Mine,My Bunny

Chapter 9: Familiar Face

The ropes cut into her skin just enough to sting. Arielle had left her bound that morning, wrists tied to the headboard, legs spread and secured with silk ties that looked deceptively gentle. Leah had disobeyed.....nothing catastrophic, just a small act of rebellion, answering a call Arielle had forbidden. The punishment was not cruel by Arielle’s standards. It was worse,it was stillness.

Leah hated stillness. Stillness meant time to think. Time to feel the emptiness that gnawed when Arielle wasn’t there.

By noon, the house was quiet except for the hum of electricity. That was when the knock came.

At first Leah thought she imagined it. Then, muffled through the locked door, a man’s voice carried: “Maintenance! Electrical inspection, ma’am!”

Her blood went cold. She tugged uselessly at the ropes, panic flaring. Arielle hadn’t told her anyone was coming.

The door opened anyway,Arielle must have given staff access. The footsteps were hesitant, then firmer as they moved deeper into the house. Leah’s pulse thundered. She wanted to cry out, but fear of Arielle’s wrath gagged her.

The bedroom door creaked open.

And then time stopped.

He stood in the doorway,a man she knew. Older now, sharper around the jaw, but still carrying the eyes she remembered from another life.

“Leah?” His voice cracked like glass. “Leah......God, is that you?”

Her breath caught. “Daniel…”

He stepped inside quickly, horrified by the sight of her bound, flushed, helpless. “What the hell......what is this? Who did this to you?”

Shame and something hotter tangled in her chest. She wanted to say Arielle’s name, wanted to explain it wasn’t what he thought,but the words twisted on her tongue.

He dropped his tools and tried to untie her, hands trembling. “I came back. I looked everywhere. And you........here? Bound like this? Leah, this is wrong.” His voice hardened with desperate conviction. “Whatever help she gave you, it doesn’t excuse this. She’s controlling you. You can leave with me. We can go back to how things were. Please........”

Leah’s chest heaved, eyes filling. Memories surged,nights by the fire, Daniel’s laugh, the sudden disappearance when he left without a word to study abroad. The hurt of abandonment, the empty space he left behind.

And then, crashing over it like a tide, Arielle’s voice echoed in her memory: “Your pleasure is mine. Your safety is mine. You are mine, my bunny.”

Daniel’s fingers worked desperately at the knots. Leah shivered,not from relief, but from dread. Every tug of the rope loosening felt like a betrayal. Not to herself,but to Arielle.

“I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head violently. “Don’t.....please, don’t. You don’t understand.”

His face crumpled. “Leah, she’s broken you. Can’t you see it?”

“No!” The word ripped from her throat. Her tears blurred everything. “She fixed me. She gave me everything. Food, warmth, a home......she sees me! She makes me feel real!”

Daniel staggered back, devastated. “That’s not love, Leah. That’s a cage.”

Leah tugged at the ropes, sobbing......not to escape, but to stay. Her body shook with the craving for Arielle’s return, the sharp ache of needing her hands, her eyes, her voice.

“Please,” Leah whispered hoarsely. “Just go. If she finds you.....if she knows.....you’ll ruin everything.”

Daniel stared at her, torn between horror and heartbreak. “She’s ruined you already.”

But Leah only shook her head harder. “No. She saved me. And I can’t......” Her voice broke. “I won’t leave her.”

Silence throbbed between them. Finally, Daniel stepped back, grief written in every line of him. “Then you’re lost,” he said softly.

When the door clicked shut and his footsteps faded, Leah collapsed against the ropes, sobbing with relief. Relief that he hadn’t untied her. Relief that Arielle would come back and find her still bound, still waiting.

Because no matter what Daniel said, Leah knew the truth pulsing through her veins like addiction:

Freedom wasn’t what she wanted anymore.

She wanted Arielle.

Chains and all.