03 A Monster In Love

Adasha

When Randy was finally done, I lay there, too broken to move. My body ached, my soul reduced to tatters.

In his usual twisted way, Randy shifted from monster to caregiver, lifting me as though I were fragile, precious even. 

He cradled me against his chest, the contradiction in his touch as jarring as the bruises forming beneath my skin. Silent and shattered, I let him carry me to the bathroom. 

set me down gently, his hands careful now, as if to erase the brutality that had preceded this moment.

The hot bath filled the room with steam, but I couldn’t feel its warmth. The water lapped at my skin, but all I felt was cold—an icy numbness that settled in my chest, spreading until it reached every corner of me. 

Cold and disgusted. Not just with him, but with myself.

“You need to stop provoking me like this, Adasha,” he murmured, his tone soft, almost tender, as though he were comforting a wounded child. 

His hands moved the sponge over my battered skin with a gentleness that made me want to scream. 

“Look what you made me do.”

His words sank like stones into the pit of my stomach. I bit my tongue, swallowing the scream, my hatred held captive behind clenched teeth. 

I knew better than to let it show. Randy’s fuse was short, and silence was my only defense.

I sat there, stiff and unyielding, the tension in my body refusing to give way, even as he spoke to me in that nauseatingly sweet tone.

“It’s been six years, Adasha,” he said, his voice wavering as though he were the one bearing the pain. 

“Six years, and you still drive me insane.” He paused, his face crumpling as tears streamed down his cheeks.

I glanced at him briefly, the sight of his tears as familiar as the ache in my ribs. They meant nothing to me. 

They never had. We’d been here before, trapped in the same suffocating cycle: his rage, his remorse, his empty promises.

“Don’t make me kill you,” he whispered, his voice trembling, raw with a fear that felt almost genuine. “Please, don’t make me do it.”

The words sent a chill down my spine, but I stayed silent. What could I say? I’d heard it all before—his tearful pleas, his broken apologies, his declarations of love. 

Each one had been a lie, each promise a thread tightening the noose around me.

“I hate hurting you, darling,” he continued, his voice cracking as he leaned closer. He reached out, brushing a damp strand of hair away from my face. 

The gesture might have seemed tender to anyone else, but to me, it was another weapon. “Can’t you see? It’s killing me.”

I stared at him, mute, my chest heavy with the silence that held all the words I was too afraid to speak.

He might have been crying, but I felt nothing for him. No pity, no sympathy, no flicker of hope. Just a cold, hollow hatred for the monster who had stolen my life and dared to call it love.

“Are you planning on leaving me?” Randy’s voice trembled, though the sharp edge beneath it sent a chill down my spine.

I shook my head immediately, my heart hammering against my ribs. Denying him the answer he wanted wasn’t an option—not when he was like this.

His hand reached out, stroking my hair with a grotesque mockery of tenderness that made my skin crawl.

“Don’t be like my mother, Adasha,” he murmured, his voice cracking as if the words carried unbearable weight. 

“She ruined my life. She ruined my father’s life. I don’t want to live like that. You’re making me do things I know I’ll regret, darling. Don’t push me.”

The desperation in his tone froze me, but not in the way he might have intended. His tears, so familiar, filled me with dread, a dread that deepened with each sob. 

It was always the same—the breakdown that followed the breaking.

“I’m a monster, Adasha,” he whispered, raw and broken, pulling me into an embrace that felt more like a trap than comfort. His arms were tight, suffocating, and I stayed rigid, unsure of what he wanted from me.

Comfort? Forgiveness? Surrender?

My body ached from his punishment, every bruise a reminder of his rage. But the pain inside me, the emptiness where I used to feel whole, was far worse. I didn’t think that would ever heal.

He wept into my shoulder, begging me not to destroy him. His words washed over me, hollow and self-serving, leaving me wondering: who was supposed to fix me? Who would hold me as I crumbled into pieces?

His tears weren’t for me. They never were. They fell for the man he believed he was losing, for his pride, his obsession. Never for the woman he’d broken over and over again.

That night, I lay in bed, tossing and turning. Sleep felt like an impossible luxury.

Willow, my wolf, paced restlessly within me, her presence filling me with unease. 

She shared my truth, the one neither of us wanted to face: if we stayed, it would kill us. 

Randy’s love wasn’t love. It was suffocating, possessive, an obsession that burned too hot and wild to control.

One day, his jealousy, his temper, his inability to trust would consume him entirely. And when that day came, there would be no coming back.