---
It started with a bruise.
Faint. Shadowed. Just below Damien's collarbone, where no shirt would ever hide it—unless someone knew exactly where to look.
Ava did.
And she wasn't supposed to.
The morning after their most honest night yet, she traced it gently with her fingertip as he slept beside her, chest rising and falling with steady, almost practiced calm. The bruise was old—weeks, maybe. But the shape was deliberate. A thin, cruel curve.
It hadn't come from her.
And not from their games.
No.
This was something else.
Pain without consent. Violence without invitation. A history left buried in flesh.
She didn't ask him then.
Not when his body was so relaxed against hers. Not when he murmured her name in his sleep like a man finally dreaming of peace instead of punishment.
But the question burned.
And questions like that never stay silent for long.
---
Later, in the warmth of The Crimson Room's private salon, Ava sat curled on a velvet chaise as Mina, her ever-watchful second-in-command, quietly braided her hair.
"You've changed him," Mina said softly, hands steady, voice low.
"I didn't want to," Ava replied, sipping her tea. "I just… didn't look away."
Mina paused. "There are others who tried. Who failed."
Ava turned. "You mean Salomé."
Mina didn't nod. She didn't have to.
"She didn't fail," Ava said. "She never tried to love him. She tried to own him."
There was a long pause before Mina's next words:
"And what happens if the part of him that was owned never left?"
---
That night, Ava waited in the center of Room 23—her room now, not his—with nothing but a single candle lit and the silk tie Damien had once used on her wrists.
He arrived without a word.
Dressed in black.
No mask.
No armor.
Just eyes that burned and hands that trembled the moment he saw her.
She didn't kneel.
She didn't offer herself.
Instead, she walked to him and held out the tie.
He took it slowly, his fingers brushing hers.
"Bind me," he whispered.
Her breath caught.
He looked up. Vulnerable. Bare.
"I need to know what it feels like when control is given… not taken."
---
She tied his wrists behind his back—softly, not tightly. A loop of silk, elegant and symbolic. He could escape it at any moment, but he didn't.
He stood before her.
Still.
Waiting.
"You trust me," she said, not as a question.
"I want to," he replied. "But trust for me isn't a gift. It's a fight."
She reached for his belt.
Unfastened it.
Unbuttoned his pants.
Pushed them down inch by inch, savoring the tension in his breath, the way his muscles twitched with the effort of not flinching.
"You don't have to fight here."
He inhaled sharply as she pressed a kiss just above his hip bone.
"Then teach me," he whispered. "Show me how it feels to give without losing."
---
She guided him to the bed.
Pushed him down gently.
And straddled him—not to take, but to witness.
Her hands explored him like scripture, her lips pressing words into every scar.
When she lowered herself onto him, slow and unhurried, his head fell back, and he moaned—raw and unguarded.
Not the dominant.
Not the master.
Just a man learning how to feel again.
---
It wasn't about pace.
Or power.
It was about depth.
She rode him with reverence, with rhythm, with the kind of slow build that makes a soul unravel before the body does.
Every time his breath hitched, she leaned down and whispered:
"You're safe."
Every time he closed his eyes, she pressed her mouth to his ear:
"You're mine."
And when he came—hard, silent, shaking—she held him like a secret.
A precious, dangerous, sacred secret.
---
After, they lay tangled in silk and sweat and something deeper.
He didn't speak.
She didn't press.
Until, quietly, he said:
"My father used to say that weakness was the first step to being owned."
Ava didn't move.
"And what do you say now?" she asked.
Damien turned his head toward her.
"That surrender can be strength. If it's given to someone who doesn't use it like a weapon."
Ava kissed his knuckles, still bound behind his back.
"Then I'll never turn your surrender into a blade."
---
But not everything could be healed in moans and silk.
Three nights later, she caught Damien standing outside Room 9.
Not inside.
Not going in.
Just… watching.
His jaw was tight.
His hands fisted.
A woman knelt at the center of the room.
Naked.
Hair slicked back.
Eyes downcast.
A collar gleaming at her throat.
Lyla.
Again.
Always waiting.
Always watching.
"Why do you keep coming here?" Ava asked from behind him.
Damien didn't turn.
"Because part of me still wonders what I would've become if you hadn't stopped me."
"And what do you see when you look at her?"
He hesitated.
"An echo."
Ava stepped beside him.
"Then let her echo. But don't mistake it for a voice."
---
That night, she didn't seduce him.
She didn't fuck him.
She sat him in a chair.
Kneeling before him.
And whispered:
"I don't need to be worshipped tonight. I just need to be with you."
His hands trembled as he untied the ribbon from his own wrist and placed it in hers.
A gesture without dominance.
A promise without performance.
A man who once ruled through control was learning to live in choice.
And Ava?
She kissed the scars she could reach.
And left the rest for time.
---
[To Be Continued in Episode 6: When Shadows Kneel]
---