A Dominant Fallen (A Dominant Series Book 2) Read online

  A Dominant Fallen

  Lena Black

  A Dominant Fallen

  By

  Lena Black

  Copyright © 2014 Lena Black

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Editing: Joshua Minette, Julie Cameron,

  & Danielle Vanzandt

  Cover design: Double J Book Graphics

  Cover image: www.depositphotos.com

  ISBN-13: 978-1502782441

  ISBN-10: 1502782448

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Dedicated to

  To my dad,

  for supporting me my whole life.

  Table of CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  PLAYLIST

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my Badass Book Bitches, Danielle, Julie, and Patti – I can’t thank you for all your love, support, and read-throughs. You guys really got me through some rough patches and pushed me to keep moving forward.#LOVEYOU

  To the best Dom friend a girl could have, Master D – Thank you for allowing me to see how that beautiful mind of yours works and giving me eye-opening insight into the world of BDSM. You have been an amazing friend and mentor.

  To my readers, Ladies In Black – Thank you for reading, loving, and sharing my work. You are the best group of readers an author can ask for. You rock!

  Chapter One

  A New Perspective

  It’s a relatively unspectacular day. However, every day since she left me has been worse than the one before. It’s been four long months since she tore my heart out and left me to wither away. I’m in my office, peering blankly out over the bustling city, bathed in the early evening light. I’m pondering what I’d done wrong, which I seem to do a lot as of late, every fucking second of every fucking day to be exact.

  It’s been torture. I’ve never felt such agony before, and I never want to again. It’s over for me. I’ve lost the love of my life, and I will never love again. I could never pervert what we had. No woman could ever compare to her.

  I’ve been biding my time by working, exercising, tracking down Dante, or sitting outside her apartment like some psychotic stalker, watching the dark windows. I go over our last night together, the way she looked when she cowered from me, the sorrow on her face when she glanced back at me for the last time. I imagine all the ways I could get her back, make her forgive me, but nothing seems good enough, nothing’s worthy. I’m not worthy.

  If the thought of her becomes too much to bear, and that’s often, I picture Dante and the horrific things I’ll do to him when I hunt him down. I will find him, and when I do, he’ll be fucking sorry. I’m thinking about my favorite form of torture when my desk phone goes off. I turn my chair back, take a deep breath, and run my hands through my unruly hair, attempting to put myself back together before answering.

  “Yes?” I ask with a clipped tone.

  “Mr. Hunt, there’s a gentleman waiting here to see you. He said his name is Chase Cahill, and he’s here regarding a common interest.”

  Gabrielle.

  “Send him in and hold my calls.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replies shakily.

  I hang up with an utterly ridiculous grin on my face, wiping it off when the doorknob turns. Chase walks into my office with a staid, rigid look on his face, though this isn’t because of me. This has pain and bewilderment mixed in.

  “Mr. Cahill, what can I do for you?”

  I rise and walkover to him, extending a hand. I don’t know why I’m being so goddamn friendly towards him. He’s able to be around her, and it kills me, not knowing what she’s doing or whom she’s with, but he was kind in informing me of the passing.

  He takes my hand, giving it a firm shake, making eye contact.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Of course, take a seat, please.”

  Calm down, Hunt, don’t want to seem too overzealous.

  He walks over to a black leather chair in front of my desk and takes a seat. I go to my chair, easing back into it.

  “How can I help you?” I ask, stolid, emanating a sense of control.

  Better.

  “Look, I don’t like you,” he states with a firm voice, “and you sure as shit don’t like me, but I feel you have a right to hear this.”

  “Understood,” I assure. “What is it you need to tell me?”

  He takes a deep breath then mumbles to himself, “Gabrielle is going to kill me…I’m here to inform you of what occurred that night at your home.”

  “What about it?” I ask, inching forward in my seat.

  “Gabrielle didn’t leave you because she couldn’t handle you or your relationship. She’s strong. As you know, she’s been through a lot of shit. I mean, fuck, she stayed with the cocksucker forever and look at the way he treated her…Dante threatened your life. He told her if she didn’t leave you, he would kill you like he killed Nicholas…”

  “He did what?” I ask with a sickened tone.

  Did I hear him correctly?

  “Yeah, apparently, he confessed while he was attacking her.”

  “That’s why she left me?”

  I feel so fucking stupid. How the hell did I ever think she would leave by choice?

