I Want You to Want to Live
Titus Danforth x fem!reader—in which you fought to die and he made sure you lived.
TW: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT!!! 18+ MDNI, NSFW. Graphic depiction of violence. Reader was suicidal so descriptive on some of those feelings. Mentions of past sexual assault. Titus kidnaps the reader and keeps her in a padded cell. Stockholm Syndrome. Sex, pussy slapping. Titus is a biter. A Hunt. Reader survives but is shot. I think that's it, I genuinely do not know for sure though. It's dark.
Male Version: Soon to come
In all his years, Titus had met every form of dying person—those already dead, dying, shot, those who don’t believe they’re dead yet, those who know they will die but they fight against it regardless and even those who think they have a chance of survival.
But never has he met anyone who wanted to die.
He has met the people who want to survive more than anything, who know there is no way out but at least they didn’t go willingly to their death, they fight and bite and claw. They make it fun. He has met those who do not want to die but accept it with dignity, knowing that at least they can die knowing they still had their pride.
He has met those become shrivelling messes, pleading and begging and crying, asking him to have mercy.
He has met all these kinds of people, but until you, he had never realized that there were people who wanted to die.
Who tried to choose it.
And then, he met you.
***
He can smell the desperation that trails behind the man, the prey. It’s an easy trail to follow, the man so scared when he was told his wedding night would either end him with dead or alive, not in a bed fucking the girl he married. Titus could see that the poor boy had thought it was a joke before the realization of the truth sunk in and then he ran like hell.
But he’s slow and scared and reckless.
That makes for easy prey.
Which is why Titus isn’t running, instead walking leisurely, shotgun dangling from his one hand, the other holding a dagger, ready for whatever will occur. He’s always ready, always ready, especially when he hears the noise off to the side, the hushed breath, jagged sob. The sound of someone crying.
Honestly, Titus thought the man had more class than that. Crying! What an idiot. He turns, lifting his shotgun, pressing it against his shoulder, finger straying to the finger, just gently touching the thin curve of metal, the press grated and firm against the pad.
“Come out, little boy,” he says, his tone mocking and cold, cruel in a way and he hears the crying stop, the breath hush and fall and then begin again, quieter, more even. Someone who has stopped crying, is able to stop emotions, turn them off. He understands that, but the boy is still pathetic.
“Not a little boy,” a voice calls out, the sound carrying through the woods and Titus follows, ducking through the trees, down towards the sound, glancing around, gaze snagging on you. He doesn’t know you, this woman holding onto low-hanging branches of a tree, face swollen and tear-stained, eyes blank. Devoid of feeling.
“Why are you in my woods?” he asks you, finger pressing harder on the trigger, not yet pulling it, but waiting. Waiting for some sign of something from you.
“Your woods?” you ask him and he hears that your voice is raw, as if you’ve been screaming, crying. Like you’ve been trying to escape from something. “I ran from the bridge off into the forest, didn’t know anyone owned it.”
“Why’d you run?” he asks, curiosity heavy in him even as he ducks his head, making sure the shotgun shell will discharge the full force of the buckshot in your body—not the kill he was after, but still a kill after all.
“Cause the cops don’t exactly like it when people try to drive off the bridge. They don’t understand that I just love my car and want to die in it.” Your face is flat, devoid of emotion, but in the words, Titus hears something he’s never heard before. Want to die. Everyone he’s ever met has wanted to live. “Anyway,” you continue, eyes darting between him and his gun and the knife in his hand, “I don’t know the situation with you and this little boy, but I see a gun and a knife, so…could you give me one of those? I’m not exactly looking to hurl myself out of a tree cause there’s no guarantee…”
“You…want to die?” Titus asks you, his eyes narrowing, brows knitting in confusion. He doesn’t understand it, this drive for oblivion when living…when living is power.
“Yeah,” you tell him, dropping to your feet from the tree, approaching him, steps silent as if you’re a predator too. A predator trying to take itself off the chain. “Deal or no deal?”
“No deal,” he rasps and he doesn’t know if he’s entranced by the idea that you want to die or the way that you walk towards him, your body moving in a way he hasn’t seen before. In a way that he wants to see forever, in a way that wants to make him sink to his knees, bury his teeth in the skin of your hip, taste you, your skin. Everything.
“Ooooh, are you like a serial killer or something? Would you rather kill me yourself? Cause that’s fine too. As long as I die, we’re cool. And if the cops come and see my body and ask questions, you can just use the Castle Doctrine and say you were protecting your property.” Your eyes gleam and the way you speak betrays intelligence and thoughtfulness and he cannot understand why you do not want to live. Why you do not want to breathe in the air. Why you want nothing over everything.
