Chapter 16
Killian
I lost my train of thought as soon as the horse bolted.
“Damen!” I yell, but still note that I’m not as terrified as when two saws were about to turn me into mince. Maybe nothing will terrorise me as much again.
I hold on to Bessie’s neck despite not knowing if that’s the best way to not die, but it’s not as if I got detailed safety instructions other than the obvious—don’t fall.
Hooves stomp over the snowy track, and the world around us is a blur.
I can only hope Damen knows how to save me before I slide off, because the horse he advertised to me as completely docile is galloping so fast I don’t know what direction we’re taking.
With the massive body jerking under me, I clutch to both Bessie’s mane and the front of the saddle.
My heart is in my throat every time the horse attempts to toss me off, but just when death by trampling seems to be written in the stars, Damen appears at my side, squatting on his saddle when he reaches for Bessie’s lead.
“Easy, girl, easy!” he calls, so very close I consider trying to jump over to Renoir’s back, but that might end up with both of us breaking our necks, so I hold on, set on waiting until Damen instructs me.
Bessie finally slows down, and I exhale with relief. When she stops, Damen is off his horse and offers me his arms. I don’t protest when he folds me in a tight embrace, because I need it so much after being painfully close to breaking my back.
We pull away after a while, when we hear riders from up ahead. There must be at least ten of them.
As soon as Damen spots them, he grabs my jaw with both hands and pulls me close. “Let’s show them how in love we are,” he whispers and dives in for a kiss before I can consider saying no.
Not that I’d want to. Every day since I put the barrier between us, these kisses have been my lifeline and the highlight of my holidays.
His kiss is hungry, makes me gasp, and my pulse quickens with its intensity.
It carries all the tension of the moment we shared on the carousel.
I dare delude myself that the approaching family isn’t just an excuse.
That he really wants me and only me. That he’s not like other guys.
That this thing between us could last. That he’ll marry me, and we’ll be in love for ever and ever and ever, like people in fairytales.
I’m disappointed when his lips leave mine, but then he ducks to grab me under the knees, and I’m in his arms, kissing him again.
Someone clicks their tongue close by, but Damen ignores them, still only mine, until I’m the one who has to come up for air,
“Are you all right, mon chéri?” Damen whispers, rubbing his smooth chin against mine while I rest my weight on him, still worried I might fall and break my back.
“You two don’t have to be so in everyone’s face about this,” Corvus says, emerging from behind Damen’s back on a giant of a horse that’s even blacker than its rider’s hair and coat.
“You don’t have to watch,” Damen responds, finally setting me down.
I’m glad Corvus witnessed our kiss, because it eases the jealousy that’s been burning in my heart since Damen told me about his teen crush. If it wasn’t too weird, I’d pee on Damen’s leg to mark my territory.
“He’s not wrong,” Patricia, Uncle Roger’s wife, says with a bored expression. Alexandra and Victor are here as well, with all their kids, and Aspen is trailing along, all on horseback, which makes me feel yet more inadequate about my failings.
All of a sudden, Titus bursts out of the woods from the side, once again startling Bessie. He’s got a gun in one hand, and a dead rabbit leaving a trail of blood on the snow in the other. Now we know who scared my horse. Of course.
“You missed the whole thing!” Aspen yells to Titus who scans me and my man like we’re a nuisance and stealing his limelight.
“What thing?”
Aspen whistles. “Killian was being the damsel in distress, and Damen saved him like the dashing prince. And then they kissed. Is this like a role-play thing?”
I frown, hoping I’m not blushing too much. “It was an accident.”
Alexandra scowls at Aspen. “There are children present!”
One of the twin girls pipes up from her pony. “I love role-play!”
Damen clears his throat and weaves his fingers through mine. “I would say he did well for his first time on horseback.”
“You should have told us you were leaving,” Damen’s father says and calls Uncle Roger over with a gesture. “Can you join us for a minute, son?”
