Thirty-Five
Thirty-Five
HER
The fucker still smells like a whore.
It doesn’t matter how many showers he has, I can still smell That Bitch on him. He must have buried himself so deep inside her, made her squirt all over his cock so fucking hard that it seeped into his skin.
And I hate that that is what I am focused on more than the fact that he tortured me, then raped me. But every time he glances at her as we sit at the kitchen table eating dinner, four days after he fucked her, I want to stab her in the face, then him. Every time she tries to talk to me, I want to shoot her in the throat, then him. Every time she fucking breathes, I want to shove her godsdamn head into a shit-clogged toilet and drown her in it. Then. Fucking. Him.
It’s only the fact that Khalid is beside her that I don’t. He might be missing one hand, but he can still kill me easily, especially given I can’t use any magic now. But dear gods, if I get one second alone with her… I will end her. I don’t care if it was Khalid’s payment that led to Varius having to fuck her; she knows what my husband’s dick feels like, and I –
I stop those traitorous thoughts.
Although he will be my husband in a few months’ time, once the baby is certain to survive, he will never be my husband. I don’t want anything to do with him outside of the terms of our contract unless it’s making plans for his funeral.
“Careful,” Maddox murmurs as he leans in towards me from my left. “You’re starting to show some emotion.”
The muscles on my face relax instantly, and he chuckles softly. “You’re really making him work for it, huh?”
“I’m not making him work for anything,” I growl as I try not to breathe in the smell of the French fries in front of me. The fried smell is making me nauseous, but I don’t exactly have an appetite anyways. “I’m dealing with my own shit. If he suffers, that’s just a benefit.”
He chuckles. “The gods help us if you two ever make up.”
I glare at him side-eye as he chews on his burger. We’ve been having different types of them for the last few days – another attempt by Varius to show me he loves me. My chest tightens from the memory of our first meet, then our first date. I like burgers.
It came to mean: I love you.
I blink away those memories, but the pain in my chest stays.
“What?” he asks after he swallows. “You can’t tell me you don’t daydream about how badass you two’ll be ruling this Family together?”
“It’ll never be together. I’m just a breedmare.”
He gives me a pointed look. “Of course you would rule together because the thing about the men in this family,” he says, his voice lowered, “is that when we love, we love hard.” He nods at Enoch before I can tell him Varius doesn’t know what love is.
“He’s been in love with Stormie Green since she punched him in the nose for pulling on her hair in the first grade,” he says. “Oh, he’s dated a couple times. Tried to move on given she’s never given him the time of day, but the only time he has sex is when Ezriel drags him into a threesome.” He nods at Leno. “He lost his eyes to a wolf when he was thirteen. You know what he said when he finally found his way home, and Mom asked him what had happened, freaking out, mind you, because he’d taken so damn long to get back that even she couldn’t heal him by then?”
I shake my head.
“The fucker grinned like a fool and said, ‘I found the girl I’m going to marry.’ He’s been looking for her ever since. And Khalid,” he says as he nods at the reaper, who is talking to his whore. “He cut off his own fucking hand for her. He absolutely worships the ground she walks on, even calls her ‘master’ in Drazic. And Varius…”
A lump suddenly forms in my throat as my eyes shift to him. He looks miserable, his cheeks sunken, his eyes dark and bagged. He’s barely eaten these past few days, his plates even more untouched than mine. And I know he hasn’t been sleeping well. When he carried me back to his room that day I destroyed his office, he told me to pick a side of the bed. So I chose the upper half as I’m small enough to sleep sideways across it. He’s over a foot taller than me and has to curl up awkwardly to fit.
His eyes hold mine, and I’m sucked so deep inside them that I almost miss what Maddox says.
“...marry her sister.”
“What?” I blink, then break Varius’ gaze to look at his brother.
“I said Varius is so desperate to fix things with his girl that he’s forcing his little brother to marry her sister so she can come live with us.”
My mouth falls open. “Wait, what? Lou’s coming here?” Before he can say anything, I give him my best ‘touch her and die’ glare. “Maddox...” I growl.