“Why do you want to die?” he asks you, your body stopping just before him, face devoid of emotion yet stained with tears, evidence of despair.
“None of your fucking business,” you hiss and then he can hear emotion, no toying or teasing, no evasion, just truth. It is not his business, but he’s making it his business.
“No deal unless you tell me,” he whispers, voice soft, hunt forgotten. As much as he would love to win, to see the blood splatter, feel that taste of victory, you are so much more interesting.
“Then no fucking deal,” you reply and then you turn, steps fast as you jump, lunging for a branch and catching it in both hands, hauling yourself up and onto the tree’s limb with dexterity and strength and flexibility, something that Titus wants to push. Find just how far it lasts—wonders just how much you could bend on a bed.
“You really gonna hurl yourself out of a tree and hope death sticks?” he yells out to you and you glance down at him, eyebrows raised to your hairline and you nod once, lips pressed thin.
“Better than being alive, my friend,” you call out to him, saluting him while you climb up another branch. “Better than being alive.” And it’s those words that Titus doesn’t like, this idea that you can just decide to be done. To die.
You can’t just decide that. Death belongs to forces larger than yourself, people like him, like the families. Not to some normal person with entrancing eyes and a body that he wants to know every inch of.
No, if you want to die, then he shall ensure that you live.
Which is why he lifts his shotgun, aiming carefully above you, the shot embedding in the tree and the branch above you, the wood cracking and falling, the sound of the shot ringing through the forest, footsteps echoing in a fast pace towards the sound.
“What the fuck?!” you cry, hands slowly lowering from your ears. “You’re a horrible shot!”
“I wasn’t aiming for you, darling,” he drawls as the figure of the groom bursts into the clearing, a sound leaving his throat at the sight of Titus, one entirely undignified that has Titus lifting his shotgun and shooting again, this time, the shell embedding in a human body, the man stuttering, hands clutching at his stomach before falling to the ground dead.
“You end him but not me?” you call out, standing on the branch now, hands on your hips in righteous fury. “Not fair.”
“You don’t get to die,” he hisses at you, lopping his shotgun over his shoulder and hopping up and onto the tree, climbing until he’s on the branch with you, fear for the first time shining in your death-seeking eyes.
“Don’t fucking touch me if you’re not gonna kill me,” you whisper, voice cracking as his hands come to yours, the palms flat against the bark of the trunk, holding you upright as he takes them and a zip tie from his pocket, handcuffing you and pulling you to him by the cuffs.
“I won’t touch you,” he breathes out, “until you ask me too.” He can see you preparing for a retort, but he doesn’t let you answer, instead pulling the syringe from his pocket, the one full of sedative, jabbing it into your neck, depressing the syringe, watching as you look at him with wide wet eyes, hiding a multitude of pain and loss, those eyes fluttering shut and your body falling against him, his arms encircling you as he jumps from the branch, his sister standing, arms crossed and face beyond irritated.
“You get the kill and somehow manage to get a fucking prize out of it,” she hisses, one perfectly lip-sticked lip drawing up into a sneer.
“Not a prize,” he tells her, walking with you held tightly in his arms, mind on the way you feel against him. “Meet my future wife.”
“Uh-huh,” Ursula says, lip drawing up in disgust as she looks at Titus and you in his arms. “I was around to hear that your little toy is suicidal. She’ll welcome a hunt like this because then she’ll die. You just want her to live because she wants to die and you’re sadistic.”
“If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black,” Titus replies, attention torn from his sister as you mumble something, shifting in his arms, something that makes his blood run cold before pumping with anger at the thought of what he’s heard. Of what you’ve experienced.
“Just stop…I’m not her. Please stop!”
“What are you even going to do with her?” Ursula asks him, drawing him back from the thoughts in his mind.
“I’m going to break her,” he whispers, lips curving up of their own accord. “Until she wants to live.”
“And then?”
“And then she’ll be my Mrs. Danforth.”
***
The world is fuzzy at the edges, slipping by strangely, images of your past and your present intermixing. You remember the searing touch of a man who didn’t listen, you remember running from him. You remember the taunts and the feeling of a slap against your cheek, the torments of your peers. But you also remember a strange man with a terrible gleam in his eye. You remember the feeling of his eyes on you and the strange way they made you feel.
And you are partially aware of the feeling of your body strapped down to a bed, staff coming to dress you and clean you. The sounds of construction outside your room, sawing and banging and nailing, yelling. You see those searing eyes with a dangerous gleam.
You hear whispers of Mrs. Danforth.
You hear your name falling from a voice that sounds like danger.
You feel half-dead but half-dead is too much alive for you.
