Chapter 18
Killian
I’m high on Damen by the time he puts me down and takes my hand. My Murder Romeo might be eager to hunt down his enemies, but at least he’s honest about it. As long as he’s also honest about his devotion for me, I don’t care.
He grabs my hand and kisses it with a few words in French before leading me to a door that’s new to me. I’ve only ever seen staff go through it, but it’s in the far end of the house, so it’s not as if I’ve been around here much.
His words still echo in my heart.
“I will never not want you.”
“You belong with me.”
“You’re mine.”
The magic words to unlock my heart.
I squeeze his hand when we enter a massive storage room with metal shelving holding everything from soaps, pet food and flour, to linen and spare brooms. But we go farther, down a flight of stairs that lead into a cellar carrying a faint smell of damp earth.
I spot many types of vegetables, as well as wine, but Damen knows exactly where he’s going and reaches past a pickle jar resting inside a nearby cupboard.
Something clicks, and the piece of furniture breaks away from the wall, revealing a hidden passage.
My heart beats so loudly I can hear it. If I were with anyone else, this moment would have felt like walking to meet my own death, but I have faith in Damen’s smile and follow him inside.
A few seconds later, we reach a junction decorated with an old portrait of a distinguished gentleman in circular glasses and an old-fashioned suit.
“My great-great-grandfather,” Damen says. “He built the house. And this cellar.”
I look around the small space at the landing. One door to the left, one to the right. Both are made of metal and fitted with many locks.
Damen kisses my temple, and his fingers dance over my shoulder in excitement. “Prey or trophies first?”
I swallow, but I’m too deep down this rabbit hole now.
I want to know. I want all the secrets and a clear view of Damen’s heart.
“Prey.” Because I dread it more and I want to have it over with.
Though a sick part of me relishes that I will see my man’s enemies.
He said they deserve to be here, so who am I to question it?
He makes a soft, raspy sound at the back of his throat and kisses me again.
“It’s so exciting to share this with you,” he says, then proceeds to open all the complex locks, some with dials to arrange into passwords, another with a key he has on him.
Eventually, the door opens, and a dim light turns on the moment we step into a small interior with more storage.
There’s a couch here, and a small library of books, as well as an opened bottle of wine, and two packets of chips, but this can’t be the place.
Someone has been here not long ago, and I suspect it was the person who ensures the ‘prey’ survive until the day of the hunt.
“Guards sometimes stay here,” Damen answers my unspoken question, but he’s headed for the door across from the one we just opened and as soon as we step into the floor-to-ceiling concrete corridor I know we must be in the right place.
The air hits me like a warning. It reeks of death.
The metallic stench of old blood with a hint of mildew.
Overhead lights flicker to life, illuminating the many doors on each side as we move forward. Ten? Twenty? Each has a rusty grate at eye level I can look through if I choose to, and at the bottom, a slit which I imagine is for passing the prisoners food.
No Christmas decorations here.
My boots echo over the floor, and I swear I spot a shadow moving in one of the slits as we pass. Unwanted guilt clenches my stomach. Have I really come here to gawk at these damned souls?
Damen’s hand is so warm on the small of my back, and he guides me as if this is simply another part of the estate, no different than the grand dining room, or the secret ‘elf’ room for the children to play in.
He glances at a piece of paper hung on the wall in a simple frame, then takes me two doors down and lifts the visor cover, peeking inside.
“Afternoon,” he says cheerfully. “Care to introduce yourself?”
He’s in a good mood, and it doesn’t leave him even when he has to step back before the door jerks, as if someone clashed with it. “That’s a no,” he tells me and shrugs. “Tried to abduct Alexandra’s children.”
I raise my eyebrows as any traces of compassion drain out of my body.
“Fuck you, monster!” The guy yells and Damen steps away in time to avoid a flying glob of spit.
My heart beats faster but I peek in from afar. The man has a black eye, stubble that’s almost a beard and glares at me like I’m his new target number one.
“Daryl, this is probably your last chance to meet someone new, so let me introduce my husband, Killian. This is his first time touring this place.”
