Chapter 4: I Lust for You, Aren't I?
1646 Words
THE NEXT MORNING, the sun rises like a blade — sharp, cruel, and uninvited.
My sheets were tangled around my legs, damp with sweat. I was so soaked and I could not do anything about it. My thighs were slick and sore, my lips bitten raw from muffling the sounds I did not want to hear. Sounds that showed my suffering, my pain — my repressed desire. This sickness — illness — whatever it was. I wanted to die from the sheer frustration of something that I could not get out of me. I wished my mother was here. She would tell me what was happening to my body. She would be able to cure me.
The sounds I made would make her pity me.
But it did not apply to him.
I knew he heard them anyway, he always did.
But he did not come.
He did not come last night, not when I whispered his name into the dark. Not when I begged the silence to give me something — anything — of him. Not when I rocked myself to sleep, soaked and hollowed out by the ache that this sickness had left behind.
Whatever was happening to me — it had something to do with him, I was sure of it.
It started the night I came here.
The moment I saw him — the moment we met.
And in my heart, in my head, in this chaotic mind of mine — I wanted him, for some odd reason. I kept needing him. My heart was calling out for him. My soul was sobbing for him. Maybe because he was the only person I knew at this point. He was the only one left. The only figure who would take care of me. The betrayal stung. I thought he would save me — but he told me to leave.
He was avoiding me.
Instead of protecting me, he did not want to deal with me.
I hated him for it.
And I hated myself more.
I wandered the house like a ghost. Icarus was nowhere. Not in the study. Not in the kitchen. Not by the window where he usually watched the woods. There was only the faint scent of pine and storm that remained. He was gone — like a phantom. The Manor felt eerily quiet. The whole place — it reeked of loneliness, of emptiness, of dark things — of misery. It made me hug myself. Chilled to the bones.
Maybe it would have been better if I had just stayed in my house.
Mourning the absence that my mother had left me. Living alone, confused, brokenhearted, and clueless about life. Sometimes I hated my mother for hiding me from the world. I told her that I needed skills to survive. She would tell me I would need no such thing because she would always be there to take care of me. But she went ahead and died first, leaving me with nothing, and forced to live with an estranged stepfather who did not even live with us.
I almost doubled over when the pain came back.
I was feral.
Feral with this unknown need. My fingertips drag along the banister like they were searching for him — some imprint, some warmth. This Manor belonged to him and perhaps there were traces of him. My skin was hot. Sensitive. Every brush of fabric made me shiver.
I was burning again.
I shut my eyes and cursed silently.
The ache was no longer just in my core. It was in my soul, my blood, my breath, and my bones.
It was not just fire anymore inside of me.
It was a curse.
~ ~ ~
I tried to distract myself. I bathed. I brushed my hair. I changed into something modest — hoping it would suppress the way my body screamed.
It did not work.
Even the cotton clung too tightly to my chest. My blossoming buds were so sensitive they ached with every breath. My thighs stuck together when I sat. Why? I had no idea. My heart raced like I had been running for miles.
I lit a candle.
Pretended to read.
I waited. He did not come.
I rebelled, wishing it would attract him. I scoured the library, looking for other things to read, other things to do. Then I paused. I stumbled into a brown leather book that was bound, almost like it was hidden somewhere but then someone must have taken it out and forgot to put it back fully.
My hand reached for the book absentmindedly — but then my heart dropped.
“This journal belongs to Mabel —“
“What are you doing here?”
I dropped the book and snapped toward the door. It was a man. Someone I had never seen before. He got that vicious look like Icarus. The same eyes. The same rugged look. He was almost as big as him. I froze — forgetting about the whole thing. “I—I was just—“
“This place is off-limits,” he snapped.
“Sorry, I — I thought Icarus would be here —“
“Who are you?”
I blinked. “My name is Soraya.”
“And who are you?”
“I —“ What was this? Why did I hesitate so much to answer this question? I looked like a thief in front of him and it would not be so surprising that he would think of me as one too. “I’m just —“
“She’s the stepdaughter.”
I flinched really hard. There was an old man. The housekeeper. That ancient thing. He leered at me like he always did. I forgot his name.
“Oh.” The man looked me up and down, mesmerized. “The stepdaughter?”
“He’s just my guardian —“
“The stepdaughter.”
I wished he would stop saying that in my face. “Who are you?” I asked.
“Thorne.”
“And who are you?” I mimicked him.
He chuckled. “I’m his Be —“ he paused, catching himself. The old man glared at him, calling him stupid in all other languages. “Beloved brother.” He smiled with a strain at me.
“Icarus never told me he has a brother.”
“He never tells you anything,” the old man belittled me.
“Okay, then.” I cleared my throat.
The air became awkward and I quickly saw myself out. But before then, Thorne grabbed my arm, causing me to gasp. “You don’t want to snoop around here, girl. Consider it a warning.”
“And why is that?”
“You might find secrets that you don’t want to find.”
~ ~ ~
He knocked in the middle of the night, snapping me out of my reverie. I was in the process of clenching my fists so hard so I would not tremble anymore. My palms had little crescent moon blood on them. Proof of how much I was trying.
Still, with shaky knees, I walked toward the door and I opened it.
I found him in the hallway.
He was just standing there.
His back was to me. His hands were clenched at his sides. His hair was wet — again — dripping down his neck. He smelled like rain, wet soil, and something restrained.
“Icarus,” I whispered his name and it sounded like an oath.
He did not turn. I took a step closer, holding one firm hand on the knob. My body throbbed at the sight of him. I wanted to reach for him, to touch him — but his back muscles flexed as if he already knew I was going to do it.
“Icarus —“ He exhaled deeply. “You left all day.” His neck tensed. “I needed you,” I confessed.
He finally turned his head — just barely. And his eyes burned gold. “Don’t,” he growled. “Not tonight.”
I took another step. “You can’t just leave me like this. It hurts. Somehow — I find myself needing you and when you’re near, it disappears.”
He turned fully now, towering over me. His nostrils flared. His chest rose and fell in sharp, angry breaths. “You were wandering again today —“
“I am not a prisoner here.”
“You aren’t, but —“
“What — I can’t go to the library again? Is it meant for the male eyes only?”
“No. It holds secrets, that’s why. Ancient secrets,” his jaw hardened.
“And I can’t know about them?”
Icarus hesitated. He nodded without saying anything.
“Icarus?”
“Hmm?”
“I lust for you, aren’t I?”
Icarus was mortified. “You need to shut up.”
“This isn’t fair! If you know how to help me then tell me.”
He suddenly lunged, and my back hit the walls. His hand slammed into the wall beside my head.
I gasped.
He leaned in, nose to my throat, breathing me in. His body did not touch mine, but it was close. Too close.
“What are you doing?”
“You will sleep in the east wing from now on.”
I froze. “What?”
“There’s a barrier there. My scent won’t reach you. Yours won’t reach me. You’ll be able to breathe.”
“Don’t you dare lock me away —“
“It’s for your own protection.”
“For you maybe. Not for me. Why would I need protection?”
Icarus’s face fell. He grabbed my shoulders — firm and trembling. “You are not ready for what I would become if I gave in to temptation.”
- Writer