You remember that you don’t want to be here, you remember being in your car, crying so hard as you gripped the wheel, attempting to drive off the bridge, but swerving to avoid the dog that ran in front of you, car crashing into the supports instead. You remember running from the cops into woods, preparing to climb a tree before hearing a man call out little boy. The man with the strange gleam.
You remember him, a falling body, shotgun shots and buckshot scattering above your head, so close yet not close enough.
You remember him whispering, I won’t touch you until you ask me too.
And then you wake up.
***
It’s dark, night, but not so dark that you can’t make out the world around you, the padded walls and lack of furniture, the restraints on your limbs, the way you’re bound to a bed, strapped. You’re surprised you aren’t gagged.
You don’t know the kinds of strange things the man you met in the woods might be into, do. You just don’t know and yet by running from the cops, you’ve ended up ensnared in this fucked up web.
All you wanted to do was finally find peace. To just let water sink into your lungs, return to that which you came from and stop feeling this…this pain. Stop feeling disgusting and worthless.
Stop feeling numb. Because that’s the truth. It’s like his touch seared all feeling from your skin, left you empty and erased all the possibility for happiness and real emotions. All you can feel is empty, sad and broken. Utterly used and destroyed living in skin that feels like rubber, skin that doesn’t feel real.
You just wanted to end it.
You just wanted peace.
And somehow, you’ve ended up in a world that will destroy you even more. You just don’t know how.
“You’re up,” that voice calls out, the one that whispered Mrs. Danforth when you drugged out of your mind, the voice that taunted you in the forest, the one that called out little boy. The one you wish you had said nothing too. Never asked for help in dying.
A light switch flicks and bright white light shines down, the white so bright it’s painful, burning your eyes, making you blink them closed, squeezing them shut against the intrusion, instead only seeing the backs of your eyelids, the way the light hits your skin. Conscious of yourself and his stare.
“I guess the drugs finally wore off,” you reply, eyes still closed and tone far too sardonic for whatever game you’ve entered, yet you just can’t stop it. It’s who you are, it’s all you have left. “So, now what are you gonna do? Kill me? Skin me? Pull some Buffalo Bill shit and tell me to put lotion on so you can make a suit out of me? Or are you one of those freaks that wants to eat me?”
“You have quite a mouth,” he calls out and you open your eyes, looking out at him, the way his lips are curved up in a smirk, one that speaks of sadism and delight and trouble. “I find that I like it.”
“Seriously,” you say, fighting against the restraints, pulling at them, feeling the woven belt pull taut against your bare arms. And that’s when you look down, noticing that your clothes are changed, comfortable loungewear on your body that looks so carefully neutral and plain that you know it probably cost more than the car you smashed on the bridge. “What are you going to do to me?”
He walks to you, his steps languid as he reaches where you are on the bed, his hands reaching for the restraints, slowly, tortuously removing them, replacing the belts over your hands with his wrists, holding you down as he looks down at you, eyes glimmering with that dangerous look as his tongue darts out to lick his lips before they pull back in that smirk, sharp canines showing as he bends down until his lips are just inches from yours.
“I’m going to make sure you live,” he whispers, eyes so focused on yours that you want to squirm, break away from him.
“Why?”
“Because I want you for my wife,” he replies, letting go of your wrists, undoing the belts on your ankles, taking the straps with him as he walks to the padded door with a lock no doubt on the outside. “And a wife needs to want to live, after all.”
And then he disappears, pulling the door shut behind him, sliding a heavy bolt into place, the sound echoing in the small, padded room. Reverberating through you, the sound travelling down every node. The sound that of being captive.
And when you look around the room, at the padded walls, the lack of furniture aside from the bed you’re lying on, one without covers or anything that could be used to hang yourself. There are no places on the walls where anything could be rooted or stayed or held.
Nothing in this room allows for you to end yourself.
It’s an anti-suicide chamber.
Fuck.
***
Titus doesn’t know why he’s keeping you, not really. He doesn’t know why he didn’t slap you for the mouth you have on you, not really. But he knew that he liked it, you. He liked you for some odd reason.
Maybe it’s because you didn’t look afraid of him when you stood on that tree. Maybe it’s the way you yelled at him. Maybe it’s the way that you know nothing about the Families, the Council, Le Bail. Maybe it’s your innocence.
Or maybe it’s that you fought for the one thing he loves to deal in.
Maybe it’s that you fought for death where everyone else fights for life. Maybe it’s that you fought him for something he did not want to give, simply because it is what you wanted. And you do what you want.
You get what you want.
And he’s never seen anyone like that before in the face of him. Only his sister and she doesn’t count having been raised the same as him. She’s the same as him—you are not.
