Chapter 23: The revelation
MARGAUX
My hands moved to the zipper at my back, trembling so violently I could barely grip the metal. Tears streamed down my face in hot, humiliating tracks that I couldn’t stop. I fumbled with the clasp, my fingers slipping against expensive fabric while my breath came in short, panicked gasps.
He moved behind me without warning. His presence at my back made every muscle in my body lock up. I froze, my hands still clutching uselessly at the zipper.
His fingers wrapped around my arm, firm but not painful, and he guided me across the room. My feet stumbled over the ridiculous train of the gown, nearly sending me sprawling before his grip steadied me. He positioned me in front of a massive dresser mirror, its ornate frame catching the light from the chandelier overhead.
I stared at my reflection. The girl looking back was unrecognizable. Mascara streaked down her cheeks in dark rivulets. Her lipstick was smudged and faded. The carefully arranged hair had started to fall loose, pieces escaping to frame a face that looked hollow and broken. The red dress sat askew on her shoulders, wrinkled from the car ride and the struggle.
His hand came up to grip my chin, fingers pressing into my jaw as he forced my face forward. His goal seemed to be to make me look at myself properly.
"You look a fucking mess."
His voice came from right behind me, his breath warm against my ear. The bond hummed between us, carrying satisfaction that made my stomach turn. He was enjoying this. Enjoying watching me fall apart piece by piece.
He leaned closer, his ruined face appearing over my shoulder in the mirror. "Do you know why this part needs to happen?"
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My throat had closed around words that wouldn’t come. My hands returned to the zipper, working at it with desperate, clumsy movements while tears continued to pour down my face.
The clasp gave way finally. I felt the dress loosen fractionally around my ribcage. My fingers moved to the hidden hooks beneath, trying to undo them with shaking hands that barely cooperated.
His hands joined mine. The touch made me flinch, but he ignored my reaction and helped unfasten the complicated closures that held the bodice together. His movements were efficient, like he’d done this before.
"You might not know this." His voice stayed soft, almost conversational. "You might think the worst of me right now."
The bodice gave way under our combined efforts. Cool air hit my skin as the fabric separated, revealing the strapless bra underneath. I watched in the mirror as more of me became exposed, shame burning through my chest so intensely I thought it might consume me whole.
"I am sure you probably are praying to the goddess that she strikes me dead." He continued working at the dress, his fingers finding the last few hooks. "But there is one thing you should know."
The dress loosened completely. I grabbed at it instinctively, holding the fabric against my chest to keep it from falling.
"Your blood is the reason I am still here today."
The words made no sense. I stared at his reflection, trying to understand what he meant. My blood? How could that be a reason he survived?
"The night I was excommunicated after my parents’ death and made a rogue..." He paused, and something shifted in his expression. "Your uncle Lucian came to me."
My head snapped around to look at him directly, breaking free from his grip on my chin. Uncle Lucian. The name hit me like cold water. Because it meant mother had lied somehow or perhaps she was not aware. Still the fact that uncle Lucian kept his promise... It brought me some peace.
"I asked him to help." The confession burst out before I could stop it.
I’d been terrified after the execution. Haunted by lucid nightmares of Étienne’s face as they’d dragged him away. I’d gone to Uncle Lucian in tears, begging him to make sure the boy survived somehow. To use his connections and find him somewhere safe.
But if such a good deed was done, why was Étienne so full of rage and hate?
Étienne smiled. The expression twisted his scarred face into something terrible and mocking. The kind of smile that had nothing to do with happiness and everything to do with cruelty.
"You asked him to traffic me?"
The question landed like a physical blow. My eyes went wide, my breath catching in my throat. "What?"
His hand shot out and grabbed my face again, his fingers digging into my jaw as he forced me to look back at the mirror. Back at my own reflection and his ruined face over my shoulder.
"Yes." The word came out flat and certain. "Your uncle sold me to be a sex slave."
