Chapter Ten
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Henri
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EVERYTHING FUCKING HURT.
My arms.
My toes.
My soul.
I’d struggled to stay sane the entire walk back to the castle. Carrying Peter had drained the rest of my nonexistent reserves, and having Ily, Mollie, and Rachel stare at my back as I led them home drove me closer and closer to the bottomless black pit in my mind.
I’d snapped when I’d stabbed Kyle a million times.
I’d snapped when I’d strangled Charles.
I’d snapped on my own in that glow worm-dotted cave, drowning in the darkness—screaming into the abyss all while it swallowed me whole.
I needed to be alone.
I needed to rock in the motherfucking corner and figure out how to fix the mess inside me.
They vouched for me.
My rotten heart fisted all over again.
Why?
Why put themselves at risk?
I didn’t have time for such questions.
Didn’t have the capacity to care about the answers.
Shutting everything down, I ignored Ily’s quiet breathing behind me as we finished climbing and headed down the corridor toward Victor’s dead zoo and Dr Belford’s chambers.
Peter moaned in my arms as I pounded a fist on the door.
A cold draft cut through my damp clothes, and my chilled bones added another level of torment.
My temper fractured.
I felt borderline insane. Itchy with the need to get Peter far away from me and to shove away all the mistakes I’d made today. “Open up!” I bellowed. “Now.”
The door swung wide.
I didn’t give a shit about etiquette anymore. Victor’s cornering had well and truly bled me dry; I had nothing left to give.
Bowling past the doctor as she finished drying her hands on a paper towel, I spied a white sheet-covered table by the wall and marched to it.
The relief in my arms and spine as I placed Peter onto it sent fresh waves of pins and needles through me.
I put him down as gently as I could, but I suppose it wasn’t gentle enough as the doctor gasped and darted forward, carefully rearranging his legs so they straightened out before tucking a starchy pillow beneath his head.
Raking both hands through my blood-saturated hair, I snarled, “Do whatever you want with him, but give me some painkillers and stuff for bruises first.”
Ily.
I needed to fix Ily before I lost my mind.
Her keen eye landed on my bleeding arm, her body tensing beneath light green scrubs. “I have orders to treat Masters before jewels.” She shot a longing look at Peter before gritting her teeth and stepping toward me. “That looks bad. You’ll need stitches.”
Clamping a hand over the wound, I backed up. “Drugs and bruise ointments. While you’re at it give me some bandages and salve too.” I flicked a look at Ily, noticing her shredded feet. They looked as bad as mine.
Fuck, I’m sorry.
The door opened and closed behind us.
I whipped around as the nurse who’d helped take my blood when I’d first arrived on this godforsaken island appeared.
I couldn’t remember her name, but the doctor snapped her fingers and ordered, “Rose, prep everything we need to disinfect and bandage Peter. I’ll need intravenous antibiotics and—”
“Give me what I need,” I said coldly, calmly. “I won’t ask again.”
Dr Belford scowled and shook her head. “While Rose starts on Peter, I’ll sew you up.” Her nose wrinkled at my sorry state. “You need tending to.”
“You’re not fucking listening! I don’t care about me. Give me what I want, and I’ll leave.”
She flinched at my aggression.
A fracture in her medical professionalism appeared. “Please don’t raise your voice at me.” She couldn’t hide her true feelings or the hatred she harboured. “You’re the reason I have a full-time job patching up sex slaves, so allow me to do that job and stop throwing your weight around.”
“The supplies, woman. Or I’ll make you instead of asking you.”
Every second prevented me from tending the only one who mattered to me.
Ily wisely didn’t make a peep as the doctor swallowed back her loathing and went to a cupboard full of narrow drawers, each typed neatly with white labels. Drawing out the things I’d asked for, she placed them in a kidney-shaped dish and shoved them at me. “Here.”
She made the mistake of looking behind me. Of noticing Ily swaying on the spot.
Red-soaked Ily with bruises pockmarking her from head to breakable toe.
“Goddamn you to hell,” Dr Belford hissed under her breath, pinning me with livid eyes. “You’re all fucking monsters.” Darting past me, she grabbed Ily’s hand. “Sweetheart, you need to sit down. How are you even still standing?”
Ily shot me a worried look—a look full of true fear and wariness.
She shook her head. “I-I’ll be fine after I’ve showered and rested.
I just need—” She swallowed hard as the nurse placed Peter’s hand into a metal bowl stinking of antiseptic solution.
Whatever the liquid was immediately frothed as if dissolving his flesh like acid.
“Oh...” Ily wobbled. “I’m suddenly feeling rather faint. ”
“I’m not surprised.” The doctor couldn’t hide her horror at the number of bruises covering Ily. “You’re black and blue. Can you breathe okay? Any sharp pains in your side?”
