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Fifty-One
Last Updated:
2024-12-31 22:06:06
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His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Two
All of my insides froze with a kind of dread that I had neither experienced before, nor could say that I waned to experience now.I’M ALMOST DONE, I typed back, but Tristan’s messages were instantaneous.INFORM THE DESK. I’M COMING UP.Fuck. Everything was going bad in the worst possible way.I recalled the first night that I had met the woman at the front desk. She claimed not to be the manager, but I knew that she was the one who was manager and everything else in that motel. And Jesus, she had been rude as hell. Her meeting Tristan in his mood right now, I was certain that sparks were going to fly.Ah, the end of William Bracknell. So this was how I was going to die.I ran to the phone on the side of the wall, trying it for all I was worth, but the line was either dead, or the manager truly didn’t give a shit about whatever complaints we had.“FUCK!” I was done for.I threw on a bright pink shirt with the intention of racing to the front, towel still tied around my waist so I could
Last Updated : 2024-12-31His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Three
Tristan was silent all through the ride.His body was a tightly-contained ball of energy that I didn’t want to mess with in my wildest imaginations, and yet, I saw myself moving closer to him, inching to be near him… wanting to feel his heat.“Tristan—” I started, but he looked straight on ahead, the direct fierceness of his gaze shutting me up.Adam was driving steadily, his speed not dipping or exceeding. I pushed myself back in my chair, hoping I could get sucked in and maybe disappear.At some point, I muttered under my breath, “I’d like to get off, please.”Adam continued driving as though he hadn’t heard me. I knew that he only took orders directly from Tristan himself, but a part of me still hoped. “Adam, I’d like to get off, please. Can you stop the car?”Adam sighed and looked me in the rearview mirror. His gaze shifted to Tristan’s impassive face and saying nothing, Adam continued driving.I reached out a hand for the lock, but it was immediately seized by Tristan, the crush
Last Updated : 2025-01-04His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Four
I stared at Tristan, anger flooding quickly to my brain. Still, I made my voice neutral and flat, knowing that this would only incense Tristan further.“I’m at a party, Tristan. What do you think I’m doing?”“Don’t play smart, William.” Tristan snarled, his words hardly above a breath and yet it felt like I was being pummeled. “You know what I mean.”“If you mean why I’m not groveling behind you while you kiss a ridiculously hot woman, then you’re probably right about me playing smart. The smart thing anyone would do would be to leave. And I’m seriously considering it right now.”Tristan looked at me. I could see the fire in his eyes. He was definitely angry.“You’re… jealous, William?”He said the words like they were a personal affront to him. Like it was vile, poisonous and bitter all at the same time. I turned away, reaching for the door.“I’m going back, Tristan. I don’t have time for your games.”He slammed the door back without even needing to move.“You’re jealous, because of
Last Updated : 2025-01-05His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Five
The minute I woke up, I knew something was wrong, and it wasn’t because of the many times that my phone buzzed before I picked it up. It wasn’t because of the fact that Tristan had gotten out of bed with all of the composure of a mad man, nor was it because he left, scowling at me.No, it was because of the deadly chill that pervaded every single area of the room where I was, seeping into my bones with even far greater potency than the shock I had experienced yesterday.I got out of bed. It had happened again.The first thing I saw when I unlocked my phone was the pop-up glaring from the top of my screen.I swallowed my apprehension and clicked on the thread and a site popped up immediately. There was another picture of Tristan and I, splayed across the entire screen. I gaped, because we were kissing in the picture. Except…It was more recent—it was a picture taken from the party that Tristan had invited me to last night. I stared with wide-eyed shock at the picture of Tristan and I k
Last Updated : 2025-01-06His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Six
I stared at Tristan like he had gone mad—or grown two heads. He probably had. Except that he looked like the same person he’d always looked like.“I saw the news this morning, and I came to see how I could help. I came to see if there was any way that I could help out.”Tristan’s voice was crisp. “You came to help? How? By bloating the internet with more media of us?”I recoiled, stung. This wasn’t the Tristan I knew. This wasn’t the man who had kissed me under the rain barely twenty-four hours ago.“Tristan, what are you trying to say?”Tristan huffed and turned back into his desk behind the desk. He flipped open his laptop and began to type aggressively.“You think I did this?” I asked foolishly. Tristan’s gaze didn’t waver from the computer. “Tristan, that is easily the most absurd—”“And yet, for some reason, I only seem to make the papers these days when you’re around.” He bit back without venom.I snorted. “You can’t possibly believe…”I pursed my lips and stepped back towards t
Last Updated : 2025-01-07His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty -Seven