You are an anomaly.
One strong enough to do what the title of Mrs. Danforth entails.
He just has to break you first.
***
He visits every day, sometimes for hours, bringing in a chair and just sitting and watching. Saying nothing. Sometimes he brings things with him, books that he gives you, but takes before he leaves, electronics with games and puzzles and streaming services, a jigsaw puzzle that he helps you with, despite the way you slap his hands away.
He visits and when he speaks, he brings news of the world—sometimes world news about wars and fights and taxes and sometimes just things of celebrities, stupid things or wholesome things.
He visits and brings a TV with him on occasion, staff setting it up and you sit on the bed, watching what you want while he sits on a chair by your side, never touching. Always waiting and watching. Listening.
He visits and every time, just before he leaves, even on the days he doesn’t talk, he asks every time why do you want to die and every time, you answer him let me die and I’ll tell you just before I go.
You know that he’s waiting for you to break, watching for those cracks in you, the ones where he can start to change you, seed his ideas and watch them grow in all your cracks, replacing what once was.
But he should know from watching you by now: you’re already broken, your pieces simply dust, nothing left of you but ashes burned by someone else’s touch.
“What is it today?” he calls out, the lock clicking open, servants stepping in and readying a TV, some outlet shifted in a way that you have no access too, everything readied and the remote set in your hand as you sit cross-legged on the bed, Titus beside you in a chair, his hands resting on the edge of the bed, far from you but not far enough.
“Whatever I feel like,” you tell him, contrary to the bitter end. You know he tells you that he wants to marry you, make you his wife, but a part of you knows deep down that he’s trying to break you to live just to kill you.
Make the prey fight for what it can never have.
Just like you do now.
“I suppose I could guess,” he says, his eyes sear into you and you hate that he is partially right about what he’s doing. Because when he looks at you, you don’t feel his hands or his gaze and you don’t feel like rubber stretched over bone, a gruesome amalgamation of a girl from sick fuck’s twisted head.
When he looks at you, you feel like a girl. Desirous and different.
You hate it.
All you wanted was to die and this fucker isn’t letting you out of some sick twisted reason.
“You couldn’t guess if I have no idea in mind,” you reply, flipping through movie after movie before settling on a horror, one bound to appeal to you as the girls escape, overcome everything thrown at them and rise above it.
You wish you had been able to, but his touch still lingers on your skin.
“I was anticipating a rom-com, something steamy, not…this,” he says and he shifts in the chair, your eyes going to him, straying from the movie to him, the way he removes his hands, shifting in his chair, getting comfortable as he kicks his feet up and onto the bed, a casual pose as his hands interlace behind his back. “But I like this.”
“Of course you would,” you say, a sardonic lilt to your words. “Bunch of pretty girls having to kill a bunch of people to survive. Sounds just about twisted enough for you.”
“You got me,” he replies, glancing at you in a way designed to look like an after-thought but you know that it’s not. “I like corrupting girls in blood.”
“Makes me think you got a bunch of us locked up in here, planning to just let us out one night and fight to death. Whoever survives…well, welcome to the new Mrs. Danforth, everyone!” You can’t seem to look away from him and you hate it, hate this strange feeling. You swore when it happened that you’d never look at a man with desire. Anyone really because what does it get you?
Nothing.
All it would do is bring up the memory, of his mouth, his hands, his penetration. All it would do is suck you back there, back to the darkness and the pain and you don’t want that. Can’t have it.
How can you move on and live when everything seems to bring you back there? Everywhere and everyone except this place and Titus.
And you know that’s his plan, this breaking of you so you rely on him and this place for safety. You know that he’s manufacturing Stockholm Syndrome.
And you hate that it’s fucking working.
“No,” he whispers, voice soft, soft enough to draw you back, back to the here and now. To him rather than him. “There is only you. Only you.” He says the words like a revelation, a curse and a prayer rolled into one.
“Why?” you ask. “Why me? Why didn’t you just let me fucking die?!” You can’t help it, can’t help the tears because this man seems to make you feel things, feel everything. Every little thing that you’ve ever shoved down and you hate it. Hate him.
“Because you wanted to,” he says, his face twisting in both anger and confusion. “And I didn’t want you too. Lookat you. You’re beautiful and young and vibrant. Why would you want to? I have met every form of dying person and they always fight to live. You fought me to die. So, you don’t get to die.”
“So this is a fucking power trip, you fucking psycho!” you yell, scrambling away from him on the bed, scrambling so far back that you fall off the edge, landing on your ass on the padded floor, tailbone reminding you it exists.
