Please remember the M rating.

The next morning…

I really need to get a set of sheets that isn't stark white. There are pools of congealed blood all around me. Mine, of course. He's not really into shedding bodily fluids—at least not that kind.

The sun has barely begun to rise and the sky is pink with the first hints of dawn. Dani is still sleeping, despite the one muffled scream he managed to tear from my lips near the end. As it turns out, I'm more affected by him plunging into me repeatedly than by my own knife ripping my intestines to shreds.

My skin ripples with gooseflesh as his warm fingers trace patterns on my flesh. He writes something in the blood coating my abdomen and then smears it away with his palm, letting his hand travel up to caress an already bloodied breast as he rests his cheek against my thigh.

"You look incredibly erotic from this angle," he muses, taking a few seconds to toy with a nipple before his fingers dance back down to my navel. My back arches involuntarily, but not from his control. He hasn't used that all morning. This reaction is pure instinct. "Covered in blood and sweat—you're a glistening reminder of the things I love most in life."

"And what are those?" I ask, truly curious. There are so many things I don't know about this man, despite the centuries we've spent together. Of course there's the useless knowledge I gained during our relatively brief marriage. For example: He likes his eggs scrambled. He likes spending mornings in bed. He hates being contradicted. His favorite color is a very dark red. He wears extra large shirts that engulf me when I pull them on in the mornings. He likes dinner before seven. His favorite movie is A Clockwork Orange. But really, can I say I know what he loves doing most? A small voice in my head tells me I already know.

"Killing… and sex." He looks up at me through dark lashes as he sighs and begins to move up my body, dropping kisses across my thighs and belly before he comes to my breasts, kissing the tip of each one before letting his cheek rest against the swell. I can feel his coarse chest hair against my stomach, brushing and tickling. "Though it's not really the killing so much as the learning. You can learn so much about a person when you kill them." He lets his body rest on top of mine. He's become just as blood-coated as I am.

"For example," he says, meeting my eyes and letting his hand slide up to my neck, caressing it lightly before he takes hold roughly. He's strangling me, fingers crushing as he rises to his knees, straddling me. I feel him brush against my belly as he moves, staring down at me with dark, loving eyes. "Every time I used to kill you, you'd glare at me. But now…" I can hear every word he says through the rushing in my ears as I stare up at him, adjusting to the lack of oxygen and feeling his bruising hands around my neck, crushing bone and tearing muscle. "Now you just stare, like you'd let me do it a thousand times over without a fight."

His words are jarring. That can't be right. He makes me do this. I can't fight him. He's a damned god in comparison to me. My only value, my only strength, comes from my ability to withstand all the punishment he throws my way.

"And then you make excuses," he continues, still cutting off my supply of oxygen as he grins almost maniacally, "even though you could do anything to struggle. You're no puppet right now, Claire. You're just mine." My thoughts finally begin to grow fuzzy as the world seems to start spinning above me. What he's saying makes so much sense…

And now my lungs are burning as air rushes back into them. My throat is sore and healing from the damage. Gabriel's halfway across the room, heading for the shower.

I lie on the bed, slick with my own blood and the proof of his ownership between my thighs as the water runs in the bathroom. My thoughts are still swimming. I'm in some sort of haze now, watching the ceiling above me move as he comes padding barefoot back to my bedside. I wonder vaguely if he's stepping in the blood and hope he has the sense to wipe his feet before he trails it into the living room.

"I have a gift for you," he says, leaning over with a cup of water in one hand and something, too small for me to see from where I lay, in his other. He's careful not to touch me and soil himself.

I sit up. I've completely healed and all that's left me in the pleasant buzzing sensation from his easy strangulation.

"What is it?" I ask.

He smiles sardonically.

"A pill. Didn't you say you wanted something of the sort?" My breathing falters at the reminder and he chuckles dryly.

"Didn't I tell you before?" he says, ripping away the bloody sheets and clearing a place for himself to sit. "Your wish is my command." He proffers the glass and I take it. It's the pill I'm wary of, still in his other hand. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that if I reach for it, something awful will happen.

Against my better judgment, I reach out, fingers collecting the tiny pill. His free hand grabs my wrist before I can withdraw it. He scowls down at me. If I didn't know him any better, I'd say the look on his face is pain. But I do, and so I can see the calculated anger withheld there.

"Ah, ah, ah…" he says, stopping me dead as I move. "I think first we need to have a little chat."

"Okay," I say, breathless.

"This is a morning-after pill," he says, tilting his head to the side and looking me straight in the eyes.

"It will prevent any… unwanted complications."

"Thank you," I say quickly, "I think—"

"Shut up, Claire, I'm not done speaking." My throat constricts automatically beneath his glower. "As I was about to say, before you so rudely interrupted me, these pills are hard to come by. As such, I expect you to show your appreciation… emphatically."

I can see where this conversation is going, and I don't like it. At least, the logical part of my mind doesn't, but the part of me that's still quivering beneath his touch doesn't seem to be at all worried.

"No more trying to kill me. No more lies… and no more denying that you want to fuck me as much as I want to fuck you." I can see what he's doing. He's using this as a tool, turning my fears against me to achieve his ends. The threat is there, subtle and terrifying. He might as well be saying 'Do what I want or I'll force you to have my bastard child.' But then again, hasn't he already done that? Dani is becoming as much his as she is mine. He's insinuating himself firmly into our lives and turning this into something it isn't. I am not his wife. I am not the mother of his child… I refused long ago to ever become those things again. And yet here I am.

I feel his constrictive hold on my windpipes ease, giving me the option to either accept or deny his 'gift'. His blackmail.

"All right," I hear myself say. There was a time I would have called myself a traitorous bitch for giving in to him. But really, what other option is there? I can handle this. I can handle him… and I can find a way to end him eventually.

He laughs as I think it and leans forward, dropping a light kiss on my forehead and the pill into my palm.

"Good luck with that," he says before leaving me by myself, alone and bewildered.

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Mel and Chuck