Chapter 31
I whirled around.
A gush of terror and dread washed over me like corrosive acid. Mounir stood there. By the door. The door I heard him lock.
“Aegir is expecting me with snacks. Open the door.”
“Liar. Lord Hailin has just started on his main course. The games dragged on. I was there.”
“Open the door,” I commanded.
Mounir spoke low, each word slithering like a vile snake.
“It’s been a while since I reminded you of your place here.
Clever, I must admit. Fucking the lord to keep me away from you.
You’ve been fucking him since day one, haven’t you?
That’s why he insisted on keeping you. My, how you managed to poison his mind. ”
“Open. The. Door. Now.”
“It’s been a while indeed,” he murmured, taking a few slow steps towards me. “Let me remind you that you do not give anyone any orders here, especially not to me.”
He kept closing in, so I jolted and slid myself along the worktop. I hurried for the door. I reached for it. Too late. Mounir lunged at me. He grabbed me by both of my shoulders and shoved me against the wall. Too. Fucking. Close!
He brought his face close to my neck and rasped, “But don’t worry, I won’t deprive you of your whoring habits. That’s all you are to him. A whore.”
“He’ll make you pay for this,” I spit.
His grip tightened. “Just like he did when I made your face bleed? I recall he seemed rather peachy.” Oh, I should have let him.
“Let go of me!” My voice was raw with rage but he only pinned me harder, using his heavy body as weight.
He put a little distance between us—just enough to whip my left cheek with the back of his hand.
Then he went to do the same with the other, but I managed to lift my arm and block his blow.
His eyes rounded in surprise. But he was too quick. He snatched my wrists.
Mounir laughed maniacally. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy every second of what I’ll be doing to you.”
I was about to scream my heart out, but he shoved his palm into my face, stopping me short. The back of my head hit the wall. My lips split against my teeth, filling my mouth with the tang of warm iron. The earth beneath me swayed, and a dizzying noise rang inside my head.
Mounir clenched my neck with both hands, choking me as he pushed himself against me.
He removed one of his hands from my throat and I managed to steal one quick breath.
But that slight relief turned into terror as he used his free arm to rip the neckline of my dress, exposing my breasts.
Tears slid down my face as I saw my necklace in his palm.
I tried reaching for it but he tucked it away in his breast pocket.
Then the whole of me trembled, and I whimpered in pain and disgust as he gripped my breast, forcefully rubbing my nipple.
My throat gurgled as I struggled for air.
“Oh, I can feel he’s been feeding you. Always the street dog. Humping your way around to get what you want. Careful not to believe he truly cares. You will, when he leaves you behind. Abandoned. Just like he did his own people.”
My fingernails dug into his arm. I pulled and I yanked in frustration, failing to set my neck free. I needed to breathe, to scream. His other hand moved from my breast to the hem of my skirt.
No!
I couldn’t let him. I could not let the monster who exploited me in more ways than one, to now abuse me in this way as well.
Then I heard him. Aegir’s voice. He whispered in my ear.
Stop him, Cordelia. Every muscle, every cell of my body moved at his command.
I let go of Mounir’s arms and instead dug both of my thumbs into his eyes with as much force as I could muster.
He growled, finally letting go of my neck.
He was still trying to remove my hands from his face when I drove my knee right between his legs.
I managed to take a satisfied breath at the sound of air leaving his lungs.
His hands went to his cock. And that’s when I punched him straight in his face.
To my pleasure, bone crunched. I had him bending over and falling to the floor.
I stilled, considering my necklace, but another whisper from Aegir filled my mind. Run. I sprinted for the door.
With trembling hands, I twisted the key, slid the lock, and shoved the door open.
A moment of hope filled me, but a shock of fear followed at the rustling sounds coming from behind me.
It gave me the strength and will to run for my fucking life.
I tried to scream but my voice failed me.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he had been choking me or if it was the burning rush itself, depriving me of doing so.
My hyperventilated breaths came heavy as I ran for the staircase.
I grabbed hold of the banister and used my own momentum to pull myself up the stairs.
I sent an internal warning to my legs—do not fucking fail me.
I heard footsteps and clinking keys coming from somewhere below me.
