His to Keep by Lydia Goodfellow

Chapter Twenty-Five

My thoughts whirl as we get back to the bedroom. It’s sometime past noon, and Callum’s been quiet since what we did. Thankfully, we didn’t pass anyone when we got back to the house or back upstairs.

As he sits at his desk and me on the bed, I think to myself how can I possibly be in love with him. Should I label my feelings for him? Do I even know what love is?

I’m not sure, and I push those terrifying thoughts away, not wanting to deal with them and what they might mean. To be in love with someone who will never love you back. For he hasn’t known an ounce of love his entire life.

“I didn’t mean what I said out there,” I break the quietness, tugging my fingers. “You’re not weak—you’re the strongest person I know. You’ve been through so much, and it wasn’t fair of me. I’m just…angry.”

“What happened out there has to stay out there, Ava.”

I stare at the back of his head that he purposefully keeps turned from me.

“Even what happened with us?” My voice wobbles, and after a few tense seconds, he finally turns to me. Yes. It’s in his eyes, and the pain in my heart is too much to bear. Tears fall this time. Letting out a sob, I’m about to run into the bathroom when he grabs my arm and pulls me back. He’s now standing, our faces so close our noses almost touch.

But just before I think he might do something, the bedroom door bursts open.

“Sinners!” Father Aaron’s roar shakes the entire room. Johns behind him, smirk in place. Father Aaron never comes this early to the room.

Callum lets go of me. “No, she was—”

I scream when Father Aaron storms over and punches him in the face, cutting off whatever he was about to say. Not noticing John coming, he grabs my arms and yanks them behind my back.

“Naughty, naughty,” he hisses down my ear as I cry out in pain from having my arms stretched.

“I had my fears this would happen,” Father Aaron growls, turning to glare at me as Callum holds the cut on his face. “Especially considering what happened the last time.”

Last time?

Callum scowls down at the floor, avoiding eye contact with me, and my heart sinks that there might be more secrets.

“She did nothing wrong,” Callum says, tone angry.

“Oh, but she did.” Sneering at me, Father Aaron picks me up, and I scream when my world flips upside down. Carrying me over his shoulder, blood rushes straight to my head as he stomps downstairs. Every step he takes, his collarbone digs into my stomach, though it doesn’t distract me from where we’re going.

“No. No please!” I scream when the red door in the dining room appears when I strain to look where we’re going. “Not in there.”

The door’s thrown open, and I’m dropped into the chair. My face splits open when Father Aaron slams the back of his hand across my face. The room spins, and I whimper when he lifts his hand to strike me again.

“Stop!” Callum shouts. “It wasn’t her! It was me!”

“You let her seduce you. Just how you let that other vile whore before her. I fucking warned you.” Lifting my head, I dizzily glance at Callum.

“No.” He shakes his head, and John laughs.

“But I think he has feelings for this one, my Lord.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Callum bites at John, eyes so dark, I flinch. “She means nothing to me.”

“Then prove it.” Father Aaron’s tone threatens to crack the walls and floor. Reveal the hellish, fiery depths that I know have to be beneath us. “Prove that she means nothing to you. Punish her for using her wickedness against you. For making you a weak fool.”

Paling, Callum finally turns to me. Sitting in the chair, shivering from head to toe, Father Aaron’s words sink in. Punish her. It’s almost impossible not to succumb to the fear building inside of me. My stomach twists, knowing whatever he must do will be sinister. My life is in his grasp. We both know it. He won’t be the same after. We won’t be the same.

Father Aaron’s words continue to echo in my head like a violent whisper. He’s master of this show, tugging Callum’s strings and knotting them around his neck. I feel sick. Everything Callum warned me that would happen is, and now it’s up to him to choose what he must do.

Our eyes meet, and my heart falls. He’s angry and glaring at me with such ferocity, I choke on a sob and can’t stand to look at him any longer.

“You’ve one hour,” Father Aaron threatens. Or else. He leaves, John following with that same nasty smile.

Once they’re gone, Callum rubs his hands down his face, stress darkening the shadows on his face. “How the fuck am I meant to do this? I can’t.”

“What way will I be punished?” I brave asking.

“He wants me to whip you.”

Whip me? Oh, God. My stomach lurches with the thought of him striking me with a whip.

