Chapter 34
Chapter
Thirty-Four
brIANNA
D inner, if you can even call it that, is practically torture.
If I thought sitting at a table with my father, getting every move I make, every bite I take scrutinized, it was nothing compared to having Grey sitting there watching me.
Lording over me with his goblet of blood from across the table, sipping from it as he monitors my every move. If I slow down on my eating, or if I don’t drink enough water, he whispers a command, and no matter how hard I try to keep control of my own body, I find myself following it.
I can’t even fight against it. My father tried to control me, but I got to rebel in my own little ways. But now, I can’t even refuse to eat or drink or do anything if he commands, I do it.
But it’s nothing compared to the way Peter keeps looking at me, like I’m a tasty treat he can’t wait to bite into. Like I’m merely a dessert made specifically for him.
I swear, if I had dragon’s talons, I’d rip his throat out and watch him bleed all over the floor. The more violent my thoughts get, the easier it is to endure this torture and disgusting display of power.
I’m feeling full, almost too full.
Grey sets his drink down. “That’s enough.”
My fingers release the fork immediately and it clangs against the porcelain plate.
“Go to back to your bedroom and sleep. You’re going to need it.” Grey’s dismissive tone is a relief, but shivers run down my spine, even as I push my chair away from the table and stand.
What I wouldn’t give for one of Syrena’s potions and a big box of Epsom salt right now, to clear out whatever bizarre hold he has on me. I’m guessing one of the things they were trying to avoid was a sleeper agent or something under Grey’s control. I’ll bathe in that stuff daily if I ever get out of here.
I have no idea how, but I need to figure out a way out of this. For me and my baby’s sake. I don’t know what Grey wants with my child, but it can’t be good. I refuse to let him get evil, vile hands on my child. I don’t want to die before I’ve seen her grow up and live her life some. Every parent deserves that chance.
Instead, all I have is Peter, gripping my elbow too tightly as he steers me up the stairs. As if I could go anywhere else, but to the bed that Grey’s assigned me. I take in my surroundings again, seeing the differences of this place compared to my father’s house. The longer I examine everything, the more details I put together.
“You know, this doesn’t have to be a terrible experience for you. We could have fun, you and I, until Grey no longer needs you.” Peter leers at me, staring at my neck like he wants to lick it. “If you behave, I can get Grey to loosen the thrall he has on you. Or at least the locks that keep you in your room.”
“Go to hell, Peter. When my dragon finds me, he’s going to make sure you suffer before you die a painful death. And I’m going to laugh when he kills you.” I can feel myself grinning maniacally, even as I obediently step into my room. “You think you’ve gotten some amazing gift. You think you’re going to be irresistible, like women are just going to line up to throw themselves at you, at your fangs. But you’re disgusting. You are never going to be a ladies’ man. You are never going to be desired. And now that you’re a fucking monster, in bed with the likes of Grey, you’re going to die, never knowing what it’s like to find love. Never knowing what it’s like to be truly and completely cherished.”
Peter lashes out, slapping me across the face. My left cheek explodes with pain, and somehow I’m sure he held back.
“If it weren’t for that dragon spawn you’re carrying, I’d rip your throat out right now and bathe in your blood. I’d find your dragon and make sure he knows what a little whore you are, before I kill him too.”
My pace never falters as I head back to my cell. I don’t dare rub my cheek to try and ease the pain. I don’t give him the satisfaction. “You really don’t get it, do you? You’re on the wrong side of this. You’re going to end up dying for a losing cause, and you don’t even see it.” I laugh, a crazy sort of sound. I’m losing all of my abilities to care about anything or anyone but my child. Declan’s child. Even if I don’t make it out, he deserves to have his child.
I never would’ve talked to someone like this, least of all a guy my father deemed worthy of my attention, even a couple months ago. I never would’ve even considered insulting someone like this. But Peter, Grey, all these vampires who think they can just take over the world, and no humans would mind, are insane. They might be intent on enslaving people, making them nothing more than cattle to feed on, but it won’t work.
It can’t.
Even if he somehow manages to take down the dragons, even if he does make humans afraid of shifters, I know in my gut that he’s not going to win.
I just want to be there to watch their whole plan, everything they’re dreaming of, fall to pieces just before they’re killed for their atrocities.
I step into the space of my room and turn around. I glare at Peter as I slam the door in his face, enjoying the loud crash as it hits the doorframe.
I know he’s going to lock me in. As I move through my room, changing into a pair of pajamas left out for me, I know I have no choice but to go to bed.
I focus on getting back to Declan, before these fucking pills Grey’s forcing me to take push my pregnancy too far and I have to go through labor alone. Or worse, with Grey. I think about it until my eyes drift close and sleep pulls at me like I’m drugged.
I fight sleep as much as I can, but it doesn’t take long before my fight is over and I’m asleep having endless nightmares of every possible way this is all going to go horribly wrong.