There was barely any time for lunch at all. By the time I got down to ground floor and looked at my watch, I saw that I had only thirty minutes left. That was barely going to be enough to stay and eat and mull over things like I really wanted to, so I simply took a walk to a deli nearby and hovered at the desk.“Welcome to Yoroshiku!” piped an eager attendant. “Can I take your order?”I stared up at him. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but it couldn’t have been because he had an easy smile. He was dressed in a smart T-shirt that properly encircled his arms, showing off bulging muscles and boasting an impressive gym time, and he had on a baseball cap.“Hey, buddy,” he said to snap me out of my fugue. “You making an order? This is rush hour for us.”“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stumbled over my words. “I’ll get a… whatever you’re having.”“I don’t eat on the job.” He folded his arms.“Oh, right. Uh… what’s on the house?”The man looked at me like I had gone out of my mind, something mixed in there wi
Last Updated : 2025-01-08His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Eight
“Oh, uh, no. I’m sorry,” I said as I picked up what had fallen. It was a small rectangular device. It could have been a phone if it didn’t look like a camera. I turned it over in my hand, noticing how her eyes went with my movements.“Sorry,” I offered the device to her. “I wasn’t looking either.”She pursed her lips, legs pumping in her heels as though she were trying to decide to fly again.“Well, thank you again, it was love—”“You look familiar,” I interrupted. “Do I… have we met before?”I noticed the flurry of movement in her throat. She swallowed, her breathing coming out sharper than it should have and her eyes held a caged emotion in them.“Have we?” She said. “I don’t think—““Yeah, it was uh… the benefit party, I think. Some months ago now. I met a lot of people back then, when I was trying to acquaint myself with all of the workers of this company. What was your name? Shera? Shanon…?”“It’s uh, Bridget.”“Bridget! Right!” A faraway look came on my face as I tried to place
Last Updated : 2025-01-09His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Fifty-Nine
I looked to Tristan, saw the sincerity in his eyes and just how much emotion had been wrapped in his words, and I felt something in my chest for this man. I gave him a gentle smile and stepped away from the door, moving to his side.“Of course.”Dinner was brought up to us, and I was glad that the house staff had taken into consideration the fact that I had also not eaten. It was a light dinner, but a full spread nonetheless, and I found myself digging into the food with such hearty lightness that I had not felt in a few days now.“Don’t leave,” Tristan murmured after a spoonful of soup.I looked up at him. We were seated on the bed, beside each other as we ate from the singular table before us.“I know you want to,” Tristan continued. “Don’t. Stay here tonight. Stay here every night.”“Tristan—”“Don’t argue. You’ve got nowhere else to go, and you’d be plain out of your mind if you think I’m going to let you go back to that ratty motel.”I hadn’t even been thinking of going back to t
Last Updated : 2025-01-10
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His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire EPILOGUE
My breath misted out in front of me as I moved, booted heels clopping against the cold interlocked streets of Paris. It was beautiful this time of year, and impossibly cold, too. I shivered slightly against the cold wind that blew again, hugging my tan trench coat around myself even tighter.I thought I heard someone—something familiar, and turned around, my breaths exhaling into the air with a cold imprecise clarity that frosted the air just in front of me. A picturesque view met my eyes.Pale-faced, fast-speaking French people who moved about, twisting and bowing their heads, nodding in conversation, shivering in the cold and folding their arms and stuffing them in their armpits, others cuddling and pretending they were in some cinematic effect, the tall hazy outline of the Eiffel tower in the background and the occasional honk of a car.I exhaled again and brought my gloved hands to my lips.“They don’t talk about how cold it is in Paris,” a voice said behind
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Eighty-Five
I had thought so many times about what it would be like to meet my father again—to confront him about his homophobia and how many things I wanted to say. I had thought about apologizing, for my insensitive remarks and how I had hurt both him and Gran, and I had thought more recently about how he had been the person that Caleb had called… he had been the one to save me.My words choked in my throat, saliva and a thousand unsaid things bulging.“Dad—”“Shh,” he shook his head and stepped back. He motioned for me to come inside. I was shivering. I couldn’t tell if Tristan was right behind me or if I was walking alone. I just knew that I had to follow my father right now, and in we went, past the grand foyer and the waiting room, and then we were in the expansive hall where everyone was standing around in, their eyes swiveling to fix on me the minute I stepped in.Once again, I felt my throat clam up with emotion and the one thing I wanted to do was sink into the floor.There, the person
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Eighty-Four
My head felt like a miniature sun was going off in it, imploding, exploding… way too loud and bright. All I could think of was the sound of meat crunching down a staircase and the sharp, clean break of bone… the strong metal scent of blood, and Tristan’s voice drilling into my ears as he crushed my bones in a hug.“You’re going to be alright, William. It’s alright. You’re going to be alright…”My eyes couldn’t leave the sight on the floor, Caleb on the floor, head bashed in terribly and bleeding, a woman that looked familiar to me, in cuffs, crying, “Caleb! Caleb, no!”Adam stepped into view, cutting off my vision.“Tristan,” he rushed to slip an arm under his boss. “You’re hurt?”“I’m fine,” Tristan brushed him away. He was still trying to keep me straight and hold me up. “William’s hurt bad. Can you get paramedic? Damn it, Adam, I’m fine. I’ll survive. It’s just a shoulder wound. Get the medics.”I zoned everything out. The million swarming cop cars and the cacophony of their wailin
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Eighty-Three