“No,” he says, standing and walking over to you, just standing in front of you, not reaching to help you up becauseyou haven’t asked. He’s standing by that statement he made. He doesn’t touch you because you haven’t asked him too. “This is me deciding you’re too strong to die.” Meanwhile, screams emanate through the room along with the sound of blood and knives and death from the TV.
“What do you want from me?” you ask him as you push yourself to standing, stepping towards him until you’re level, even, eyes on eyes, slim distance, his pupils flaring and expanding.
“I want you,” he whispers, voice dropping lower as if the next part is a confession he doesn’t really want to say, “to want to live.”
“So you can kill me after? Get your kicks out of finally having me fight to live?”
“No,” he whispers, jaw tightening at the admission, his hand flexing, twitching as if he means to reach out and hold you, place his hand on your cheek. Not surprising, but what is, is that you want him too.
You want to know what his hand on your skin would feel like—if it would sear the way his stare does or if it would curdle you inside like him.
“I want you to want to live…to be with me,” he says and then his jaw flexes, tightens and he’s gone.
But no servants come later that day for the TV.
It stays.
***
Titus stares at the ring and the gown, the sight of them so perfect for you that he wants to bring you up and show you. Show you the stone with your birthstone and his. Show you the gown in the exact style that you had saved on your Pinterest board, the one your mother told him about.
He reached out to your family, telling them of your attempt, the way he found you and saved you, the way the two of you are growing close. The way he loves you.
He’s not lying, just concealing most of the truth. But your mother believed him, just happy you survived and happy that you found love. After it. No amount of asking has given him the answer for what happened to you, only that your mother was not surprised you tried to end it.
She gave her blessing for the proposal, the marriage.
She gave it so easily, believing the lies she was fed. But why wouldn’t she?
She is not you, so easily suspicious and uneasy. She is not you, ever searching for an exit, an escape route. She is not you, sitting numb, not feeling anything really.
She is not you.
Because no one is like you.
***
“What’s with the gifts that stay?” you ask Titus as he steps into the room. The no longer bare room. Instead, it has a TV and books and a desk with pen and paper. Things you could use to end it all and yet you haven’t.
Impulsivity never was your thing. You like plans, you like water. You’d like to drown, feel something cold on your skin, something not his hands. Something not your blood.
“I trust you,” is all he says and you hate those words because they linger long after he leaves. Living on in your heart which seems to beat those words I trust you.
You don’t understand how he could.
But you’re not disappointed that he does.
***
“Tell me about you,” you say to him, cross-legged on your bed, him on his chair, long fingers crossed and resting on the knee he has propped up.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. I’m kind of bored. I want something real, something that’s not fiction,” you tell him, watching as that smirk grows on his face.
“You won’t believe anything I tell you.” You cross your arms over your chest and arch one brow.
“Try me.”
***
“Why do you want to die?” he asks you, his hands coming to rest on your bed, fingers interlaced, head bent like a supplicant at prayer.
“Because…” you pause and look away, tears lining your eyes and pain welling in you, the only feeling you still really have. “Because I was raped…and I get the…the feeling of him off of my skin. Because I…j-just can’t get…out of that moment. Because everything except you and this place seem to trigger…something. Because I’m numb. Because I feel like rubber stretched over bone. Because I feel like Frankenstein’s Creature, searching for something good…something mine when I can’t fucking feel anything.” You can’t even feel the tears, but you know they must be falling because the room is blurring around you.
“Because he took me and I don’t want him to be able to again. Because I hate feeling him on and in me. I hate that…that I can’t love. I hate the way it’s fucked me up. And I want peace. I want something different. I want to not thinkanymore.”
“No one will touch you without your permission again,” he whispers and you look over at him, blinking away the tears until you can see him properly.
“How can you guarantee that?” “Because I’ll kill them if they do. I’ll kill whoever did this to you to. Just give me a name.”
And you do.
***
“Do you still feel numb?” he asks you, the two of you sitting on the floor, backs against the wall, legs stretched out ahead of you, close but not close enough to touch.
“No,” you tell him and you can feel him looking at you, his gaze a tender caress. “Not when I’m with you.”
“Do I make you feel something?” he asks and there is a teasing note to his tone that makes you turn to him, fixing him with a stare dark and dangerous and wanting.
“Somehow,” you tell him, “you make me feel everything even things I never thought I’d feel again.” He looks at you with pupil-blown eyes and damn his fucking plan because it’s worked. You want him to touch you.
You want to know what his lips on your skin would feel like.
“Kiss me,” you tell him and he doesn’t hesitate, simply closing the gap between you two, pressing his lips open-mouthed to yours, teeth biting into your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Blood that he sucks into his mouth, sucking your bottom lip with it, your mouth opening in a gasp, but not of pain, but of pleasure.