Ily nodded weakly. “I didn’t want to say anything, but...it feels like there’s a dagger in my ribs. I’ve done my best not to inhale too deeply, but it’s super painful.”
What?
Why didn’t she fucking say anything?
“Here?” The doctor touched her battered ribcage, right over a particular nasty bloom of colour.
“Ow. Yep.” Ily sucked in a groan. “But...please don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Fix Peter—”
“It might be a fracture,” the doctor spoke over her. “You need to lie down.”
Fury kindled in me all over again.
The image of that psychopath shooting her at close range.
The pock-pock-pock of bullets.
The explosion of red as if he pried her open to feast.
It’d taken everything I had not to tear off his hands, scoop out his eyes, and rip out his stinking entrails.
Ily shook her head again. “No, no. I’m okay. Honestly, it’s just a bruise. Peter needs you far more—”
“If any of your ribs are broken, you might puncture your lungs if I don’t treat you.” She gave Ily a quick once-over. “Is there anything else broken? Fingers, toes, arms, legs? No sense of building pressure in your chest or abdomen?”
My ears rang with her questions.
Ily closed her eyes, her voice scarily quiet. “No, no. I’m fine.”
“Are you lightheaded because of lack of food, or have you been struck in the head?”
Ily flinched as she looked at Peter and the frothing bowl. “Please don’t mention food.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” The doctor held up her hand.
“Four.”
Glowering at me, Belford hissed, “What exactly did you do to her?”
My hackles rose. “That’s none of your concern.”
“It is as her physician. Did you toss her about? Hit her head? Did you use toys on her? Fuck her? How roughly did you take her?”
Yeah, after the shitty day I’d had, those questions tipped me the fuck over.
“Fuck you and fuck your questions.” I vibrated with enough rage to explode her rooms into splinters. “I’m trying really fucking hard not to hurt you but if you don’t give me what I need, let Ily go, and shut the fuck up, I will snap. And you do not want to make me snap.”
I swallowed blackness. Choked on madness.
Doing my best to leash myself, I hissed, “Give her back to me. Right fucking now.”
Her fingers locked on Ily’s arm. “She needs to sit down and be examin—”
“Ahhh!!” Peter suddenly woke up screaming as Rose cleaned his maimed hand with cotton.
Ily backed up, breaking the doctor’s hold on her. “I can’t stay here. I can’t—”
“It’s okay. I can put you in my room—”
“She’s coming with me.” I shifted the bowl of supplies, ready to grab Ily’s wrist. “I’m not leaving her here.”
“She’s covered in contusions. She might have internal bleeding thanks to the soft tissue bruises.” Dr Belford almost spat on my feet as her rancour grew. “You shot her like an animal. I’ve had enough of you creeps. All of you. I wish you’d just—”
“Melanie.” The nurse left a catatonic Peter and darted to her colleague. “Remember where you are, who he is, and calm down, alright?”
Melanie’s nostrils flared as she sucked in a breath.
For a moment, she looked as if she’d stab me with a scalpel, but slowly, the rage in her pretty older face turned into weary hate. “I’m sorry, Master H. Forgive me.”
“Focus on Peter.” Clicking my fingers and striding to the door, I ordered, “Ilyana, come. I’ve had enough of this place.”
I had to leave.
Before I lost it.
Ily’s gorgeous golden eyes met mine just as Peter woke up again, mumbling with hallucinations and knocking over the bowl of disinfectant.
He screamed in pain.
Ily shifted toward him.
And something terrible happened.
A soft cry on her lips.
A weak press of her hand to her head.
Then she staggered.
And fell.
Crumpling, tumbling—
Tossing the metal bowl away, I hurled myself forward and caught her just before she cracked her skull on the flagstone pavers of the doctor’s lounge.
No one said a word as I gathered Ily into my arms and somehow found the strength to lurch to my feet.
My back protested.
My arms had no strength.
But having her close, feeling her fading heat soaking into me—the rightness of her after the wrongness of Peter—fuck, I needed that.
I hadn’t been aware how much I needed that.
How desperate I was to stay human when all I could see and hear and taste was death.
My eyes met the doctor’s. “If you try to stop me from taking her, I will hurt you.”
“Just like you hurt her?”
I glanced down at Ily’s slack face and closed eyes. I held her life in my hands, and instead of her fiery temper colliding with mine, her silent submission undid me.
“Pick up the supplies and give them to me.”
Melanie crossed her arms. “You can’t take her. I won’t let you. She could die if she doesn’t receive proper care. Especially if there’s internal bleeding.”
“I’ll bring her back later.”