Keywords: Once Upon A Forever, Prologue, Free Web Novel, Nigerian Story, Reincarnation, Doomed Love, Fated Love, Tyrie, Slice of Life.
Tyrie
Tyrie stirred in the dim haze of his basement, slouched on a worn leather couch. The air was thick with the metallic tang of sweat and leather, his chest heaving under the clinging tank top that stuck to his skin.
The flogger lay discarded on the cold concrete floor, its tails still humming with blood.
Lara was cuffed to a long pole that ran down from the ceiling, kneeling opposite him. The echo of lashes he’d delivered to her back still rang in his ears.
She was no longer trying to escape. Earlier, she had locked his neck between her thigh and calf, swearing through gritted teeth that she would kill him.
He had gotten free easily. And he had flogged her for the audacity.
Tyrie glared at her, his breathing still ragged. Her slender frame was bowed but unbroken. The skin of her shoulders and back was a canvas of raised, angry welts. Her plain shirt hung in tatters from the whipping, just enough fabric clinging to her breasts. Blood and sweat pasted the ruined cloth to her body, tracing every fragile curve.
*God, why did her body have to curve like that?* The thought mocked him. A heat, unwelcome and insistent, swelled low in his belly.
He rose from the couch and dropped to one knee in front of her. The rough fabric of his shorts scraped his thighs as he gripped her chin with both hands, fingers digging into the soft flesh to force her face up to his.
Her eyes—those damn, defiant eyes—locked onto his. Brown flecks sparked like embers in the low light, fueling the storm inside him.
“Look at you,” he snarled. “Chained like the thief you are. You tried to steal everything from me. But look at you now.”
His thumbs pressed harder, tracing the line of her jaw. His breath came hot and uneven against her lips. The proximity was a spark to tinder. Her scent—salt, blood, and fear—invaded his senses. His cock twitched against his will.
“My father is about to die,” he smirked. “Your sugar daddy. Can no longer protect you.”
She spat at him.
He slapped her.
And his jealousy clawed back into his throat, bitter as bile.
Lara’s lips curled in a sneer, her body tensing under his hold. “Guess Daddy is going to die without ever loving you.”
He slapped her again. She spat blood onto the floor.
“You must feel really strong,” she laughed. “Only able to hurt me because the boss is sick. You are weak. Petty. Useless. A proper failure. Power is wasted on you.”
Her words were his father’s words, thrown back in his face. The echo was devastating.
Rage exploded in his chest, a white-hot flash that blurred his vision. His hand reared back instinctively, palm open and trembling with the promise of another slap. But instead of the strike, he lunged forward, crashing his mouth against hers in a fierce, devouring kiss.
His lips crushed against Lara’s with a ferocity that surprised even him. Teeth grazed her lower lip as he poured every ounce of pent-up fury into the kiss, tasting salt and the faint copper of her blood. She shifted, her body arching instinctively toward him, and the motion sent a jolt straight to his core. He hardened painfully against the confines of his shorts.
*Why her?*
He hated the vulnerability his desire exposed. He hated the way her defiance mirrored the strength he envied. He wanted to break her. He hated her. But when had hatred curdled into this?
His desire for her was a consumption.
With a growl rumbling in his throat, he broke the kiss just long enough to fumble for the key at his belt. His fingers, slick with sweat, worked the lock on her wrist cuffs. The metal clicked open. Her hands sprang free, marked with deep red indents.
Before he could pull back, her fingers tangled in the hair at his nape and yanked him closer—a grip that bordered on painful, her nails scraping his scalp. His pulse thundered in his ears.
“This changes nothing,” she murmured against his mouth, her breath hot and ragged. Her eyes were half-lidded but still blazing. “You’re still an insecure little boy playing with a gun.”
The words stung like fresh lashes. He swallowed the retort and surged forward to recapture her lips, his tongue thrusting deep. He rose unsteadily, hauling her up by the waist. His arms wrapped around her slender form, feeling the feverish heat radiating from her welts. He half-carried, half-dragged her to the worn leather couch.
The cushions sighed under her weight. He followed her down, knees bracketing her hips as he straddled her, his tank top riding up.
“Pathetic?” she snarled, a challenge.
He captured her wrists above her head with one hand, pinning them to the armrest. The other trailed down her side, fingers splaying over the red stripes he’d etched across her skin. She gasped—a sharp, involuntary sound of pain. The welts burned hot under his touch, raised and sensitive. He traced them deliberately, pressing just hard enough to elicit another sharp inhale.
She bucked beneath him, not in escape but in challenge. Her free leg hooked around his thigh to pull him closer, her body arching to press her breasts against his chest through the torn fabric.
“Is this what you want?” she shot, her voice husky, laced with a mockery that twisted the knife deeper.
Tyrie woke with a jolt.
His room was half-dark, smelling faintly of stale sweat and yesterday’s booze. For several long breaths, he lay there, palms braced against the mattress as if the world might tip. His heart hammered against his ribs. A hot, sick flush of shame crawled up his neck.
The dream refused to recede. It clung to the edges of his vision—the images, the sensations, and a stubborn, humiliating ache he would not name.
He threw his legs over the side of the bed, yanked a T-shirt over his head, and grabbed his phone. Movement steadied him. He hated how his body betrayed him, even in sleep.
He glanced down and hated the telling outline. Weakness, etched in flesh. He ignored it and walked out.
Only the ghostly blue light of the massive saltwater aquarium illuminated the great room. Men—his father’s men, no, they were *his* now—were sprawled asleep on the couches. The house was full. There was no space for him.
He glanced at the clock: 6:07 AM.
He stalked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. As he twisted the cap, his phone rang.
The screen lit his face. An incoming call from the fight ring’s manager blinked insistently. He answered on the second ring.
“Tyrie.” The voice was clipped, all business. “You there? Fight’s by seven PM. No one’s seen Lara in two matches. No one can reach her. Do we pull her from the roster?”
He kept his reply short, clipped like a snapped rope. “Keep her on it.”
“Is she with you? Coach said the last time he saw her was at the will reading.”
Tyrie had been so preoccupied with carving his place in his father’s legacy that he had forgotten her. Temporarily. The dream rushed back, a wave of heat and disgust.
His voice went cold, flat. “Tell Desmond. Find her.” He paused, letting the order hang in the static. “Drag her there if you have to. I don’t care if she’s breathing or a cold corpse.”
“Understood.”
The line went dead. Tyrie took a long, slow swing of water, the cold a shock to his system.
He stood by the fridge a beat longer after drinking, his eyes fixed on the aquarium. Behind the glass, predator and prey moved in a silent, endless dance.