The question hovers in the air, and while it’s clear Damen wants to stay at my side, he ends up looking my way. “I won’t be long. I’ll have someone with you just in case, because this sure as hell will be longer than a minute,” he mutters with a soft scowl.
I give him a longing look as he lifts me up into Bessie’s saddle. She is once more calm, so while I’m a little worried, the mansion’s very close. “But I’ll see you soon?”
Corvus rolls his eyes. “You’ll be fine on your own for a while, princess.”
I wish I could cut his handsome face with my glare. “Oh, fuck you!”
“Corvus, shouldn’t you be attending to Samantha?” Damen snaps, leaping into his own saddle. “Still missing a beard this year.”
The man in black clenches his jaw but doesn’t make another comment and rides off while my man waves at Aspen of all people. “Will you help him back home? I need to discuss something with the old guys,” he adds a bit more quietly when his much younger cousin rides up to us.
Aspen gives Titus’s gun a longing look. “But there might be more shooting…”
Damen cuts him off. “There will be no more shooting. We’re hunting tomorrow.”
“Fine,” the teen says with a long sigh, and leans over to grab Bessie’s lead.
“Take care of him like he’s your favorite Balenciaga bag.”
“The one I jerk off into?” Aspen grins at Damen who shakes his head.
“Get out of my sight.”
And with that, we’re off at a normal, and not scary at all, pace.
Though I’m not sure if Aspen himself is someone I should be wary of or not. He is a kid and Damen did leave me with him specifically, but he is still a member of this weird-ass family, and in on their murderous secrets.
“So… how’s Damen in bed?” Aspen asks out of nowhere as we lag behind the group, making our way across a large snow-covered meadow between the woodland and the gardens surrounding the mansion.
I’m instantly reminded of that one glorious fuck we’ve had in Damen’s bed, but that is none of Aspen’s business. “Why do you want to know what your cousin does in bed? Kinda weird if you ask me.”
Aspen shrugs, comfortable in the saddle for someone who seems to be a city rat. “It was worth a shot. Always had a hunch about him,” he adds and pokes his temple with one finger.
“What about Corvus?” I ask, trying to shift the attention, but also kinda curious if Aspen knows anything.
Aspen sighs. “Dunno. He acts so prissy about sex he might as well be a Victorian maiden. Also, I’m not crazy enough to go through his things and find out, if you know what I mean.”
I do not, but curiosity is eating me up like there’s a coyote trapped inside my guts. “As in…? What do you think he’d do? It’s not like he’d kill family over a thing like that. Or would he?”
Aspen shakes his head. “Oh, worse. He’s the salt-in-wound and pliers kind of guy. I wouldn’t risk it.”
I now wonder if I should have cussed Corvus out, but what’s done is done. “But he’s not hunting tomorrow, is he? Because he’s not married?” I’m trying to establish if I will be left alone in his vicinity for many hours when my man is out there trying to get a stag head or some shit.
“Nah, and neither am I. It’s really unfair,” Aspen mumbles, leading Bessie toward the mansion. “I don’t know if I ever want to get married, and the olds are wagging the hunt over our heads like a carrot to make us get hitched. As if their relationships are so great.”
I don’t know why participation in this particular hunt would be reason enough to do something as life-altering as getting married, but that’s just me.
I’m not from money, and was never forced to consider the consequences of my life choices from the angle of continuing the family line or billion dollar inheritances.
Aspen doesn’t mind my silence and goes on.
“And, like, if it’s about having babies, why do they think getting married will help?
Condoms exist. Duh. And look, you two got married, and neither of you is getting knocked up anytime soon.
” He cackles and gives the mansion a one-finger salute.
“Up yours, tradition! Sometimes I think I should just crash the hunt. Tell no one, pick off some heads, bam bam, bring them to my dad, and show him marriage isn’t necessary to be a good hunter.
And what’s he gonna do? Revive the dead?
