Chapter 12
Damen
Is it cheating to follow my prey’s current location on the screen of my phone when we both want me to find him as soon as possible? Maybe. But I don’t think he would mind even if he knew his new gold jewelry is equipped with a tracker.
A simple safety measure, really, but I won’t deny that seeing the dot marking his whereabouts move through the maze I know by heart is giving me a thrill.
He’s about to pass one of the many traps occasionally used during the Christmas hunt when a sharp cry echoes through the air, sinking into my chest like an icepick.
The voice could only belong to Killian, but it sounded nothing like him.
It was… loud, desperate, and full of terror.
I stare at the live map on my smartwatch, and something inside me refuses to acknowledge what a part of me already knows—the reason why Kill stopped in the exact position the trap’s located.
That would mean someone… has switched them on, on a day children were scheduled to play in the maze, and that is just… inconceivable. So inconceivable in fact that I only move when Killian shrieks again, his voice rising over the roar of two massive saws.
I don’t have much time and bolt inside the maze without thinking. Initially, I attempt to follow the quickest possible path, but Killian’s unfamiliar with the kind of danger I’ve unwittingly pushed him into, and if he gets hurt, I’m never going to forgive myself.
Glass decorations break as I charge at the nearest bush, tearing my way through the evergreen wall.
It spits me out onto a winding path, but I know where it’s going to take me, so I follow it, and only then throw myself at the hedge in front of me.
This one’s thicker, denser than the one I tackled before, but with Kill’s cries for help ringing in my skull, I drag myself up and roll over the manicured bush.
Maybe I should calm him by shouting I’m coming or Almost there, but it feels like a waste of air, when he’s so close, his shrill voice so very loud as I go right twice, then crawl under one of the hedges, and go left to face the path heading straight for the middle of the maze.
In my way is a deep hole the size of a small car, and two mechanical arms featuring circle saws move from both ends. They’re reaching for Killian, who’s in the middle, attempting to gain momentum as he throws himself at the wall to crawl out.
He’s too short. This place is designed to hold men much taller than him.
“I’m here! Grab my hand!” I yell and fall to the ground to reach for him from the edge.
Killian’s eyes meet mine, and they’re filled with pure terror.
He doesn’t say anything, just latches onto me with a sob.
I don’t waste a second and pull him up. Into my arms and out of the saws’ reach as they continue at their deadly pace.
I roll into the snow, holding him to my chest, and we both shake, as the grind of metal meeting metal announces the saws would have reached him at this point.
“What is that?” Kill chokes out, breathless and shaking as if he jumped into a frozen lake. “I don’t want to die!”
“No… no, baby, you aren’t going to die,” I whisper, hugging him to my chest. “I’m here. I’ll protect you,” I say as the roar below continues.
His nape smells of raw fear, and my soul boils over, because this couldn’t have been an accident. The traps are usually cut off from electricity to prevent situations like this, and that means my sister sent the man whom I brought here as my husband into the maze knowing what would happen.
Or was it someone else who activated the trap at the right time for Kill to fall into it?
I will rip the fucker who did this apart, but for that I need to get back into the house.
No one messes with what’s mine.
Killian can be rude, forceful, opinionated, I’ve seen all that firsthand. But now he’s shrunken, crying, clinging to me as I get up.
“I’m sorry. For whatever I did!” he sobs as I pick him up because he doesn’t seem capable of walking.
“You did nothing wrong, baby,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to his forehead as my feet carry me toward the entrance. He mumbles something in response, but between the sobs and his attempts to crawl inside me, I can’t understand what he’s saying.
Fury is a red hot presence in my chest, and I will have vengeance, but my boy comes first, and I’ll protect him from every predator there is, even those carrying the same name as me.
I kick the door open and enter the hall to astounded stares from my aunt and uncle chatting on the stairs, but I head straight for where the men are gathered.
Because I don’t think my sister activated the traps.
She was too busy with the kids and wouldn’t have enough time to go through with such a plan if she tried.
My brother on the other hand had the time, opportunity, and a very clear motive.
I enter the smoking room, and my gaze wanders straight to the fireplace, where Titus is in the habit of standing during informal meetups like this one.
When he spots me, his eyes bulge, white and round as twin ping-pong balls.
I recognize the shock passing over his face for what it is before his features return to their usual neutral expression.
“Damen?” Father asks, frowning at me from his favorite chair, and I’m about to shake them both when Killian sobs once more. I keep forgetting how fragile and in need of my care he is. He might have street smarts and a big mouth, but he’s not used to the level of insanity at the Van der Horn house.