And he takes the opening, his tongue breaching the distance. It’s a kiss of teeth and tongue and blood and desire. One finally being created and another given fuel, enough to make it endless.
Titus kisses you like he will never stop, claiming and owning. Devouring.
Maybe he really did break you, destroy you and make you want to live because all you want is him and for the first time, since he touched you, you feel normal. You feel like someone hurting and healing.
And you want and you want and you want.
But then you feel Titus pull back, a line of saliva still connecting his lips to yours, his lips puffy and a deep red, his tongue darting out to lick the last of your blood away, the sight making that hot, honeyed coil in your belly grow, coiling tighter.
“Was that…not what you wanted?” You hate the insecurity running through your voice but you can’t help it. You’re relieved when he shakes his head, a desirous and dangerous smile creeping onto his face.
“It most definitely was,” he whispers, tone dark and languid. “But you’re not ready for what I want to do to you. Because I can be gentle here when we talk, but if I take you to bed…I will utterly destroy you and I can’t trust you not to break.”
“But I want you,” you whine, hating the sound of your own voice, the neediness in it, yet you’re rewarded by the groan he emits, the sight of how much he wants you pressing against his pressed slacks.
“You’re not ready yet,” he says and then he’s gone. And you let out a strangled groan-cry mix, head falling between your knees, breaths jagged and sharp like all the pieces of you.
“Damn you, Titus,” you hiss. “Damn you.”
***
“Am I ready yet?” you ask him now, three weeks later. Three weeks of kissing and touching, his teeth sinking into the skin of your neck, his hands on your body, but never there where you want them.
“Answer two questions and they’ll tell me if you are,” he counters and you roll your eyes but nod.
“Go ahead.”
“One: do you want to live?” He looks at you with desperate eyes, touch-starved eyes. Eyes that want you now and are begging you to tell him the answers that he wants so that he can fuck you into oblivion, teeth sinking into the skin of your hip like he’s wanted so many times before.
“Annoyingly,” you grit out, “yes. Mainly because I saw those pictures of his unfortunate end and so…I trust you that no one will touch me again if I don’t want it. And I want to live because I…feel again and it’s not all pretty but it is fucking real so…” you shrug, casting your eyes down and away from him, but you can hear the rumble of his approval.
“Two: will you…marry me?” You look at him, away from your interlaced hands to look at the ring, the one that is perfect and dark, a black diamond set in a black gold band accompanied by purple sapphires around it, the cut angular and sharp. A weapon in a ring—how very Titus.
“The wedding dress has to be black doesn’t it?” you ask him and he sighs, nodding his head once. You sigh and roll your eyes, holding out your hand to him. “I’m saying yes, but let it be noted that, you Stockholmed me into this, you asshole.” He slips the ring onto your finger. A perfect fit.
“I know,” he whispers and then his lips on yours, his hands roaming, finding your breasts, twisting your nipples to the point of pain, causing you to unleash a pained gasp, his tongue sliding into your mouth, sucking yours into his.
He climbs over you on the bed, his knees bracketed on either side of you, one hand still twisting a nipple, the feeling turning from pain to pleasure as he bites on your bottom lip, one hand slipping lower and lower, teasing the waistband of your pants, fingers sliding along your body, sliding down and closer to your pussy. The part of you growing slick at the feeling of his lips against yours, slipping from your lips to your neck, teeth sinking into your skin.
You buck against his hand as he reaches your clit, his finger pressing on it hard, hard enough for it to be painful pleasure as his other hand comes to rest on the bed, his fingers toying with your clit, rubbing and pinching. It’s so much and yet not enough, that coil in your stomach growing tighter.
You arch your back when he bites your pulse point, pulse fluttering against the hardness of his teeth (his fangs as he calls them affectionately), his groan of desire rattling through you, vibrations that echo down your vertebrae, heightening the pleasure that he’s unleashing as he sinks fingers inside of you, thumb still pressing on your clit, two fingers knuckle deep inside of you, pumping and coated in your wetness, the feeling that only he has ever managed to cause in you.
“Are you ready to be my good girl?” he asks you, looking up at you, lips puffy and eyes so pupil-blown that they’re black. “Let me fuck you senseless?”
“Do you—think I am?” you rasp out just as his fingers hit that one spot inside of you that has you half-gasping, half-moaning, completely shattering around him when he applies more pressure to your clit from his thumb.
“I think so, sweetheart,” he says and then he pulls his hand from your pussy, out of your pants, bringing his fingers to his mouth and sucking them off before he strips you, efficiently, your hands chasing his body, helping him strip before he stands bare before you, cock hard and leaking.
