It was insanity, to try and follow the dips and valleys of a Dom’s desires. Roman had learnt to simply flatten himself out into nothing. To not speak until spoken to. To not do until ordered. To not exist until he was needed for something.
It annoyed some Doms, but mostly, it helped keep him out of trouble unless someone targeted him.
The Dom he’d been given to—Tyler—was a complete unknown. All Roman could read off him was intense dislike coupled with a severe Dom energy, which didn’t bode well for Roman.
Roman didn’t dare look at Cross as he was led out of the room. He had a crazy, fleeting thought of jumping out the window, of running away into the woods where nobody would ever hurt him again.
That wasn’t how the world worked, though. The reality was Roman following his new Dom to a bare room. Being told about food and linens, but not being given permission to eat or seek comfort—rewards, Roman assumed, if he was ever able to be good enough to achieve them. And then, being left alone in a strange room in a strange coven to wait to be needed for something.
Maybe they’d let him starve here. Maybe they’d let him rest.
It was a pretty thought, but it would never come true.
**********
The other main thing Roman had learnt about Doms was that they’d use whatever you gave them against you. There were no safe words, no hard limits—those were just things Doms used for punishments. Roman knew that the best thing to do was lock himself up in a stiff shell and try to feel the least possible. To curl into himself and protect whatever soft parts of him remained.
In his new prison cell, Roman tried to forget who he was. Tried to forget the taste of Chaos Magic that still lingered at the pit of his throat after all those months. How it had climbed through the coven bonds and turned his blood into syrup—thick and wrong and sluggish.
Tyler had visited once, looking angry, and Roman had held perfect posture even though he hadn’t dared kneel in case it invited something he wasn’t ready to deal with yet because he was weak, and stupid, always had been—
Hadn’t Roman’s father told him time and time again? Since the day it became obvious Roman was a sub and needed to be put on his knees, in his place. His father had been made High Witch, and Roman had known it was the beginning of the end, although he had assumed it was him who would end up losing.
Roman wondered if Tyler could tell, if that was what the Dom was reacting to. Roman tried to be nothing, but there was still something left to hate.
So Roman remained alone with his thoughts and his nightmares and, of course, the Drops that had plagued him for as long as he could remember, the worst kind of pain he’d ever felt. The worst kind of loneliness and loss, as if he were being held underwater and drained of his breathing, as if he were being pushed down to where it was dark and cold, where nothing could survive.
Where nothing could exist.
**********
It had been a Monday, the first time Roman had witnessed Chaos Magic.
It was a stupid detail to remember, but every detail about that day had been branded into him, the skin of his memory burning, hissing, aching still to this day.
Everybody knew about Chaos Magic, the same way people knew about murder and stealing and lying. It was a corruption of the balance which was innate to every other type of magic—of taking only what was given. Instead of reaching into nature, people could use sacrifice instead—the taking of life, of will, of body, of self.
Roman saw his coven rip things from people—not just skin and blood, but suffering of every kind—to be used for power. He could still feel the way the air had thickened with what they had been doing, a hollow humming that wouldn’t let Roman sleep, or eat, or breathe.
He’d lived like that for what felt like a very, very long time, until Cross had found him after one of his punishments and offered him the chance to fight back.
Roman had hesitated. He’d never forget that about himself. Despite everything he had seen, everything that had been done to him, fear still overcame him.
In the end, he hadn’t really had a choice—he simply couldn’t live in that place anymore.
**********
Roman woke with a muffled gasp.
Don’t make noise, don’t make—
He could hear people outside the door. His father, probably, and Jeremy, and Len. He’d dozed off even though he was supposed to keep his form on his knees, but it had been days since he had slept. The hunger was eating at his stomach, air spinning around him.
He could smell blood. Maybe they had killed someone else, or had kidnapped someone and would make him watch them, would dig his face into the floor if he threw up or whimpered or tried to stop them again.
Roman opened his eyes. There were no cement walls, no glaring bulbs. Soft light hit the wooden floor in rectangles, cut through by the window panelling.
Outside, a dog barked, and Roman tumbled out of the tangle of sheets on his bed.
He was shaking too badly to stay on his feet even as he realised he wasn’t in Imber territory anymore. The hunger was real—he hadn’t eaten in five days—but everything else was in the past.
He was safe, right now. As safe as he was ever going to be.
His body didn’t seem convinced.
“Please,” he mumbled. He could feel the Drop pulling at him, digging its claws into his chest, leaving bloody gashes behind. He was dissolving in acid, skin and muscle dripping away from him.
He got on his knees, wringing his left wrist in his right hand. Pushed his forehead against the bed. Begged, “Please, please,” but the Drop took him anyway.
It felt like the worst pain, and the worst loneliness, a body could go through. Like being stripped of agency and pushed into a black hole where there was nothing but shame, that choking, corrosive sense that inundated all of Roman’s senses.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. It was being caught in a state of terror and self-hatred for hours and hours, a torture that went beyond skin and bone.
This was what he had always been—worth less than nothing, his dad had always said. He took up space, a pollutant, a toxin. Scum, or sludge, or pus oozing at the edges of a wound.
He belonged at the end of a leash, or a fist, or the heel of a boot.
With a muffled cry, he slipped into the darkness.
There was nothing but the Drop and then—
A knock on the door. Roman startled, looking around wildly. Hours had passed, he could tell by the markings of light on the walls. He scrambled up, strangling the noise that wanted to come out as his knees screamed at him for the position he had been in, but the pain was nothing he hadn’t felt a million times before.
He stabilised his breathing. No one could know about the Drops, or they’d use them against him.
He opened the door. Tyler stood on the other side, ever-present frown on his brown face, almond-shaped eyes narrowed. It took everything in Roman not to flinch away or fall onto the floor and beg for just a little more time. He wasn’t ready for whatever was about to happen.
The room tilted, and Roman turned quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed. He waited. There was a buzzing in his ears. He didn’t know if he’d made a mistake, but Tyler was saying something and he had to listen.
“I know this is a new place and stuff, but you’re gonna have to interact with some of us sooner or later, yeah?”