He holds up his hands. “You want to stop it, you’re going to have to talk to him. Trust me. I’ve tried to get out of it.”
“You little shit.”
He shrugs, not looking embarrassed in the slightest about being caught. “Desperate times call for blatant manipulation of your sister-in-law and all that. So will you talk to him for me? If it helps, I have a side piece I’m in love with. Varius told me to kill her, but honestly, I’ve just been keeping her hidden in a cage in my shadows.”
My eyes widen. “In the Plane of Monsters?”
“Yep. And let me tell you, she is both extremely pleased and extremely pissed to see me every time I pull her out. She fucks me like she wants to kill me. The girl is giving me some really mixed signals.” His eyes widen as he shakes his head slowly.
“You’re crazy, and that does not sound like you are in love.”
His eyes twinkle. “Yeah, I know. But she is sure fun to play with.” He laughs as I just stare at him like the mental nutcase he is.
“But I’m sure I’ll fall hard too if it ever happens for real,” he says with a wink. “I’m too much of a hopeless romantic.”
I snort as I pick at my fries.
“Hey. Wounded.”
I laugh.
He smiles at me.
Dark jealousy jolts through me, and I can feel Varius’ glare. But if he’s mad at me, he isn’t looking at That Bitch, so I deliberately laugh some more.
Maddox leans over, bumping my shoulder with his. “So what do you say? Will you talk to him for me? Save your little baby sister from the cruel fate of being my bride?”
“For her, not you.”
“Of course.”
But he looks way too fucking pleased with himself.
The silent rage I’ve been wrapped in for the past four days is now itching to explode. Varius damn well knows I have been trying to keep my baby sister out of this life. She wants to go to college for an art degree, travel the world, see new things. And she’s shit with any weapon that has ever been invented. Including poison. She once forgot which cup she put it in during training and nearly drank it herself. She is the worst person to pull into this life.
So by the time dinner is over, and I’m in my room, pacing back and forth as I wait for Varius to get here and drag me upstairs – something he has done for the past two nights (the first night, I was dragged from his office), I am ready to go six rounds with him. Bare knuckled. To the knock-out.
But not to the death.
As angry as I am with him, I never want to see him dead. That glossy-eyed look he pinned me with as he lay above me bleeding out… It haunts my fucking dreams. I absolutely hate that I was the one who did that to him. That in my panic and rage and pain, I was capable of killing the man I love. I don’t ever want to be that kind of person, don’t want to turn into someone who is such a slave to their emotions that they can’t control them. And that is one of the main reasons I’ve refused to talk to him these past four days, why I’ve given up trying to fix this. I fear the person he could turn me into. The miserable bitch who just wants to hurt him for the sake of hurting him.
But I don’t have a choice anymore. Not if I want to save my baby sister from marrying Maddox.
As the door to my room opens, I clench my fists as I stand, waiting for him. There is nowhere for me to sit in here. He hasn’t bought any new furniture, and I’ve been too stubborn to ask for more.
“How dare you buy her,” I growl, and he stops just inside the room, shock on his face that I’m talking to him. But then it turns into relief, a small smile in his eyes as he shuts the door, and that just pisses me off.
“If I didn’t, someone else would’ve. And you were upset you didn’t get to see her the last time you were home. So I thought you’d like it if she lived closer.”
I glare at him, hating that he’s noticed how much I have been missing her. “I’d like her to go to fucking college,” I say irritably.
“Maddox went to college.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“She’s the daughter of Stefaan Black and the sister of my wife. She’s never going to live an ordinary life. If she’s here, we can protect her.”
“Oh? Like you protected us from Antonio?” I snap.
“We’ve changed the wards. If Talon wants to bring them down, he’ll have to use brute force.”
“And what if there’s another Talon? Lou’s utterly useless. She can’t use a weapon to save her life.”
“We’re adding more defenses to the house. Hence all the plants that are now everywhere. There are multiple wards around the safe room now.”
“I broke the old one easily.”
“Your magic is special.”
“Was,” I spit.
“Is.” He crosses the distance between us. “You still have it; you just need to relearn how to control it.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, you’re fucking yourself,” he says flatly. “You can be pissy about it, little monster. Or you can learn to remaster it.”
