Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly Duet Book 1)

GRAYSON

London Noble has quirks. Likes and dislikes. Fears. All the little intricate details that make up her personality. I love dissecting her.

She wears glasses instead of contacts. She braids her long dark hair, twirling it into a bun, instead of cutting it short. She doesn’t paint her nails. She always leaves one infuriating button undone on her blouse. She crosses her ankles instead of her legs. That is, until we talk about my deeds, then I watch her cross those long legs, thighs squeezed tight. She doesn’t like noise. She enjoys complication. Her smiles are rare. Her approval even harder to earn. She suffers back pain due to some injury, but pretends it doesn’t effect her. She’s petite. Practically the size of a doll compared to my six feet. Yet she allows no one to look down to her. She’s afraid of aging, becoming obsolete. But the single most interesting thing about my psychologist is this: I make her curious.

Not in a professional sense—though I’m sure that’s how it started; a small flame sparked into existence—but the deep-seated, scary curious. The kind of curious that drives good girls bad.

I’d love to tangle her up in my web and feast.

“What do you see?”

Soft, thin fingers peek around the edge of a board. On the front, a black and red ink blot splashes against white. You. “I see a butterfly.”

London lowers the board, her expression unreadable. At least, she strives for neutral. But I glimpse the irritation beneath her mask. She’s desperate to crack me. Wiggle inside my head and crawl around.

A week together, and she still doesn’t get it. There’s nothing to be found. I’m not here for myself, to resolve my psychotic tendencies. To be rehabilitated with the hopes of reentering society.

I’m here for her.

“You like games?” she asks, setting the stack of ink blots aside.

A smile curls my lips. I like playing games with her. “It depends on the game.”

“Do you see our time together as a game?”

Questions. Always tedious questions with her. She turns every reply into one. Refusing to let me inside her head. I adjust my feet, the rattle of my shackles loud in the still room. “This isn’t really our time, is it?”

Her soft brow creases. “You feel that I’m not committed to your treatment?”

“No,” I say, sitting forward, as much as my chains will allow. “I feel you’re very committed. Just to the wrong thing. Do you believe rehabilitation is possible?”

Her dark eyes blink behind her glasses. “I won’t lie to you, Grayson. I have my doubts. But we won’t know if it’s a possibility for you unless you take our time together seriously.”

Interesting. “I like when you answer my questions.”

She attempts to hide a smile. Crosses her legs. I inhale a deep breath, trying to taste her excitement. “My answers won’t help you.”

“How do you know?”

Her hands go to her lap. She keeps her gaze steady on me, but I see the anxious need to wrap her string around her finger. She hides it well—almost as well as she hides the tattoo on her hand—but I’ve caught her once. A black thread she keeps tucked inside her pocket. The skin of her finger wears the groove marks from where she wraps it, tightening the thread over and over.

I wonder why she does it; where she picked up the compulsion.

“You said you have doubts,” I say, keeping the tables turned. “But what if it’s not doubt. What if you don’t want rehabilitation to work.”

Her mouth pops open. Before she can blurt a practiced retort, she checks herself. “Why would I not want it to work?”

I shrug as I ease back into the chair. “Because seeking the answer on how to fix the sick and deviant is boring. You’re really seeking to understand why you’re so drawn to it. Which is far more interesting.”

She lets a faint smile slip free. “That’s a logical leap. Of course I’m drawn to it, and fascinated with my study. Understanding your compulsion to punish and kill people—”

“I’ve never killed people.” None of them were human.

Her lips thin. “Why traps, Grayson?”

Her question tenses my shoulders. This isn’t what I want to talk about. “Why not traps? Aren’t we all victims of some sort of trap? A wife trapped in an unhappy marriage. A child trapped in a loveless family. A woman trapped in a profitless, unfulfilling career.” My gaze drops to her mouth. Those satin pink lips twitch.

“Those are theoretical. And they’re not life threatening.”

“They can be…”

“But your traps are designed to take lives, Grayson. Your victims forced to participate against their will.”

I release a lengthy breath. “It’s never against their will. Their choices led them there. They’re responsible and should be held accountable for their actions. I only provide a resolution. I offer them a final choice, a way to redeem themselves, which is more than any god would grant them.”

Her hand inches toward her pocket, but then she rests it on the armrest, instead. “Do you see yourself as a god? Granting your victims redemption?”

She can do better than this. She is better than this tired psychobabble. “No, I see myself as a hunter. They’re not victims; they’re predators stalking the woods in search of prey. If they fall into the hunter’s trap, then they were in a place they never should have been.”

She wets her lips. Her tongue peeks out to tease me. One of her sins: seduction.