And then he flips you over, one hand knotting in your hair, torso against the bed, ass in the air at the end of the bed. His other hand finds your clit again, circling it gently before he pulls back and slaps his hand against your pussy, the force and the action causing you to cry out both in pain and pleasure, arousal growing.
If he’s fucked up for doing that, you must be more fucked up for enjoying it.
“Do you like that, huh?” he asks you, voice nothing but a growl. “Like it when I slap you?” And then he does it again, the sound that results lewd with the skin against wet skin. “Such a good girl,” he purrs and then you feel him, sliding between your folds, the tip of his cock dragging from entrance to clit.
“Does my good girl want me to fuck her?” he calls out, voice husky and gritty and all you can do is nod, words difficult, but you are still you and you lift one hand, holding up a thumbs-up, the gesture causing him to chuckle despite the act going on, despite the fact that he’s an ass during sex. Which is hotter than it should be.
And then you feel him push in, groaning at the feel as he inches his way in, slowly, inch by careful inch, rough in style but not in action. And you know it’s because he knows what happened to you.
He wants this to be enjoyable for the both of you.
“So tight!” he groans, thrusting all the way in, sheathed to the hilt, his groans practically vibrating into you, like his sounds are connected to your spine. “So perfect,” he moans and then he’s thrusting in and out, the rhythm harsh and fast and rough, but not too much. Rather, just enough.
“All mine,” he groans, slamming his hips forwards, pulling on your hair, drawing your head up, causing you to glance back at him. “This pussy is all mine, right—sweetheart?” His other hand, the one that has been gripping your hip for stability now slaps your ass, a red mark welling in the shape of his palm, the flesh giving and then returning. “Say it!” he demands, drawing back and slamming into you again, cock going deep and hitting your G-spot, so close to making you fall apart again.
“All yours,” you cry out as he draws back again. “All yours, Titus!” And then he slams forwards again, hand straying from your hip to your clit, applying just enough pressure to have you shattering around him.
He cums inside of you not long after that, letting go of you and falling beside you in the bed, pulling you against him, his touch soothing and gentle.
“Did it break you, love?” he asks, his voice hushed and worried.
“No,” you whisper, turning in his arms to press a soft kiss to his lips, one that deepens as he pushes his way into your mouth, grip tightening on you. “I think you fixed something inside of me.”
***
The wedding was strange, dark and full of people you didn’t know, people who scream power from the very lines of their body and the cuts of their clothes. The vows were strange, your dress black but it wasn’t unexpected.
He had told you of his family long ago. Told you the truth and you accepted it, believing it and it didn’t scare you. If anything, it made you feel safer because here was a man who would prevent every other demon from ever touching you.
A man forged in murder.
A man forged with a twisted sense of honour.
But now, the cards before you and the one in your hand looking up at you, you can’t help but hate him just a little bit.
You knew when this began that he was going to make you want to live, just to have you die in the end—The Hunt.
“You have to survive until dawn,” the Lawyer tells you. “You have a five-minute head start so…go!”
“Damn you, Titus,” you hiss. “Damn you.” And then you run.
You run from the house, straight through to the forest, holding your skirts up, darting as fast as you can, running, running, running far from the house and the sadistic freaks. You don’t know how much more time you have left in your head start, but you stop, bending and ripping your skirt up, leaving the strands of tulle behind, running in the leggings you had him install in the dress—just in case.
And then you run, veering left and darting through the woods, towards the edge, towards the shotgun shot tree, jumping and climbing up the tree, climbing up and up and up. You can hear the people unleashed, howling and laughing as you climb, hand over hand, foot over foot, until you reach the top level, leaf cover both below and above.
And then you settle back, leaning against the trunk and resting your head as you watch the forest floor through the gaps in the leaves. You watch as Ursula walks into view, gun raised as her head swivels up and down and side to side, but she still misses you. Still doesn’t see you and then she’s darting off.
They hunt you and yet you wait. You wonder how you’ll die. If it’ll be a bullet into the heart or if it’ll be an arrow. Or if someone will climb the tree to embed a blade in you. You’d prefer the bullet.
Cleaner death.
You don’t realize how tired you are until your eyelids begin to close, your mind drifting off and then you hear the sound. The sound that signals you survived, the sound of a victory.
But you’re not dumb enough to fall for that. And so you stay in your tree, stay leaning against the trunk, feeling like Katniss when she watched the careers underneath her, waiting for her to drop.
“Sweetheart,” Titus calls out and you peer around the cover of leaves, not seeing him, but hearing him. “Sweetheart, I don’t know where you are, but it’s dawn.” You peer up, at the sky, noting the edge of the sky, the sun rising steadily, but you just. Don’t. Trust it.