Those prisoners are dead men walking already anyway, so what’s it matter? ”
Cogs click into place in my head as my gaze drifts off to Damen.
He’s talking to the older men at the front of our cavalcade, too far away for them to hear us.
“Wh… what prisoners?” I choke out as dread settles in my stomach like the snow around us on tree branches.
If Aspen means what I think he does, this is psychotic.
But worst of all, Damen broke the one promise I demanded of him—to refrain from lying to me in serious matters. And I not only fell into the trap he set for me but then almost crawled back into his arms right before my horse got spooked.
I’m such an idiot. Literally, too stupid to live.
“Whoopsie,” Aspen mutters, staring at me.
“I mean… at least now you know, right?” he finishes good-naturedly and changes course as soon as the stable emerges from behind the trees.
“Members of the family are usually told at eighteen, but I have an inquisitive brain, you know? But it’s all good, they’re prisoners, so they’re here for a reason. ”
I stare at him, trying to not seem bewildered, but it’s impossible. “Where here?”
“I can’t tell you, can I? But…” He leans close, looking around.
“I will let you in on a secret. My mom told me that in the first year someone’s married, their spouse is part of the hunt.
It’s this whole ritual, that you’re supposed to show you can protect them.
Unless, of course, you fail, then I guess you need a new wife—sorry, spouse, next year. ”
And I thought the fact that the man I’m falling in love with hunts people for sport was my biggest problem. This is happening on top of homicidal mayhem? And he didn’t even tell me? If the blond little shit knows, Damen must as well!
“I… the horse is making me feel nauseous,” I whisper and take my foot out of the stirrup, grabbing the saddle as I swing my leg over the beast’s hindquarters, and then let go.
My other leg is briefly stuck in the other stirrup, and for a moment I fear I might land under Bessie’s hoofs in the slowest trampling in history of horse-riding accidents, but I manage to free myself and tumble into the snow.
Aspen scowls with a low hiss. “Ayayay... I fucked up with all this, didn’t I? Honestly, maybe Damen picked the wrong person to calm you down, so it’s kinda his fault, isn’t it?”
I pick myself up in frustration and shake snow off my pants and coat. “Yeah, it is. It’s all his fucking fault!” I have to take a deep breath. “Excuse me as I go rethink my life choices,” I add in a voice dripping with sarcasm and stomp off toward the house.
“So… should I, like, take care of Bessie?” Aspen yells after me, but I leave that up to him.
I really am getting nauseated now. My… what?
He’s not my husband. We’re not even fucking.
But let’s call him man-I-was-considering-fucking-again.
So this man, Damen Van der Horn, mon chéri, is so excited to hunt people on Christmas Day that he roped me into a fake marriage, and it slipped his mind to tell me what I’m in for.
If he’s this much of a psycho, why would I believe anything he’s said to me? Maybe he’s just annoyed he doesn’t get to fuck me anymore, but since he doesn’t like to be rapey, he’s trying to seduce me instead. All in a cold and calculated plan to… to what?
I’m at a loss.
I only stop to hyperventilate when I reach one of the many bathrooms in the mansion.
This is so fucked up.
I clench my hands on the sink and face myself in the mirror.
“You are dumb,” I whisper to my reflection, “and gullible. You need to know this if you’re to survive the next few days.
Without this self-awareness, you will fall into another liar’s bed.
He will fuck you. You will fall in love with him.
You will excuse everything he says or does, and then, he might just kill you.
Understand?” I poke the mirror with a sob. “Do not fall for his lies.”
I’m so exhausted with my own tirade I slide to the floor in the corner and cry in peace where no one can find me.
I don’t want any of this to be true. I want Damen to be my dark Prince Charming, and sweep me off my feet. I want to be his baby boy, loved and protected, taken care of. I was almost ready to trust a man again.
But instead, I had to put my trust in the biggest walking red flag I’ve ever seen. The guy abducted me, for fucks sake, and I conveniently forgot that for la petite mort.