“You have to,” I cry, even though fear is now resident inside of me. Dread. I don’t want to be whipped. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” His eyes close, and he turns his back to me, shoulders squared as he stares down at the whip Father Aaron left on the table for him to use. I hadn’t noticed it until now. Black leather and long. His fingers brush against it, and I swallow hard. “Hate me if you have to—if it makes it easier.”

“Hate you? Don’t be so fucking brave, Ava.” He shakes his head and then lets the silence linger around us. Picking up the whip, he turns to me, eyes so dead, I’m scared of this Callum. The little light makes him look older and troubled.

Coming over to me, he grabs my arm with clammy fingers and wrenches me out of the chair. My heartbeat thrashes wildly when he turns me and pushes me forward until I have no choice but to put my hands flat against the table. “This is my fault. It was my fault with Orla, and now it’s mine that I have to whip you.”

I tremble. “O-Orla?”

“Don’t tense up.” He ignores my question. He’s trying to hate me. Hate me like he’s supposed to. “It’ll only hurt more.”

“Callum.” Tears drip from my eyes. “Who is she?”

“Don’t you remember? The dead girl that was in this room?” I shudder. How could I forget? “You didn’t know enough then to connect anything, but she was another one of you. Don’t you remember the white dress she wore?” I swallow hard, remembering it, even if it was soaked in blood. Shock punctures my fear. I had no idea. “Her name was Orla, and my father took her from Viewmont before we moved here. She was to be his but wouldn’t listen to anything I said when I tried to help her. And then something happened—something I shouldn’t have let happen. Once he secured you, her punishment was death.” I can’t swallow or breathe, feeling like the walls are closing in on me. “After what I did, I wanted to die even more. But then he told us about you. A girl made by the angels themselves, with hair the color of rye and eyes that look almost violet in the light.”

“What happened between you both?”

“Sex, Ava,” he says, and I gasp in shock. “We had sex. She tried to use me so she could escape. But he found us instead, and that’s why she’s dead. Because of me. Because I let her mess with my head.”

My insides clench. I’d never asked about his past, just assumed he was a virgin. He knew how to do things, and I should have known. He never told me that I’m not his first experience. “You did things with me.”

“You’re different.”

“How? How am I any different?” My head shakes. “Did you like her?”

“No,” he says, “I hated her, and she hated me.”

“You mustn’t have hated her enough to have sex with her,” I say, jealous of a girl who’s dead. Why am I? Why does it hurt?

“I’m about to whip you, and you’re getting jealous over something that meant nothing?”

“I’m just trying to understand.” I sniff back tears. “Was she your first?”

“Yes.”

“Then how can it mean nothing? And why did you never mention it?”

“Because I hated every moment of it, Ava. Even talking about it makes me sick. She was a few years older than me and forced herself on me to prove a point that I was exactly like my father. It was full of anger and hate, neither of us in a good place. We took it out on each other. And I soon learned she was spiteful and wanted her freedom any way necessary. Even if it meant using me to get it.”

“But your father caught you?”

He sighs. “He did. John had been spying and told him out of jealousy. He always thought he was a much better candidate for teaching Orla how to conform than me. But John has sadist tendencies that are boundless. My father knew it’d be too risky to put anyone in with John while he kept up appearances.”

“What happened after that?”

“You know what happened.”

I do. But it still doesn’t make sense. “Was your father not afraid you’d end up repeating history when he locked me in a room with you?”

“Christ, Ava,” he swears. “Do you think so little of me?”

My chest pains. “No. But history has been repeating itself.”

“No,” he denies. “You’re nothing like her, and I don’t hate you.”

The minutes pass, and we’re running out of time. Just get it over with, I want to say to him. But he’s right. That’s too brave. When on the inside I’m screaming in terror. When nothing happens, I give in and glance over my shoulder, daring to look at him. But when I do, I wish I hadn’t. He’s even whiter than before, eyes fully dilated and boring into me, lips flat but jaw clenched. The top of his black shirt is unbuttoned, and he’s yielding the whip tightly in his fist.

“Turn back around.” Sobbing, I do as I’m told, knowing I won’t be able to get that image of him out of my mind.

Swallowing down a painful lump, my throat scratchy from dryness, all I feel next is horrendous pain as he steps back and crashes the whip down against my spine. The pain is so violent, so stinging, I scream.

“Stop!” He doesn’t. He whips me again.

Drool and tears drip on the table as I lumber forward. My scream breaks my voice. “Oh, God, please. No more! No more!”

He reigns pain down on me once more, this one so cutting, so bad, the lights go out, and I’m slipping to the floor before I even know it.