  “Yup, and from what she told me, it was pretty heinous. But, that’s her place to tell you…I’ll say this, man. When she told me, I didn’t know if I wanted to kill him or throw up,” he says, shaking his head with a disgusted look on his face, but then his thought seems to take a different direction, and he chuckles to himself. “To be honest, I’m surprised you believed her when she said she didn’t love you. I didn’t think you were that dumb. I was positive you’d figure it out and come after her. Why didn’t you?”

  Are we seriously having this discussion? Am I seriously going to answer him?

  “I wanted to go to her and demand that she be with me, demand that she give me another chance to prove myself to her. Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind on more than a few occasions…However, more than my love and my need to be with her, I respect her. I respected her choice to leave me.
Besides, what’s the point in chasing after someone you believe doesn’t even love you?”

  “I should’ve asked myself that question a long time ago,” he murmurs under his breath, and I actually feel for him. “Anyway, I thought you should know the truth, let you make up your own mind.”

  “I appreciate it. Thank you, Chase…Where is she?” I ask, standing to grab my coat from the rack behind my desk.

  “You may want to take a seat.”

  I pause, leaving my coat on the rack, and slowly turn to peer at him for a moment, panic and anger seizing me. “Why…? What’s wrong?”

  He thrusts a hand into his copper hair, sighing. “We don’t know where she is. We haven’t heard from her since the funeral a week ago.”

  “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know where she is? You’re supposed to watch out for her. You fucking promised me you would,” I roar. “Unacceptable.”

  “I know. I tried, but…” he trails off.

  “What?” I ask, furious.

  “I kissed her at the funeral, and she freaked out about it, amongst other things, but once again, she can tell you.”

  “You did what?” I growl through gritted teeth. I’m seething.

  “Oh, come on, man,” he says with an almost insulted look on his face. “You knew how I felt for her. Did you really think I wouldn’t try to get her back?”

  Oddly enough, this calms me because I did know. This isn’t a surprise.

  “What did she do?” My heart beats rapidly when I ask this.

  “She kissed me before freaking and running out on everyone. She’s obviously still hung up on you.”

  I feel a bit of relief flood me.

  “And no one knows where she is?” I inquire with a cocked, inquisitive brow.

  “No one’s been able to get in contact with her. We keep texting, but we’ve only received one back from her. That was yesterday. It said to leave her alone, and she would contact us when she was ready…I wouldn’t have come to you with this if I wasn’t desperate. I was hoping you might know where she went since no one else does…I actually went as far as to call your fucking ex-sub, but she didn’t have a clue.”

  I’m floored.

  “My ex-sub? Gabrielle told you about me?”

  “Not every little dirty detail, but she explained what you had, and it isn’t hard to put two and two together…I personally don’t give a flying fuck what you do behind closed doors. I only care that you make her happy, which you did…Do you know where she is?”

  I think for a moment. There are only two places that come to mind, my house in Seattle or…Then a conversation from the night before the incident comes back to me. I know exactly where she would go. If she isn’t there, I don’t have a clue.

  “I think I know where we could find her,” I tell him, “but I want to go alone.”

  Chase throws his hands into the air, rapidly shaking his head.

  “I wouldn’t ask to come anyway. She doesn’t want to see me right now.”

  I rise, snatching my black wool coat off the hat stand, and stride toward the door. On my way out, I say over my shoulder, “Thanks for being honest with me.”

  “Thanks for not killing me,” he retorts.

  I nod and rush out the door.

  I stride out of the main lobby of The Huntsman into the madness of downtown and the mild chill of May. I walk with purpose across the street, through the Art Deco lobby, and into a waiting elevator.

  She has to be here.

  It seems to take forever. I feel as though the walls are closing in on me, the air becoming thick until it’s nearly impossible to breathe. My heart’s pounding, sweaty palms trembling, and mind racing. Finally, the doors open and I rush out, taking in a huge intake of air.

  I stride up to the front door, yanking my keys out of my coat pocket. I shove the key into the slot and unlock it, swinging the door open wide and striding through.

  “Gabrielle? Are you here, angel?” No reply. “Come on, baby. Where are you?”

  I walk down the hallway, calling her name again, but again there’s nothing, not a whisper. The door to the playroom is shut and I open it without hesitation, praying she would be on the other side. She isn’t. There’s only emptiness.

  I let out a long breath, defeated, and turn around, ready to head for the airport.