My stomach dropped. The room tilted sideways. I tried to shake my head, tried to deny what he was saying, but his grip held me immobile.
"For a few years, women took advantage of my body." His voice stayed conversational, almost detached, like he was discussing the weather rather than describing his own violation. "Men too."
Tears poured down my face faster now, hot and unstoppable. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t picture the boy I’d known being passed around like a living breathing dildo. Being used, hurt and broken in ways that made my mind recoil from the images trying to form.
"Do you know what that feels like?"
Before I could respond, his hands found the weakened seam of the dress and ripped. The sound of tearing fabric filled the room. The gown gave way completely, falling in a pool of red silk and tulle around my feet. I stood there in nothing but my underwear and the ridiculous heels, staring at my half-naked reflection while he held me in place.
"It is exactly what you feel right now." His voice dropped lower, intimate and terrible. "It feels dirty. I felt like a pig."
My whole body shook. The shame was overwhelming, crushing, making it hard to breathe or think or do anything except stand there and take it. The bond between us pulsed with emotions I couldn’t untangle. His satisfaction mixed with my horror. His rage feeding off my humiliation.
"So you intend to take me?" The question came out broken and small. "To prove something? For revenge?"
"No." He released my face and stepped back. "The shame you feel is more than enough, and I do not quite want to break you yet."
The relief that flooded through me was so intense it made my knees weak. I sagged forward, catching myself against the dresser while my chest heaved with ragged breaths. He wasn’t going to rape me. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. The small mercy felt enormous in that moment.
"Goodnight, Margotine."
His voice carried across the room. I turned my head to watch him walk toward the door, his mask now held loosely in one hand. He moved with the same easy confidence he’d had all night, like stripping me down and telling me about his torture hadn’t affected him at all.
He paused at the threshold, one hand on the doorknob. When he looked back at me, his grey eyes caught the light in a way that made them look almost silver.
"Tomorrow, we pick up right where we left off."
Then he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him with a finality that echoed through the room.
I stood there for maybe three seconds before my legs gave out. I collapsed to the floor in a heap of torn red fabric and exposed skin, my hands coming up to cover my face while sobs tore through my chest.
Uncle Lucian would never. The thought repeated itself over and over like a prayer. He was kind. He was family. He’d always looked out for me. There was no way he would do something so monstrous. No way he would take a traumatized boy and sell him into sexual slavery.
But Étienne had no reason to lie. The bond didn’t carry deception when he’d spoken about it. Just cold, hard truth wrapped in years of accumulated pain.
I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the tears that wouldn’t quit. My throat ached where he’d choked me. My jaw throbbed where his fingers had gripped too hard. My whole body felt violated even though he hadn’t actually touched me beyond ripping off my dress.
The shame sat heavy in my chest, exactly like he’d said it would. Dirty. Used. Like something valuable had been stripped away and I’d never get it back.
I’d thought I understood what this marriage would cost me. I’d prepared myself for humiliation and loneliness. For being ignored and dismissed while he lived his life with Séverine. But this was something else entirely. This was calculated torture designed to break me down piece by piece until nothing remained.
Phase one, he’d called me. A conduit for his rage.
How many phases did he have planned?
My fingers curled into the ruined dress, gripping the fabric until my knuckles went white. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t survive years of whatever hell he’d designed for me. The thought of facing him again tomorrow made my stomach turn.
But what choice did I have?
Leave, and he burns Beaumont. Stay, and he destroys me instead.
The bond hummed quietly in the background, a constant reminder that we were now tied together. Mates. The cruelest joke the goddess had ever played. She’d given me a soulmate who hated me more than anything else in the world. Who wanted to watch me suffer for sins I’d committed as a terrified sixteen-year-old girl.
I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. The room felt too big suddenly. Too empty. Too full of expensive furniture that belonged to a man I’d thought was dead for eight years.
Uncle Lucian’s face appeared in my mind. Had he really?