THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

My own plea triggered something inside me to shake loose, dragging me to hell unwillingly this time.

Denmark

Age 14

The tea they forced me to drink before bed was supposed to help with the cramps I was suffering. My periods were always agonizing and whenever I got mine, my mother always seemed to be missing. Always when I needed her, she would vanish from existence.

Instead, I was served a burning tea in my room before bed, and Elias was always the one to deliver the silver tray with the antique cup. It was supposed to help with the cramps, but all it did was make me so sleepy I could barely will my eyes open.

Elias always overstayed his welcome, letting his limbs brush against mine without permission, even lying down next to me like a concerned family member. I knew better than to think anyone would willingly care about me in a selfless way—other than Bowen—if the woman who gave birth to me couldn’t.

“Where’s… my… mom…” I didn’t even feel my voice go up at the end where the question mark should be. Just flat words falling on deaf ears.

 

Turning into me, I felt his hand brush down my face. “Always a sleeping angel. She doesn’t like this part, Eve. I’m too selfish to let you go and if this is the only time I can have you…” His words drowned out.

I felt so heavy as I felt myself sink into the mattress, so far down I felt like I was falling. That feeling never stopped—falling—it was dark and cold to fall so far into yourself that you pray you forget what is happening to you.

 

The memory shook me into reality when I felt Elias crowding me even more. My shoulders and bottom lip trembled while I tried to digest my own twisted reality: Bowen smelled it on me before I did.

We matched.

Always parallel.

A perfect pair of fucked up.

I wasn’t ashamed of how inferior I felt against the weight of his trauma. As fucked up as it was, we weren’t balanced, and our love wouldn’t survive as an angel and demon.

If one of us had to live with the other’s trauma it would destroy us. All we wanted was to protect each other and that creates more trauma, not less.

The front door was still open, but I knew he didn’t care. He shoved all his dirty behind a crooked crown.

I wanted to push him away, speak, punch, and fight my way out. I wanted to be the girl I used to be— too angry at the world to let it break me but that wasn’t who I was anymore.

The world broke me, and I had the scars to prove it.

I no longer had the same fight.

Elias’s hand slowly fell down my chest, pushing my robe open until I felt enough on display through the see-through material of my pajamas.

My features contorted into invisible pain when my voice pushed through the tremors. “What did you- you do to me?”

Elias smiled softly in this way that looked like relief. “You remember, my angel?” His hands dipped below the material pretending to cover me.

Everything I wore was meant to tease Bowen and it was all I had here. I regretted it during our silence, and even more right now.

Cupping my breast, I felt my lips tremble more and my shoulders pin against the wall, trying to create space that wasn’t there.

“Every period… you… you did that.” The memory didn’t feel like mine. It felt like a bad dream, a numbing feeling spreading from my soul and infecting everything else in my body.

Biting his lip, he leaned into me so closely I felt his teeth grate against my skin as he spoke, “You may not remember, but you loved every damn second, angel. I can still hear your moans and whimpers in my head… but I need more. I’ve missed this body so much.”

His unhinged words made me feel sick, and I tensed at his grasp on my breast just wanting this to end—none of his touch felt good. None of him was Bowey. And he just made me a liar because my first time wasn’t with the only person I’ve ever loved.

Everything happened so quickly.

That’s how good things happen, and when bad things happen, time seems to slow, collecting seconds like long inhales.

Grace somehow ended up standing at my door, producing a small blade that she poked into his neck until his hands went up like he had been caught.

She was about six months pregnant and yet a weapon suited her quiet demeanor well.

“Grace?” I whimpered her name, not sure if she was there or it was my hope running wild.

She peered around his body, poking him with the end of the knife even more. “I know you don’t know how to drive so I was coming to kidnap you.”

Turning her attention to Elias, she grabbed a handful of his shirt and yanked him backwards, giving me breathing room. “Corrupt recognizes corruption. I knew I didn’t like you. You’re lucky it’s me and not her husband. Heard he likes to kill for fun. Imagine how fun you’ll be.”

Pushing him from the steps, she watched him stumble to keep himself upright when the door closed on him with us safely behind it.

Right before it clicked closed, I saw his lips pinch into blowing me a kiss.

The catatonic allure of not feeling licked my heels, and I wanted nothing more to give in.

He wouldn’t let me have a happy ending without him.

Grace put away the knife and sat on the set of stairs to the right as she rubbed her pregnant belly. “Go get dressed. We aren’t staying here.”

That’s all it took to swat the numbness away: