Chapter 12
Arianette
I sit at the long ebony table in the morning room, spine straight, hands folded in my lap like a good little Baroness.
The black tulle from last night is gone, replaced by a high-necked charcoal sweater and a long, loose black skirt that hides every bruise and fingerprint.
My thighs still ache when I shift. My cunt is tender, swollen, the ghost of blood crusted between my legs even after the bath.
The piercing throbs with every heartbeat, a dull, accusing pulse that reminds me exactly who put it there and who used it as an excuse to ruin me all over again.
Across from me, the King drinks black coffee and reads the financial pages as though the world didn’t tilt off its axis in the back of his car last night. His knuckles are scraped raw where they met stone. He hasn’t looked at me once.
The truth is plain: every time he touches me, it results in more distance instead of bringing us closer. There’s only anger and hurt.
I feel the same about Damon and Hunter. There’s a distance that ebbs between want and distrust. I earned it, but I’ve also paid for it, inside and out.
Before everything blew up, it felt like Damon and I had grown closer. He understood what I wanted–needed–a little comfort in this confusing world–and he was willing to provide it.
There’s no food on the table. Just coffee and juice. My Barons weren’t in their beds when I got home last night, nor were they there this morning. My guess is that we’re waiting for them. A guess, since no one has told me anything.
The silence stretches, and that little voice I try to keep buried in my head threatens to start chattering. “This is your fault, Arianette. You’re nothing but a burden. Useless for anything but a quick fuck.” That voice gets louder and louder and louder–until someone's boots land on the threshold.
I snap my gaze over and see Hunter trudging in first, shoulders still squared but eyes ringed in exhaustion.
Damon follows, looking worse—shirt half tucked, hair a mess, the faint scent of sulfur and copper clinging to both of them.
They drop into seats at the long table like soldiers returning from a trench.
The King finally folds the paper, but not to look at me–he studies them with the quiet, calculating attention he reserves for things that might break and inconvenience him.
“You’re late,” he says. “And filthy.”
“We ran into some trouble at the pick up.” Hunter reaches for his cup of coffee and takes a long gulp. “It took longer than expected.”
That really gets the King’s attention and mine. I watch them, grateful for the distraction. Their fatigue, their shaken edges—it all shifts the spotlight away from my own private catastrophe.
“What kind of trouble?” the King asks.
Damon mutters, “The kind that follows around a bunch of Scratch junkies paranoid out of their fucking minds.”
The cook pushes open the swinging door that leads to the kitchen and sets out plates—toast, eggs, and fruit mixed together in a cup–in front of each of us.
Well, everyone but the King. From my time in the cage, I know his habits and routines.
He’s already been up for hours, had a soak in his tub, and drank a smoothie and tea.
He’s not here to eat. He’s here for information.
Glancing down at the food in front of me, my stomach turns. Every nerve in my body feels overused, scraped raw. I keep my gaze down, trying not to exist too loudly. I can’t fuck up again. He told me by the river–no more chances.
“North Side has been in a state of chaos since the bomb took out Lucia,” the King comments, disinterested. “His remaining lieutenants are dropping like flies.”
“It’s not where we were called that’s interesting,” Damon says. “It’s who called us.”
Hunter chimes in, “Agent Knight.”
Two words, but even I can tell they have the effect of an explosion when the King asks, “The FBI called you to do a body pick up?”
Damon, chewing on a piece of bacon, nods. “Claims he intercepted the call, thinking it may be one of the missing, but when he found out it was the Counts, he intervened.”
The King rubs his jaw at the edge of his mask. “Any particular reason he felt the need to intervene?”
“One,” Hunter says. “And it’s inked on the inside of his forearm. A fucking serpent.”
A heavy silence fills the room. I understand the words and people.
Agent Knight is looking for the missing girls, and he interviewed me when they found me by the river.
The Counts are the fifth Royal fraternity in Forsyth, dismantled by an explosion on their territory–their King, Lionel Lucia, presumably blown up with his home.
But the connection of the two is startling, even to me.
“Those tattoos are only given to lieutenants,” the King says. “Recruits that Lucia found worthy of managing his trade.”
“He definitely seemed interested in protecting them–on a personal level,” Hunter adds.