Daryl is taken aback at first, especially as Damen raises my hand to his lips and kisses my ‘wedding’ ring, but then he kicks some metal plate in the cell that clatters so loudly I step back.
“Look at me, you twig,” Daryl says to me. “When I’m out there, let loose, I will make it my job to find you, and I will snap you in two.”
Despite there being a steel door between us, fear tickles the base of my spine. Damen on the other hand remains unfazed and closes the visor. “See, this attitude is what got him in here. Nobody will mourn this crazy bastard.”
I’m not sure if I want to see more prisoners. The banging on some of the doors is enough. I even hear a faint, “Mr. Van der Horn! Please! I can explain, I can’t be here.”
Before I can ask about it, Damen looks into my eyes.
“He wants to explain how his gun ended up against Aspen’s stomach. It was a ‘misunderstanding’, you see.”
I nod, strangely at peace as I face my boyfriend (husband?) who has the face of an angel, but a demon’s heart.
Any mask he might have been wearing for my benefit is now gone.
I shouldn’t find him so much more attractive because of it, but when he squeezes my hand, I feel so safe it’s like an aphrodisiac.
All I can see is the sharpness of his hazel eyes, while the corridor is a blur.
We continue the grim tour by leaving this impromptu prison, and we’re back under the watchful eye of Damen’s great-great-grandfather.
I’ve been meaning to ask my question for a while, but it felt disrespectful to do so where the prisoners might overhear us. Even if they are scum.
“Damen? Has anyone ever escaped the hunt? The forest around here is vast…”
He stops with his hand on the door leading to the other side.
“Oh no, baby. They will be poisoned. They won’t even know it, but if any of them evade the hunt, they will die within a day anyway.
We can’t take such chances. It’s just a bit of fun and competition.
You need to see the trophies,” he says and pushes open the door.
It creaks open, but beyond it is silence of a caliber I’d expect entering a library, or a museum in the middle of the night.
Damen presses a button on the wall. The lamps above our heads switch on first, and then it’s like a wave, with pairs of spotlights awakening throughout a room stretching way farther than I would have expected.
If it wasn’t for the complete lack of windows, I would have thought it was a twin to the smoking room upstairs.
With lush green carpets, textured wallpaper, and luxurious leather sofas and armchairs, it’s like a gentlemen's lounge from a country estate in England, a private retreat for brandy and secrets.
But then I look up.
Across from us, behind the sofas, the whole wall is lined with neat shelves filled with skulls.
Each has its own glass case, displayed like art, or some biological specimen, and there’s not a speck of dust in sight, which means…
their butler has access to this area. Or some poor maid?
Then again, how would Colin not know about the goings on in the Van der Horn estate?
He probably polishes their shotguns before each hunt.
This display speaks of pride in their legacy, and the fact that none of the trophies within sight was once the body part of an animal doesn’t seem to matter.
I step closer, holding my breath, but then silently ask Damen for permission with a glance.
He nods, so I walk up to the wall of what used to be people.
Each skull tells a story. Not all of them have teeth, some are marked by fractures, but instead of wondering about their gruesome deaths, my sick mind produces a different question.
“Do the… trophies have different value based on how pristine the skull is? Or is it more about who the person was?”
Damen strokes my back. “It’s all about the person. We always note who it was, what they did, and who hunted them down,” he says, pointing out the small metal plaques attached to every display box. “The oldest skull in this room is over a hundred years old.”
I’d be lying if I said he could have told me. If I found out about this room on the night we met, I’d consider him a serial killer and make a run for it. Now? I’m either brainwashed or in love. Given the circumstances, aren’t they one and the same?
Even now, the scent of his cologne calms me, and I lean into his touch instead of avoiding it.
“So your great-great-grandfather started all this?”
Damen nods and leads me along the wall of countless specimens. Each used to be a person, but I find myself caring less and less. After all, Damen told me they all deserved their fate, and he did promise not to lie.
“Yes. It was meant to be a one-time thing, but everyone involved enjoyed the sport of it. It also makes for a good closure at the end of each year, and thus a new tradition was born,” he adds before gesturing at an antique cabinet holding many glasses, and bottles of liquor. “Would you like a drink?”