I AM NOBODY'S POSSESSION

**Rebecca’s story **

I hardly thought Dominic and Declan were talking about Tom like I knew him. Now I had to confront Dominic because I didn’t hear that part.
They both looked at me as if they hardly believed I was the one standing in the doorway and heard them talking. I was no longer an invalid and no longer blind. I knew what I heard and saw.
“Yes, Rebecca here! And you’re going to tell me right now what connection I have with Tom?” I could definitely say that I had surprised them, but I would not sit and watch. That’s what we had to discuss now.
“Let’s go home and talk. Declan, please excuse us!” The doctor looked at us worriedly, first at me, then at Dominic. But the look on his face towards Dominic was so much different from the way he gazed at me.
To be honest, I didn’t even realize it when we arrived home. Declan was really nervous, but maybe I was the one in a position to ask for an explanation. They were keeping me in the dark. So who had the right to be upset here? Was me and only me? Yet he was the one who locked us in the office. I still felt tired. I was getting exhausted pretty quickly, but that would not make me quit. My God, and how handsome he looked! The perfectly contoured jawline, the beautifully tanned skin, the way he clenched his jaw from time to time. His slender, dominant body. I got lost in his perfection and I was going crazy just looking at him. But I had a lot of question marks, so I pushed the sinful thoughts away and attacked in full force.
“So, are you going to tell me who Tom is now?” I repeated the same question from half an hour ago, which remained unanswered. His eyes seemed to turn the color of burning lava. Then they immediately returned to their natural color. I knew this man didn’t play around and he would not spare me. I already felt that Tom was someone important in my life and I was already telling my brain to take this news in peace. But nothing prepared me for his bitter response.
“Tom is...or rather was your fiancé!” he dropped the bomb then walked nonchalantly to the window. He had changed completely and that side of him I didn’t like. I could already feel hot tears stinging my eyes, threatening to roll down my cheeks.
Suddenly, everything hurt like hell. This place was spinning with me and I could barely keep my balance. I spotted a chair next to me. But this time Dominic wasn’t indifferent. “Oh, Rebecca... easy” he approached just as I collapsed on it.
“Don’t touch me!” I flinched, pushing him away with my hand. “You have the nerve to tell me who Tom is and then show that you would care whether I feel well?” I didn’t spare him any more. Dominic had crossed a line he shouldn’t have to. Even though I didn’t remember Tom yet, he was the one I was going to marry, and he kept it hidden from me. It was only now that I realized he’d mentioned him in the past tense. My vision went blurry again, and I felt like throwing up.
“See? This is exactly why I preferred to wait before revealing who Tom was. You weren’t physically or mentally healed yet. What did you want me to do? Damage you more?” Perhaps his plea and motives were without evil intent, but we were talking about my life here. A life that was brutally stolen from me. And now Dominic, who may or may not have accidentally been there to save me. Suddenly a thought popped into my head that I denied, but kept coming back into my head.
“I wonder if you could have saved him as well? Why did you choose me? Why not both of us?” I screamed at the top of my lungs, wiping away my tears.
His face froze on the spot. It was like he couldn’t believe that’s what I thought of him. But at this point, I wasn’t interested in his feelings. Another thought wouldn’t give me peace. Could my life have taken a different course, and that tragedy has had a different outcome?
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That I had a choice between you and Tom? Rebecca, do you even know who, or rather what, attacked you?”
As much as I tried not to react, it was impossible. I didn’t understand his question. He knew very well that I remembered nothing from that night.
“What do you mean? Do you enjoy torturing me?” I shouted, throwing my hands in the air and then dropping them to my waist as if I had surrendered without a fight.
His face seemed to darken more. He looked at me breathlessly, trying to tell me. But nothing prepared me for his answer.
“Werewolves,” he said briefly, staring at me. I still didn’t realize what he had said.
“You mean... wolves?” I asked with half a mouth.
“No, I mean werewolves. Wolf-men.”
It was at that moment that I involuntarily broke into a frenzied, out-of-control laughter. My imagination was running wild.
“Werewolves? Do you realize what you’re saying? Maybe only in fairy tales, Dominic.” Dominic’s posture suddenly changed. He shifted from one foot to the other and really didn’t look like he was having fun at my brief outburst.
“I find nothing funny in that, but anyway, if you don’t believe me we have plenty of time to research” To my surprise he didn’t press the subject. But his attitude towards the death of a man who appeared to be my fiancé did not leave me unmoved. It was as if he didn’t care.
“Investigate what? You’ve just hidden a truth from me that’s hard to forgive, Dominic! You had no right...” But I didn’t have time to finish my thought when I suddenly found him all over me. So close that my heart no longer obeyed simple instructions. Like to beat normal. His bitter amber scent reached me everywhere possible. I stopped moving and just held his predatory gaze. That deep, intense black, perhaps the only reason for my drifting and hesitation.
“I saved you from death, so I have every right. I will not ask you to ever repay my favor with something you don’t want. However, it’s easy to understand that after that attack you have enemies” It wasn’t until he said this that I realized I hadn’t even thought of it. It hadn’t even occurred to me I might be followed. I had the training to defend myself, anyway. But I was still undercover. Dominic couldn’t know anything. Maybe it was time to get away from him and his house. If someone really wanted to hurt me, the last thing I wanted was to put Dominic’s life in danger. So I needed a diversion. Besides, I didn’t like the tone of his voice at all, not to mention he made it sound like I was his property. What was wrong with this man?
“I don’t know who allowed you to refer to me as something you could own. I’m not anyone’s possession, and certainly yours.” He still had me in his hold and somehow pinned to the wall by how many steps back I had taken. His eyes darkened even more and their blackness became menacing. I could have sworn that for a few seconds, that black blended into a deep red like the fires of hell. Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me because I was so angry. How could someone’s eyes become such a color?
But judging by his posture, I knew I had the nerve to face him. I wasn’t afraid of anything, so I wasn’t frightened of him either. Life has taught me to live like that. It hurt to think that my fiancé had died, but my mind blocked out that memory and any other related to him. So the actual pain of losing a loved one, I did not feel as such.
To my surprise, he stepped back, giving me room to move. Was this a battle I had won?
“That’s right, you are nobody’s possession, nor mine. But the night I saved you, I swore to myself that I would dig deep until I found out who had hurt your fiancé, and therefore you. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will. That’s why I say it’s better to stay close to me. You’re not safe yet."
I still couldn’t reveal who I really was. It wasn’t the time. I had so much to research and discover. And many others to punish. My mission was just beginning, but as long as I was under Dominic’s roof, I had no way of doing that. So I had to somehow put distance between me and him.
“Okay, if we’ve established that, once the gala is over, I’ll leave.” I postponed the inevitable a bit. I felt a sharp pain in my heart that I had never felt before. It was like my words were knives cutting through me, through my soul. It was unstoppable. Like an avalanche coming to suffocate me beneath it. There was no way out!
I tried so hard to avoid his gaze. Because I was sure he could feel my anxiety and that was no good. And I certainly didn’t want him to think I used him until I was better. My feelings were so strong and pure and I just could not understand them at the same time.
And although I expected him to react differently, he still had one but a similar incomprehensible reaction.
“Get some rest, Rebecca. Tomorrow is a new day!”
Or at least that was what they said! Because for me it would be that much closer to the day when I would be gone for good, from his home, from his world, from his heart and, who knows, maybe from his life.