“Knight is what?” The King looks between the Barons. “Ten years older than you?”
Damon nods. “Ten or more.”
The three of us wait for the King to respond, but he’s grown quiet–thoughtful, until he finally says, “Good work. This is very useful information. It stays here, at this table,” his eyes flit to each of us, “until I’ve decided how I want to proceed.”
The boys go back to their food, while I pick at mine to keep my hands busy. Everything feels both surreal and serene. Is this the new normal? Casual breakfasts with my body aching from sex, sitting with men who spent the night collecting the dead?
Under the table, a foot brushes against mine, and my eyes jerk up to meet Damon’s. I don’t know if it was an accident or intentional, but our gazes lock for a moment, and that urge for approval–for soothing–whispers across my skin.
The King clears his throat. “This afternoon, after classes, you’ll head to West End. Perilini is expecting you.”
“In West End?” Damon asks, looking up from his almost cleared plate. “Isn’t that dangerous? Shouldn’t we do it here or on neutral territory?”
I’m not sure what he’s worried about. Them or me.
“They’ll behave. After the event last night it seems pertinent to use our resources sooner rather than later.”
His gaze slides over, and for a brief moment our eyes meet. I think he’s talking about the back seat of the car, how he reached between my legs and found the blood. My body shivers at the memory of the way his eyes dilated, and how he spun me around, claiming me like a man possessed.
Maybe he’s thinking about it, but I realize quickly he’s speaking about something else.
“People in Forsyth have questions–powerful people–and the longer we can’t answer them, the more it looks like we’re hiding something.
” He stands, the conversation coming to an end.
“I have little faith in Simon’s abilities to hypnotize the Baroness, seeing that it’s nothing but junk science application, but you made a deal with him, and it’s time to see it through. ”
Fear prickles up my spine. They’re talking about me. I’m the one he’s sending to be peeled open like an old wound.
I don’t even know what’s buried in my own head–why my memory locked itself shut, why my mind flinches away when I try to push deeper.
What does my brain want to hide from me?
And what happens when they all find out?
The boys head to their room after breakfast to clean up, alternating in the shower to get rid of the grime from their night of work. Damon emerges first, the fresh scent of soap following him as he walks down the hall. Hunter is behind him, his wet hair a shade darker and pushed off his forehead.
I wait for them in the sitting room, my dance bag in my lap, and watch as they gather their bags and weapons—routine motions despite the shadows under their eyes.
While they move, my mind moves too, back to what’s waiting for me in the West End later today. The hypnotism session.
The idea of someone tinkering with my mind sets me on edge.
There’s too much in there that I don’t feel like I have control over.
Truth is, I feel like my mind has control over me.
If he pulls at the threads of my memory, will everything just fall apart?
What will I say? What will come out? The truth? More lies? Secrets?
Sweat pricks along the back of my neck.
I’ve been sitting on pieces of memory for weeks now, bits that used to feel like smoke, thin and slippery, but lately they’ve started to settle, growing heavier, clearer, as if they’re trying to take shape whether I’m ready or not.
And I know I should tell them. I know I can’t keep pretending I’m fine when something inside me is slowly knitting itself into a truth I’m scared to look at.
If hypnosis can force the rest of the memories out—if it can make the shadows line up into something solid—then maybe I’ll finally understand what really happened when I was kidnapped.
Maybe then I’ll stop waking up with that crawling feeling under my skin.
But the meeting also means something else. I have to do something else. Which is why when we’re halfway to the front doors, I swallow up the panic that nudges up my throat.
“Wait,” I say, louder than I intend.
They both stop. Damon sighs under his breath, impatient. Hunter straightens, wary.
“I have something to tell you.”
They exchange a look, but stay where they are.
“That day we went to the forest to see if I remembered anything…” I take a deep breath. My pulse thrums in my ears. “I may have had a memory or something.”
“A memory,” Hunter repeats carefully.
“Or something,” I hedge.
Damon rolls his eyes. “Spit it out, Baroness.”
“I think it was a memory,” I say, hating how unsure my voice sounds. “But honestly, the way it came to me, I wasn’t sure…” I stare down at my feet. “Sometimes I get confused about what’s real or not, especially when…”
“When?” Damon prompts.