I peered down. I glimpsed Mounir, frantic, making his way up the stairs.
He, too, saw me. Shit! Another dose of adrenaline hit me and I climbed the steps in threes, covering my breasts with my arm. He’d seen enough of me!
A trickle of hope came and went at the sight of the last few steps onto which I ended up stumbling.
I whimpered at the radiating pain and almost hurled at the awkward noise my knee made.
But I had no time to waste, no time to feel pain.
So I forced myself back on my feet and hurried along the corridors.
I was moving by impulse, instinctively rushing towards Aegir’s room.
But as a few steps between me and his door remained, doubtful thoughts filled my mind.
Aegir was not there. His door would be locked unless he willed it to open.
Somehow, in those tiny seconds of panic, my brain perceived that I had never entered his room without him being there to call me in.
The fear of finding the door locked had me whining through a watering mouth.
I would have to force myself to scream my lungs out then.
Footfalls and clinking keys grew closer by the second.
I reached for the door handle with a tear-slid face.
“Please, please, please,” I murmured. And as if the door answered my plea, the handle turned cool against my skin. It opened.
It opened.
I fled inside and slammed the door shut.
Would it open for him, too?
I hobbled towards Aegir’s worktable and grabbed the first weapon I could find—a small dagger. I readied my arm just like Aegir had taught me.
I would throw it and I would aim it at his fucking head!
I could tell that he was behind the door. The moving shadow beneath it, looming like a puddle of water, gave him away. My lungs heaved. The door handle clinked. Then it rattled, causing my heart to do so, too.
Then it stopped. And the shadow beneath the door disappeared.
Racing blood still pumped through my veins, and so I stood at the centre of the room, panting, dagger ready in hand.
My knee was not happy about my current position but I kept my offensive stance for as long as my body allowed me to.
And as the rush slowly dissipated from my blood, nausea, pain, and exhaustion took over my body.
I limped my way around the bed. I sat down, curled into myself, on the carpet.
I wept silently. My body begged me to sleep, if only to forget the pain for a short while, but I couldn’t allow it.
Not until Aegir came. I wasn’t sure if it was minutes or hours that had passed but I flinched when I heard the door open.
I readied the dagger but loosened its grip at the sound of his voice. “Cordelia, what’s wrong?”
Aegir came rushing, his expression pained as he beheld me.
He dropped to his knees. A sob left me. His eyes searched mine and he gently cupped my watery face, rubbing the tears away with his thumbs.
“It’s all right, I’m here.” Despite his voice being soft, I watched trails of white mist forming along his mouth.
They appeared like shimmering fumes behind my teary eyes.
My hand joined the other at my bare chest the moment he took the dagger from my hand. He tossed it aside. Then he carefully moved his thumb along my cheek, stopping just over my lower lip. I felt its split insides knit and disappear against my tongue, its swelling subside.
“Tell me what happened,” he whispered, as if the sound of his own voice could further hurt me.
“I—I was in the kitch—” My voice was so raspy. I couldn’t recognise it as my own.
Aegir’s thumb slid along my chin, down to my neck. My vocal cords softened, and I could once again swallow without the sensation of crushed glass being grated against my throat.
My voice returned, low and unsteady. “Mounir. He—he tried to touch…but I—I couldn’t let him. I hit him, down there, and his face. And then I ran here.” I swallowed. “It opened,” I whispered. “It opened for me.” I blinked away my tears, noticing that his own had turned glassy.
“Tell me where it hurts,” he murmured.
“My head. Please, just heal my head.”
“Come, let’s get you to bed.”
I winced as he wrapped one arm around my back; the other, he slid under my knees.
He lifted me in his arms and gently placed me on his side of the bed, covering me with a thin blanket.
He placed his palms on the crown of my head.
His touch replaced suffering with godsent relief as he drove the hammering pain away.
Its tender caress almost put me to immediate sleep. I closed my eyes and sighed.
“Sleep,” he whispered, gently grazing my jaw. “I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed his hand with the little force I had left. “Don’t leave me, please.”
He knelt at my side, his hand still in mine.
“I will never leave you,” I may have heard him whisper right before I drifted off into a realm without dreams.