Obsession

Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

R en, despite her precarious situation, began to exploit the fractures within the brothers' ranks. She encouraged Callum's sympathies, her interactions with him growing more intimate. She screamed with him as they bled, cried with him as they healed, and used her delicate touch to romance him as they set to overcome the cruelty Bastian forced them to beset on each other.

“We just need to make it through this torture together.” Callum whispered to her as they tended to one another’s wounds.

“I don’t know how much more of it I can handle, to be perfectly honest.” Ren said.

“Bastian holds a grudge, this much is true. But he will move on at some point.”

Callum held Ren's face in his hands, squaring her focus on him.

“I promise I will always be here to pick you up. I need you to know that. I love you Ren. I always will.”

“I knew that then, and I know if you could, you would stop Bastian from hurting anyone. But I also know that’s how Bastian show’s his love too. I can’t deprive him of that. Can I?”

“You can do anything you like. If you think for one second that he holds all the power here, you are mistaken.” Callum answered.

“What do you mean?” Ren had a puzzled look on her face.

“He has never been so madly in love in all the years I have been his brother. You have him so tied in knots that he can’t see up from down. The only thing he knows is pain.” Callum caressed her cheek with his thumb.

Ren looked down and away, contemplating what Callum had just told her.

Callum had helped turn her into this creature that could bleed without dying. She loved him, but she knew that she loved them all equally in their own ways.

“Do you really not care that I have feelings for all of you?” She asked.

“I would rather you had chosen just me, but I understand. I would never deny anything that makes you happy. It just might take a while for my jealous nature to stop interfering with my logical reactions.” He paused for a minute to garner her reaction.

“I mean, if you still want to be with Grayson and Bastian, that’s for you to decide. All I ask is that you never leave me. I couldn’t stand to live without you.” He added.

Her only other companion had been suffering, trapped in this tomb with the dead.

At some point she opened her heart to these men, and they stole every part of it.

H er relationship with Bastian and Grayson, seemed to have grown colder and her heart hurt that they wouldn’t return the same feelings anymore. Only Callum openly reflected her emotions and outwardly shared in that strong emotional bond that she had craved for so long.

She was playing a dangerous game, using her body to entice Grayson when she was separated from Callum. Staying with Bastian when all he wanted to do was torture and main her.

Trying her best to find that love they shared but felt like she was somehow trying to con the con artists. It was a tightrope that could either lead to her freedom or end in disaster.

The mansion continued to grow more suffocating, the tension thick and palpable. Bastian knew of her bizarre allegiance to Callum, despite his intention being to tear them apart by having them literally tear each other apart.

So far as she knew though, Grayson was keeping it well under wraps that there was anything between them, other than the fling before her first attempt to flee the mansion.

She made a show of displaying disgust toward him when either of the other two were near. It was not a safe play, yet Ren held onto the hope of rebellion, the embers of defiance burning brighter with Callum's support and Grayson’s rejection.

The taste of love was bittersweet, a slight contrast to the reality of her captivity.