Ruin

He didn't tie her up. He didn't have to. The elevators were coded to his biometrics. The stairwells were alarmed. The penthouse was a cage of glass and gold.

Elara ran back to the main living area. Nikolai followed, his pace unhurried. He knew she had nowhere to go.

"You can't keep me here!" she screamed. She grabbed a jar of red pigment from the table—Cadmium Red, toxic and expensive. She hurled it at him.

It smashed against his chest, exploding in a cloud of red dust. It coated his white shirt like dried blood. Nikolai didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He just watched her, his eyes darkening with a twisted mix of arousal and adoration.

"I love it when you fight," he said softly. "It brings out the color in your cheeks."

"I hate you!" Elara grabbed a palette knife. She turned to the mural—the masterpiece she had been working on for weeks. The image of the dark angel protecting the woman.

She slashed the canvas. *Rip. Tear. Slash.*

She destroyed the face of the angel. She destroyed the woman. She took a rag soaked in turpentine and scrubbed at the paint until it was a muddy, ruined smear.

"Look!" she sobbed, destroying her own work. "It's ruined! Everything you touch is ruined!"

She collapsed to her knees, heaving, surrounded by the smell of solvent and the debris of her art.

Nikolai walked through the mess. His expensive shoes crunched on broken glass. He knelt before her, indifferent to the red pigment staining his clothes.

He reached out and took the palette knife from her shaking hand. He tossed it aside. Then he took her face in his hands.

"You think this matters?" he gestured to the wall. "The paint? The canvas? It is just decoration."

He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers. " *You* are the art, Elara. You cannot be ruined. You can only be kept."

Elara looked into his eyes. She saw the madness there, deep and swirling. But she also saw the absolute, terrifying safety he had promised. He accepted her rage. He accepted her destruction. He didn't care if she was broken; he would just varnish over the cracks.

For a moment, the horror warred with a dark, treacherous relief. To be loved this much—to be the sole obsession of a monster—was a drug she hadn't known she was addicted to.

Then the lights went out.