My body felt like I’d been run over by a train. Everything hurt, and when I tried to grimace, the pain was worse.“Arggh,” I groaned in an attempt to stifle the pain. My face was instantly lit up by a scarring network of white-hot firing pain all over. Slowly, I brought my hand to my face. My nose was horribly disfigured and blood had crusted all over, making crunching noises as I tried to move my mouth.I spat something to the white floor, turning it a bloody mess. It seemed so surreal. I was here in this contained place with all of the white lights and sterile looking white floors, and everything bathed in white, and I was the one thing that was broken and bleeding.I touched a loose tooth in my mouth with my tongue. Caleb hadn’t even bothered to administer any anesthetics. No pain-killers, no meds, nothing.I looked up and there he was, staring bloodily at me. At the very least, I had done some serious damage to his face, too. His eye was still bruised and when he cocked a crooked
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Eighty-Two
TRISTAN“What’s going to happen now?” Eric asked, his eyes puffy. He’d been rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms and groaning into his palms until a few seconds ago. He looked utterly disheveled. How a man could become so reduced in a manner of moments, simply because the one he loved had been taken away…I understood it. But I didn’t want to allow myself to go down that path. All I could do right now was see how I could get to William. And Caleb. FAST.I couldn’t say that I knew much of my brother—I’d abandoned almost every single thing that tied me so that I could focus on running the company. Losing my father had not been easy—but if there was one thing I knew about Caleb, it was that he needed help. He was much too unstable to left alone by himself for too long.I was sad, and broken, but I was angry and that was good. Right now, I channeled that anger into a small stream that had me flexing my wrist in small movements. I was not going to lose focus of what needed to be d
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Eighty-One
TRISTAN“Damnit.”I echoed, not for the umpteenth time that day. My thoughts were fixed solely on William. I still could not believe what had happened. All I could remember was the look on his face and how confused he had looked about everything, and the anger that I felt.To think that he’d taken that picture of me…I groaned and rubbed my hands over my face again. I could still feel the weight of Adelstein’s hand on my shoulder, patting me as he led me away from William.“It’s alright, my boy.” He’d said. “You did the right thing.”But it didn’t feel like the right thing at all. Not when I knew that William was being carted away to the police station where I knew that he would definitely spend some time sitting in that cell before bail could be made. If nothing else happened to him, then he would forever bear the guilt on his face, just how I betrayed him.No, I reprimanded myself. It had to be done.I was the CEO of Terra corporations. I was the man who made all of the difficult an
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Eighty
“You look good—” Caleb said one day as he watched me eat. “—Better.”I frowned at him. At this point in time, I figured that I had been locked up here for at least five days. There was still no way for me to tell the time, and the white bulb was always turned on here, even when I slept. But I had been eating whatever Caleb brought, devouring it ravenously, and after some time, he no longer hit me. Only stopped and watched me eat.He was doing it right now.I said nothing. Ignoring him was the only way I could keep out the madness from encroaching and devouring my mind. So I ate in silence.“That’s chicken biryani and some lamb curry,” he pointed out rather stupidly. I already knew what I was eating. Did he think I lived at the bottom of a well? I just wasn’t especially fond of Indian cuisine because they were rather spicy. Now, seeing as I had no choice, I ate every single morsel of the well-seasoned food, taking my time and hoping that he would leave me alone.
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Seventy-Nine
I didn’t know how much time had passed but I was tired and sitting at the foot of the bed by the time that Caleb came back to the small white room.“Wakey wakey,” he said as he poked his head up from the opening in the floor. He looked at me and frowned. Then he sighed and came fully into the room. The door shut behind him with an almost metallic sound.“William, you poor baby.” He made to touch me, but I shoved his hands away, breathing fire from my flaring nostrils. He looked at me with something akin to pity, then looked at the tray still on the bed, the untouched bowl of soup there.“You’re not doing either of us any favors by not eating, William.”I continued staring at him.“You have to eat something sometime. You think I want to be looking at you all stick-thin and undesirable? You’ve got to eat something. At the very least. Maybe you don’t want soup. Maybe you can tell me what you want to eat.”He drew closer, eyes shining, “If I remember correctly, you’ve never said no to a f
His Sworn Enemy; His Deepest Desire Seventy-Eight
I tumbled through unconsciousness.It was so different from sleeping. This time, it felt more real, more potent, more… I don’t know what else I could have used to describe it except for the fact that it felt like swimming in a black and oily soup.I couldn’t make heads or tails of where I was or where I was moving.Caleb had hit me. Or something had. I don’t know. But I could remember the distinct feeling of something hard making contact with the back of my head. It was a miracle I was alive—I knew I was alive because twice, I had floated in and out of consciousness, and the two times, I could barely open my eyes, but noise filtered into my hearing.I felt my body moving. Breath rushed into my lungs and the pain had bloomed at the back of my head each time I woke, burning red behind my eyes.I closed my eyes again, finally summoning enough strength to scrunch my eyes open. Blearily, I tried to look around and almost lost consciousness again from the pain that flooded my senses.“Fuuuc