I open my mouth to tell him to go fuck himself again, but then I stop. Because damn him, he’s right. I’ve been seeing this as a disability rather than just a new challenge, a new way of life, and I’ve let it define me. But it isn’t who I am. It is not who I want to be. “Will you buy me a fucking wand then?” I ask, each word pulled through gritted teeth.
“There’s already one in my room. It arrived yesterday.”
My eyes widen. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you needed to reach this decision on your own. The healing process only works if you stop fighting it.”
I breathe out on a huff, but there’s nothing I can say to that either without sounding argumentative. And as much as he might think I’m just doing things to piss him off, just being silent to hurt him, all I’ve been doing is trying to heal myself. I’ve simply stopped putting his feelings before mine, stopped caring if what I need clashes with what he wants from me.
“Well, fucking thank you then,” I snap. “But I’m still not happy about Maddox. He’s the worst choice for her!”
“I thought you liked Maddox.” There’s a flatness to those words, a deadly jealousy that lingers beneath the surface. A pleasurable chill runs down my spine as my body recalls all the times he had to fuck me hard and feral to get that jealousy out of his system.
I take a step back and cross my arms as I glare at him. “Not for my sister!”
“Then who?”
My jaw clenches. No one.
“Pick,” he says, “and she’ll marry him.”
“I don’t want her to marry at all. She’s sixteen. Maddox is the youngest, and he’s six years older than her.”
“I won’t have her marry until she’s twenty-two.”
“And she’ll go to college?” I press.
“Yes.” He pauses. “And if you want, we can tell your father she’s infertile. She only needs to marry in name.”
“You’d do that?” I ask in shock. Lying to another Boss is grounds for war.
“I’d do anything for you, Micha. All you need to do is ask.”
I exhale through my nose, slightly irritated that he’s being too damn nice. “Fine. Rudy then.” He’s the sweetest.
“Done.”
“Where is she going to stay?” I snap, still wanting to fight. “She isn’t sharing a room with him.”
“Here.”
“This is my room.”
“Your room’s upstairs.”
My jaw clenches. “That’s your –”
“It’s our room, Micha, and you fucking know it.”
“No one else does!” I snap before I can even think the words.
His eyes narrow in speculation. “Is that what you need from me? To tell everyone you’re mine?”
“No.” Yes. No. Fuck. I don’t know. “I’m not yours,” I say bitterly. “I cut it off, remember?”
“How could I forget?” he growls. “Your patch’s sitting on my bedside table.” Pickled and in a glass container.
I shift uncomfortably, my skin feeling too hot. I didn’t expect him to keep it. Didn’t expect him to be so fucking obsessed and hurt by what I’d done. But I needed to do it, and I would do it again in this moment. Giving Varius any sort of control over me right now is a bad thing; then it’d be way too easy to give in to my desire to forgive him. To go back to what we were. To when I loved him and thought he might even love me. To when I found comfort in his arms rather than pain – a comfort I crave.
But I can’t go back to that.
That time, that person doesn’t exist anymore.
So I take another step back – a physical distance on top of the emotional.
“When’s she supposed to arrive?” I push out.
“In a couple days.”
Excitement and happiness war with the annoyance in my chest. I haven’t seen my sister in over four months. When I went back home three weeks ago, she was out camping with friends, so I missed her. I chew the inside of my bottom lip for a moment before begrudgingly saying, “Fine.”
“Good. Shall we go upstairs now?”
I don’t answer him as I fall back into my state of silence. Now that my sister is safe, I have no desire to talk to him. I feel empty. Hollow.
Pain and panic flash across his eyes. “Micha, please don’t shut me out again,” he begs.
But I’m not shutting him out.
“Just talk to me.”
I’m shutting me in. I need the space he’s refusing to give me.
He stares at me, willing me to speak, but when I don’t for several minutes, he closes his eyes briefly. Then he steps forward, kisses me on the forehead, and picks me up in his arms. I don’t fight him as he carries me up to his room. I don’t move at all.
But gods do I want to.
Because with my head against his chest, I can still smell that fucking bitch.