, his face buried in his hands, crying like a lost child. He cried for the pain, for the fear, for the years of silent suffering.
Genevieve didn't speak. She just moved closer. Gritting her teeth against the agonizing, tearing sensation in her abdomen as she leaned forward, she wrapped her arms around his shaking, bony frame, pulling him into a hug. It was awkward and clumsy, but it was real. Every shuddering sob that wracked his body pulled at her cauterized flesh, sending spikes of white-hot agony radiating through her core. She swallowed back a groan, refusing to let go. She let him soak her dirty tunic with his tears and snot, holding him, anchoring him despite the physical torture it cost her.
"Why... why did you pull out my scales?" he choked out between sobs, the words muffled against her shoulder. "I was good... I always listened..."
She squeezed him tighter, resting her cheek against his silver hair, feeling the sharp knobs of his spine through his thin shirt.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice thick. "I'm so, so sorry."
She repeated the words over and over, a mantra against the darkness of his past. The apology, something he'd never heard, never expected, seemed to have a magical effect. His frantic sobs slowly subsided into shuddering gasps.
He pulled back, just enough to look at her. His eyes were red and swollen, but through the tears, a fragile, complex light was beginning to dawn.
"Mistress..." he asked, his voice trembling with a desperate, hopeful vulnerability. "You... you really won't hit me anymore?"
Genevieve met his gaze, her own eyes fierce and unwavering.
"I swear it," she said, her voice like iron. "Unless I am dead, no one will ever hurt you again. Not even me."
Angelo's vertical pupils dilated, widening until they were huge, black pools. Something shifted in their depths. The fear was still there, but it was being rapidly consumed by something else, something new and terrifyingly intense.
He leaned forward, and before she could react, his forked tongue darted out, a snake's instinct, and flicked against the back of her hand, tasting the drop of blood from her self-inflicted wound.
His eyes, when they met hers again, were no longer just afraid.
They were possessive.