Colin steps inside in his immaculate uniform, but while he stalls at the sight I make with my man curled up against my chest, he doesn’t lose his usual professionalism.
The man used to work at Buckingham Palace and has since been employed by my family.
This can’t be the oddest thing he’s ever seen. “Would anyone like some te—”
I step close and deposit my darling Killian in the butler’s arms, because I know he can’t stand being without human touch at this moment. He looks at me but doesn’t protest when I give him a reassuring nod.
If I don’t deal with Titus right the fuck now, I might explode, so I turn to my brother like a bristling wolf.
“Why are you looking at me like that? What’s this new drama?” Titus points at Killian, but I see the flush on his face and the vein bulging on his forehead.
He was the one to activate the fucking traps.
I don’t answer his stupid questions, just head through the room like an icebreaker with Titus as my target. Corvus rises from the couch right before I grab Titus by the collar and smash him against the wall.
“How dare you? He’s my husband! You’re supposed to protect him with your life,” I roar and smack away the fist flying my way.
I’m about to deliver a punch of my own when a strong arm closes around my wrist. But that won’t stop me.
I kick Titus’s legs from under him and send him onto the floor.
It is a shame his hand doesn’t land in the lit fireplace, because now I’ll have to kick him in there myself.
“Damen! What is this?” Father yells, but it’s like a blur on the periphery of my vision while another arm tries to pull me back by the waist.
I still manage to swipe my hand over the mantelpiece and throw the whole array of family mementos on Titus, including a vase that smashes on his head. It’s filled with Mother’s potpourri, which instantly catches fire.
“He tried to kill my husband! He activated the traps in the maze! You motherfucker!” I once more rip forward and kick Titus in the stomach as three men pull me back as if I’m a rabid bull.
“Damen, you can’t know that. Calm down,” Father shouts, but I’m already seeing red, and he can’t tame me by keeping his voice level. He’s trying to flaunt his fatherly authority, but how would that work, when his own marriage is a failure, and I’m too old to be chastised like a child.
“I won’t be calming down! I’m going to kill the motherfucker! You hear that, Titus? You’re dead!”
Corvus pulls me back again when I escape his clutches for half a second. “You don’t want to kill your brother, Damen!”
Titus starts screeching, and at first, I think he’s in hysterics. It takes me half a second to realize his hair caught fire from the potpourri-bombs. I just have to bark out a laugh at his suffering.
“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” Aspen yells, grabbing another vase off the mantelpiece.
“No!” Father yells, and a few other men gasp in horror when Aspen shakes our great aunt’s ashes over Titus’s head to put out the fire.
A sudden silence fills the room. Killian’s ragged breaths are the loudest, and they catch my attention, but it’s hard to look away from the clusterfuck that is Titus on his knees in front of the fireplace, covered in Aunt Lydia’s ashes.
Aspen looks around. “What? It’s just dust.”
Father’s face turns even redder than when he saw me with Killian last night. “Those are human remains!”
Aspen hums and puts the empty vase down. “So… do I, like, pick it up? We could probably scrape most of it off…”
Father rubs his face. “Leave it. And you,” he turns to me with a glare that tells me he’s going to blame me for everything, just like he always does.
“Have you not caused enough chaos already? Accept that the trap in the maze was a freak accident. Unless you have proof that Titus caused it. And you, Titus, do not cause havoc with your brother’s spouse.
I don’t care if you like it or not, and for the record, I don’t, but he is family, just like Victor or Bree. ”
I did not expect that.
I do have Father’s support, despite bringing over a person he did not expect and claiming to have married in secret, without his approval.
That doesn’t minimize my idiot brother’s actions, but while I don’t believe that, it’s true that this could have been a freak accident.
And if it was not, maybe Titus has learned his lesson.
He coughs up some of Great Aunt Lydia and attempts to wipe her off his face, and I’m treated to the uneven hairline resulting from my attack.
Serves him right.
“Well, there can be no freak accidents when your grandchildren are about to play in that maze,” I add, regretful that my sister’s husband isn’t here to overhear it and turn the next hour of her life into a nightmare with his complaints.
Instead of my father, Colin speaks up. “Um, sir? Please excuse me interrupting, but it seems to me that Killian is having a panic attack. Would you like me to attend to him, or…?”
I dash toward him and take my trembling boy out of his arms. “No. No, I’ll take care of him,” I say, and my heart melts when Killian’s arms slide around my neck. His breath is ragged, choppy, and he wheezes as I carry him out of the room and straight into a hallway used by staff.