  Chapter Two

  Barely Surviving

  Every second of my pitiful, broken existence is excruciating torture. I can’t sleep, concentrate at work, or breathe. I’m a shell of who I once was. I fight to get out of bed in the morning and dread the moment I lay my weary head down at night because that’s when I think about him most. I lie in the dark, staring blankly at the ceiling, picturing him. I think about our final moments together. The look on his face just before I exited those doors, and his life, flashes through my mind constantly. The memories that hurt the most are the good ones because it reminds me of what I had and lost.

  When I shut my eyes, he fills my dreams. Though, they are far and few between. Mostly, I have the same reoccurring nightmare. The darkness is all around me, I’m lost in a black haze. I can see a blinding light in the distance, and Hunt’s voice beckons to me from its incandescent depths. I run toward it as fast as I can, and just as I’m about to reach the light, just as he comes into view, emerald eyes ablaze, he disappears. He vanishes, taking the light with him, leaving me in the pitch black, alone and crying.

  The night I left Hunt, Chase came searching for me back at my apartment, scuffed up and furious. He was pissed about letting Dante get away. He told me that he and Liam went after him, but he had managed to evade them. When he noticed the state I was in, he asked why I had left Hunt’s, and I explained the whole thing in whimpers and broken words, wrenched by the flood of tears pouring out of me.

  He made me a stiff drink to calm my overwrought nerves. Once I calmed down a bit, mostly because I was smashed, I proceeded to tell him everything. I mean, I went way back. I told him all about the extent of Nicholas’s abuse, my relationship with Hunt, Dante’s attempted rape and his threats. The only thing I didn’t mention was Hunt’s past, because it wasn’t my place to divulge. I finally got the opportunity to talk with Chase, and it got real.

  I talked forever. His golden eyes were wide and glued to mine the whole time. He would take swigs of his whiskey when he heard something particularly unpleasant, especially when I talked about Nicholas. He got up a few times to refill his glass.

  When I finished, he sat there for a while, thirty minutes at least, staring vacantly at me. I just stared back. I didn’t know what else to do. Finally, he spoke with tears streaming down his cheeks, apologizing for not protecting me from Nicholas or Dante, and I assured him there was nothing he could’ve done.

  Once he calmed down, he asked about Hunt and our relationship. He asked about our bedroom escapades, arguments, and break-up. I answered honestly, the booze working as a truth serum of sorts, and I told him everything. By the time I was done, we were wasted off whiskey and my confessions.

  “Jesus, kid,” he uttered. “I hate to admit it, but he sounds like a great fuck and a pretty amazing boyfriend. I mean, he has issues, and he’s kinky as shit, but who isn’t nowadays?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and weakly giggled. I was sure he would tell me I was fucking crazy, but he didn’t.

  “What are you going to do if they catch Dante?” he inquired.

  “I don’t know. I want to be with him, but it’s all so damn complicated, and I can’t think straight,” I replied.

  We talked and drank the night away.

  It’s been four awful months since that fateful night, the hardest of my life. I bide my time reading, crying, and hanging out with friends. I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time with Brooke. She knows what it’s like to love Hunt and leave him. We’ve become rather close, spending much of our time talking, watching movies, and drinking…a lot. I split the rest of my free time with family and friends.

  I keep asking Chase a
nd Maya what happened between them, but I still can’t get an answer out of either one. I can’t even get them in the same room together.

  Poor Jules, my bestie, struggled with her brother’s, Nicholas, death and stayed locked in her old bedroom at her parents’ home in Snob Hill. I’d brought her a few batches of my chocolate chip muffins, which she always took appreciatively. Then, about a month ago, she started becoming her old self again. She actually seems genuinely happy.

  Sloan is dating Shane from the nightclub, which eats up most of her time, but she still manages to set some aside for me. She keeps dragging me out to clubs and bars. I dance and drink, which distracts me for a minute, but I feel empty. I usually end up leaving early and head home to wallow in my misery.

  Drunk crying isn’t pretty.

  I forgave Walker for his indiscretions, and we began spending time with one another. He keeps hitting on me, and I keep turning him down, but he makes me laugh. He attempts to woo me by bringing me flowers, chocolates, and trinkets. He’s even sent me a few of the paintings from his exhibit that last night with Hunt. One being the very intimate portrait named, Gigi Bared. I can’t stand looking at myself so I packed them up and sent them off to my parents’ house for storage.

  We go out to dinner, movies, museums, and picnics in the park. The newspapers and paps still follow me around, though they don’t as much as they did in that first month after Hunt, but they still buzz about. They’ve written about how close Walker and I have become and speculated our possible relationship status.