Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Devil's Possession : Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

ElenaHe was going to rape me.I knew it the moment his hands went to his belt. I knew it the way you know a storm is coming by the smell of the air and the weight of it pressing against your skin. There was no question in my mind and no hope that someone would stop him and no prayer that this was some terrible mistake. He was going to tear off the rest of my clothes and he was going to take what he wanted and he was going to call it mine because that was the only word he understood.I had never been so scared in my entire life.Not when my uncle sold me. Not when the Ivano family took me to the room with no windows. Not even when I watched Alessandro cut off a man's head and roll it across the floor like a piece of fruit. Those fears had been sharp and immediate but they had not felt like this. This was slow and deep and it was coming from someone I had started to trust, someone I had hummed for in the dark, someone whose bloody hand I had held and not let go.He pushed me down and I

ElenaI did not fight it when the guards took me.There was no point. I had stopped fighting things that were larger than me a long time ago. My uncle had taught me that lesson early and thoroughly, and whatever small rebellion I had allowed myself in this house over the past weeks had clearly cost more than I could afford.So I walked where the guards walked me and I did not struggle and I kept my arms at my sides and my face still and I breathed, one breath at a time, the way I had taught myself to breathe through things I could not stop.But I watched Lucas.He stood in the middle of that basement room and he did not cower and he did not beg and he did not look away from Alessandro's face even after the punch, even with the blood running from his lip. He stood there and he argued for me. He used words like harmless and alone and human being and he said them to Alessandro De Vercelli's face in the cold basement room of his own house.No one had ever done that for me.My father had l

ElenaI did not know what happened after.I remembered fragments. Alessandro walking in with his hair loose and his robe open and his bare feet on the marble floor. The candlelight catching the planes of his chest. The way he had looked at me like he was seeing something he did not expect.Then nothing.A void. A blank space in my memory where hours should have been.I opened my eyes slowly.My head hurt. Not the sharp pain of a headache but a deep, throbbing ache that seemed to come from inside my skull, pressing outward against my temples. My eyes were heavy, my lids like lead, and my body felt limp and useless, like someone had pulled out all my bones and left only skin.I blinked.The ceiling above me was painted with figures in dark water reaching for a light. I recognized it. Alessandro's room. The white room with the candles and the enormous bed and the ceiling that had made me think of my father.I sat up immediately.My heart was racing, pounding against my ribs like a trapped

ElenaI could not move.The scene in front of me was scary and heartbreaking. Blood on the floor, blood on the walls, blood on Alessandro's chest and hands and face. The maids were barely recognizable, their faces swollen and broken, their white uniforms stained red. One of them was not moving at all.I had come here to ask him what happened last night. I had wanted to look him in the eye and ask him directly if he had taken advantage of me while I was unconscious. I had been ready to scream at him, to hit him, to demand answers.But then I saw him. Saw what he was doing. Saw the bodies and the blood and the darkness in his eyes.He asked once again who drugged his woman.His woman.I froze.Did he just call me his woman?My cheeks flushed from embarrassment. Heat spread across my face and down my neck and I could feel it burning, impossible to hide. My chest raced faster, my heart pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it from across the room.Could it be because of what happened

ElenaThe more Lucas stood up for her, the more she fell deeply for him.It was wrong. She knew it was wrong. He was Alessandro's right hand man, cuffed and bleeding and being dragged to a cell because of her. He had drugged her, yes, but he had done it to protect her. To stop Alessandro from doing something he would regret. To save her from being taken by force.No one had ever protected her like that. No one had ever risked everything to keep her safe.And Alessandro, the more she hated him. A property. He had just called her a property in front of like a hundred people. The word still rang in her ears, sharp and cold, cutting deeper than any blade.When he picked her up, she had felt safe in his arms. She had felt like his world. Though she was shocked, it had felt good. The warmth of his chest, the strength of his arms, the way his heart had beaten so fast beneath her cheek. For a moment, just a moment, she had believed that he saw her as something more than a possession.And then