“You’ve won,” says a voice you have to believe. The voice of the Lawyer. “Mrs. Danforth, it is safe to appear. You’ve won.” And so you climb down slowly, noticing the Lawyer, Ursula and Titus below. You hop down onto the leaf-strewn grass and smile, a strange smile, one that says fucked up. So fucked up.
“Fuck you, Titus,” you tell him and you notice the tears lining his eyes, the worry on his brow and then he’s there, holding you to him, holding you close.
“I was so worried,” he whispers into your hair and then you hear a crack, a sharp sound in the air, like that of a shotgun, but higher. You feel your body pushed against Titus, broken and pain-filled.
Like something has destroyed you.
You stumble back from Titus, your hands drifting to your stomach, pressing against your side, fingers coming away stained in red and you look up at him with a sad smile, one tinged with grief and anger and at the same time, relief.
“Guess I didn’t win,” you whisper, taking the blade from Titus’s waist and turning, feeling ever weaker, yet powered by anger, taking in the sight of the man with the gun. And then you hurl the knife, the blade embedding in his forehead and he collapses to the ground, shortly before he bursts into pink mist—he broke the rules.
He paid the price.
But so did you.
And you fall to your knees, your body giving way as you fall into his arms, Titus’s hands pressing against the blood flow, trying to staunch it to no avail.
“You know,” you whisper as the sounds of help draw closer but the darkness on the edges of your vision crowds in, “I really did want to live. For you.”
“And you will,” he hisses but you don’t believe him as the black swallows you whole. And the rest of the world fails to exist.
You fail to exist.
***
“Is this hell and you’re the devil or am I alive and you’re my husband?” you call out, voice dry as you open your eyes, wincing at the brightness of the lights, but delighting in the sight of your husband, of the man who made you live when you wanted to die.
Of the man who gave you love—fucked up though it may be.
“The second,” he says, his face cracking into relief and he helps you sit up into a sitting position, the skin in your torso drawing tight and you glance down, your shit ridden up to reveal stitches, your torso destroyed.
“Damn,” you whisper, noticing the feeling in both front and back. “Bullet went right through, didn’t it?”
“Wedged in my Kevlar,” he tells you and you lift one hand to slap him, right across the face, the gesture making him laugh, that husky laugh.
“You didn’t think to put any Kevlar in my wedding dress, you jackass?” He climbs onto the bed beside you, drawing you tightly against him, the room around you, his—your—bedroom.
“I forgot,” he whispers, pressing his lips against your neck, but not in a kiss, rather his teeth sink into your neck, biting down, hard but not too hard. Enough to leave marks that will last for days, but not enough to draw blood.
“You’re lucky I’m tough,” you tell him and he removes his teeth from your skin to press a kiss against your cheek.
“I’m lucky that you’re tough enough to bend into the shape I wanted and cement that way,” he whispers and you know what he’s talking about and you sigh, snuggling back against him, wincing just slightly at the pull in your stitches.
“I want to live,” you tell him and his body relaxes against you, arms tightening in a gentle, tender way. “And I want to live for you because…because you saved me, in a way. And, I mean, you made sure that he will never be a threat again and you make sex something I can…I can want again. You Stockholmed me for sure, but you fixed a bit that I’d left broken too. So…you know.”
And he does.
Because he understands and that’s enough. Because you want to live.
Just like he wanted when he took you.
***
Epilogue
“Please tell me you learned from your mistake and put Kevlar in his shirt,” you tell Titus as you climb into the bed, drawing the covers up and over your body as you watch him climb in beside you.
“I can neither confirm nor deny what may or may not be within our son’s clothing,” he tells you, drawing you close, pulling you against him.
“So, that’s a yes. And you did make sure that he’s a good shot, right?” you ask and you can feel him sigh against you, the sigh ruffling your hair as you snuggle into his arms, your face level with his, the only way the two of you can fall asleep, even years later.
“Almost better than I am,” he tells you and you sigh, relieved, nodding once, before pressing a kiss to his lips, one that tastes of first desire, no matter how many years it’s been.
“Just checking.”
“Felt like an interrogation,” he mutters and you let out a small chuckle, one eyebrow arching.
“If it were an interrogation, you’d know.” And then he’s drawing your closer, your head coming to rest on his chest as he rolls onto his back.
“Can you say it?” he asks you. “Just so I can fall asleep tonight?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, the sound of his heartbeat calming you. “I want to live, Titus. I want to live…for you.”
Even all these years later, he still needs to hear it.
Because he needs to make sure you’re still real, still here.
That this hasn’t all been a dream.