“This room is designed like a trap,” I continue. “You lure the mentally ill in with promises of recovery and freedom. Maybe not physical freedom, but freedom from their demons. Once they’re shackled—” I tug at my restraint “—you feast on their horror stories in the name of psychology. You feed off them, sating your own twisted curiosities. And then you publish your papers on the poor damned souls that never had a chance. You reap glory off the murderers and from the victims themselves.”

Her sigh is heavy and breathy. It slides over my skin, making the distance between us unbearable. “Have you always been this judgmental?”

This line of questioning is getting us nowhere. “No, but I’ve always liked puzzles.”

“Puzzles,” she repeats. “Why is that?”

A memory from my childhood flickers across my vision, unbidden. I tamp it down. “I like the mechanics, the way each piece has a purpose, a place. The way it simply belongs.”

London uncrosses her legs and straightens her back, sitting taller in the chair. She’s so petite, she could curl up in it. “Where do you feel you belong, Grayson?”

Oh, if she only knew how loaded that question is. But it’s not my purpose for why I’m here; this isn’t about my story. This is about her. Where she fits into the puzzle. It’s time we start peeling back her layers.

I hold her gaze, unblinking. “With you, Dr. Noble. I belong right here with you.”

A tense battle of wills arcs between us, where neither one is willing to be the first to look away.

If I come on too strong, if she becomes too aware, then she could request my transfer. I decide it’s better not to chance it by provoking her and avert my eyes to the chain resting against my leg.

“I refused your interview a year ago,” I say, finally giving her the answer to her question during our first session, “because I didn’t trust you.” I look up.

Her dark eyebrows arch. “And you trust me now?”

Dr. London Noble has a reputation of getting convicted murderers a lighter or reduced sentence. She humanizes monsters. She tames the untamable. She’s the answer to every serial killer on death row—their angel of mercy.

But beneath that façade, a devil lurks.

It’s taken me months to accept that she was put in my path for a reason. At first, I refused any connection to her. We couldn’t be farther apart on the spectrum—and yet, her name kept coming to me, a chant my own damned soul recognized as kindred.

I lean forward, getting as close to her as my restraints allow. “I trust in the inevitable.”

My response unnerves her. The delicate column of her throat jumps as she maintains an unaffected expression. “At some point, all your victims’ fates were inevitable to you. Do you view me as a victim? Have I committed some sin that I’m unaware of?”

Her twisty words bring a real smile to my face. Is she aware? Or is the ruse a part of her seduction? I don’t have the answer. Not yet. I need all the pieces of her puzzle first.

All I know for sure is that we have a story.

Ours is not a love story—we’re too volatile, too explosive for monotony. No, our story comes with a warning.

Beware.

“You’re twisting things,” I say. “But you’re not wrong. All sinners are first victims. Everyone who lashes out to harm, has suffered harm themselves.” I run my hands over my thighs, staring at the gleaming metal of my cuffs. “It’s a simple yin yang; dark and light feeding each side and devouring. A snake eating it’s own tail. A vicious cycle.”

London doesn’t use a notepad to write down our sessions. She records them, watches them played back to her. She’s a watcher. A voyeur. She uses the here and now to process my words. Silence builds between us as she takes her time sorting my voiced thoughts.

“You feel you’re powerless against the cycle?”

My gaze snaps to hers. My hands itch to tear those glasses from her face so I can stare into her eyes unobstructed. “None of us are powerless. Choice is the most powerful thing in this world. Everyone has a choice.”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, that small action igniting my skin. I curl my hands into fists as I await her next question.

“That’s a powerful statement in itself,” she says, surprising me. “Yet if you render your victims helpless, forced to make only the choices you provide them, then they’re not truly free to choose, are they?”

I unclench my hands. My fingers splay across my lap. I’ve wiggled an inch beneath her skin. I can see it in the way she touches her finger, anxious for her little string. “Much like our sessions,” I say.

Her eyebrows knit together. “How do you mean?”

I lift my arms and rattle the chains. “If we were on even ground, able to voice our thoughts truthfully, then my answers might be different.” I eye her closely. “And your questions, I bet, would be much different.”

She’s so still, if I blink, I could miss the slight tremor of her hands. I keep my gaze trained on her face. We are each other’s inevitability—a certainty that no amount of chains and bars and guards will prevent.

She breaks the connection first this time and looks at the wall clock. “That’s enough for today.”

Disappointment pulls at my shoulders. Where is the combative psychologist? Where is her determination to make me see the world her way? Doctor Noble is a narcissist. I’ve spent the past year studying her and devising my strategy for a woman I have yet to meet.

I release the mounting anger with a forceful exhale. Tomorrow.

We have an infinity of tomorrows.