Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(92)

I swallowed. “Q…I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head as if unable to believe this was the end. “I tried, Tess. I really did. I did everything you asked of me. I did everything a man in love would do for his woman. But you don’t want me and my beast no longer wants to hurt you. Whatever we had…it’s lost.”

I sucked in a breath as he came closer.

“Do you deny it? Will you prove to me here and now that I’m making a big f*cking mistake? That you just need more time?” He slammed his hand into a palm tree, causing the fronds to tremble and shiver. “Tell me what you need! I’ve begged you to talk to me. What are you keeping secret?”

He snorted. “I’ll tell you what you’re keeping secret. The fact that you’re emailing your f*cking ex-lover instead of confiding in me!” He looked to the ceiling, rippling with anger. “Why, esclave? Why can’t you cry and let it out? Why can’t you let me heal you? Why do you have to shut me out and run away? Fucking why?”

So many questions and I had no answers. Q stood, fuming with temper. I offered the simplest response. The answer that made no sense, but it was all I could deliver. “They took my mind. There’s nothing else to say.”

I deserved to die under the weight of all my guilt. I killed. I tortured. I knew by locking everything deep inside it would fester like a cancer, killing me slowly. But I couldn’t free myself. It wasn’t possible.

“You would kill me if told you,” I whispered.

Q tensed, eyes trying to crack me open, to read my secrets. “I would never kill you. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault.”

Not my fault! Of course, it was my fault. I killed his precious birds. I exterminated a human life.

My skin crawled, a reminder that my tower could only protect me so far. I needed to leave before he bulldozed through my barriers.

“You have to let me go, Q. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He laughed, but it was laced with blackness. “You don’t want to hurt me?” He moved closer, raising his palm.

Our eyes never left each other and I stood unmoving, unfeeling, waiting for him to strike.

He trembled, his hand opening and closing with rage. “How much I want to f*cking hurt you, Tess. If I thought it would bring you back, I’d tie you up and not finish hitting you until you broke into tiny pieces so I could glue you back together.”

The air thickened with violence and I struggled to hold onto my emptiness. Leather Jacket probed my mind, trying to find a way into my tower. A sprinkling of sweat dotted my skin as I struggled.

Q suddenly sighed, dropping his hand. He looked away, his temper dimming to surrender. “Je ne vais pas te faire de mal parce je ne veux pas te détruire.” I won’t hurt you, as I don’t want to destroy you. Cupping my cheek, he ran his thumb along my bottom lip. “I can’t stop you leaving, but I won’t stay to see you go.” His touch disappeared as he stepped back. “I don’t want to see you again. Goodbye, esclave.”

He brushed past without another word.





You’re my esclave, my soul mate, each other we own, you’re mine forever, my bird flew home…



I’d torn one man’s heart out, and now I wanted to tear out my own. My fingers ached to pry open my ribcage and wrench it from beating to dead. I no longer wanted to live with this f*cking agony every time I thought about Tess.

She’d successfully hurt me more than any other person in the world. She brought me to my f*cking knees and I told the truth when I said I didn’t want to see her again.

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t look her in the eye again. Suzette told me what happened yesterday. How Tess told her ex she was leaving without having the decency to tell me first.

The moment Suzette told me Tess was going, I lost it. I f*cking forgot I was human and ripped the kitchen apart. I hurled the ten thousand euro coffee maker through the pantry door, shredded packets of food, and tore the tap from the bench-top.

Only when I’d expended my angst-riddled energy did Suzette move closer and do something I would never have allowed before.

She hugged me.

Her tiny arms wrapped around my waist, squeezing tight, reminding me I was human and not a monster after all.

After everything I’d done—it wasn’t enough. Both the beast and man had lost.

My Tess was gone. What the f*ck did they do to her? The passion and strength had disappeared. Looking into Tess’s eyes now left me with a shiver and loneliness. All I saw was nothing. Fucking nothing.

She’d shutdown but I didn’t have the f*cking luxury of doing the same. As much as I wanted the pain to go away—how tempting the thought of freeing myself from this agony, I couldn’t just leave.

People relied on me. Slaves. Staff. Countless employees.

I charged through the house, going out of my f*cking mind at the thought of losing the woman I loved. A new rattle existed inside me—fresh, oozing wounds caused by Tess’s betrayal. The darkness I let consume me while hunting for Tess came back with a vengeance. Gone was the urge to tend to her, make her well again.

All I wanted to do was be far, far away so she couldn’t see how much she broke me. Me? The beast with no f*cking feelings teetered on the edge of wrapping his arms around Tess’s knees and begging with everything he had for her to remember. For her to stop this madness and man up. She let shock steal her life. She’d given in to the worst kind of disease.