“Come on, Brianna, fly with me!” Declan’s running ahead of me, completely naked, his long hair trailing behind him as he laughs.
The sound is so warm, so genuine, I want to get lost in it. I want to cling to the sound, to the happiness he’s projecting and experiencing.
“I can’t, and you know it, you jerk!” I chase after him, moving a lot slower with a full, round belly protruding from my middle. “Syrena grounded me until this little one comes out. You’re going to have to just fly by yourself, or you’re going to have to carry me.”
“If you’re looking to ride me, princess, I’ll be more than happy to oblige. But only after I’ve made you come at least twice on my tongue.” He spins around, reaching for me as I catch up to him.
“You know that’s how we ended up in this position in the first place, right? You and your insatiable tongue, your insatiable cock.” I wrap my arms around him as he flops backwards, bringing me along for the ride. “This is how it should always be. You, me, our younglings, and that grin on your face. Forever.” I kiss him, touch him, taste him.
I’m never going to get enough of my mate, and I’m not sorry about it.
“If you want to fly, I’m not going to stop you. Go, stretch your wings. You know I love staring at you in your dragon form.” I roll onto my side, relieving pressure on my belly, and look him over. “Of course, I’m not going to stop staring at you in your human form either.”
He laughs, standing as he stretches his arms up and back, puffing out his chest, giving me a full view of his whole body, naked, muscular, and all mine. “I just want to stretch my wings a minute. I won’t be long, mate. Breathe fire on anyone who tries to get too close.”
Like he’d let that happen. He’s such an overprotective father. An overprotective mate.
Declan licks his lips, like he’s considering whether he really wants to fly, or if he just wants to strip me naked.
Then it happens. He shifts.
No. This isn’t right. I saw the dragon dive into Times Square. I’ve seen his brothers, his sisters-in-law.
They’re not monsters.
My Declan. My dragon.
What’s wrong with him?
Why doesn’t he heal?
Why is he broken still?
Has he always been this way?
It doesn’t make sense.
“Declan?” I kneel in the grass, tentatively reaching toward him.
But I don’t touch.
Why are his scales jagged?
His wings scarred, filled with holes, and bent at awkward angles?
His eyes look wrong. Black, swirling smoke fills them, as he tilts his head and opens his mouth with a roar.
The roar shakes me to my core, feeling it all the way into my soul. I’m breathless as I snap out of the nightmare and try to sit up. Instead, I push myself up slowly, painfully until I’m sitting up against my headboard. My hand on my chest, trying to ease my racing heart. I don’t even have to look down or feel it, I know my stomach, and therefore my baby, is bigger already.
I’m drenched in sweat. My pajamas, my hair, my sheets, all of it is clinging to my slick skin.
The room is dark, barely any light seeping in from the hallway outside, but as my breathing starts to return to something resembling normal, I remember the nightmare I’m stuck in while I’m awake.
I’m in my room. Only it’s not my room. It’s the room Grey replicated for me. I’m locked in here.
Declan isn’t with me.
He isn’t the broken shell of a dragon from my dream.
Is he?
I get up slowly, my body aching, and trudge toward the bathroom. There isn’t an inch of my body that doesn’t hurt in some way. My skin feels too tight. My hips ache with the pressure of a baby I didn’t get the chance to grow used to over several months. My legs are sore, my ankles are swollen, and my lower back feels like I’ve been walking for hours by the time I make it to the toilet.
It’s not until I turn on the light and see the streams of black trailing down my cheeks that I remember that I wasn’t able to wash up before I went to bed. I’m crying. I didn’t even realize it.
Sinking down on the closed lid of the toilet, I wipe away the tears, but it seems like I’ve opened a floodgate, one that I’m not sure how to turn off. I run my hands over my protruding belly and wish I hadn’t gotten us into this situation. And more than that, I have no idea how I’m going to get us out of it. The tears keep coming, as I sob through my grief, fear, and rage of what we’re going through. I’ve never felt so alone. So isolated, and that’s saying something after living with my father all my life.
I must figure out a way to get back to my dragon. I can’t live like this. I can’t be a vampire’s fucking puppet, nothing more than a vessel for a baby I might not ever even get to hold, might not ever get to care for.
The tears don’t stop, but I slowly strip out of my clothes, push the sweat-soaked hair back from my face, and turn on the shower. It feels like I have bruises inside, deep in my muscles, all over my organs, as everything shifts and spreads making room for a baby growing far too fast inside of me.
Even my skin looks stretched thin, like it’s just a matter of time before I can’t contain the growing child anymore and she pops out like a chest burster from the Alien franchise.
I wrap my arms around my middle for a moment pissed at my own imagination and curiosity for watching science fiction horror when I was sixteen when my father explicitly forbade it. After another sob and gasping breath, I get into the shower.
The hot water feels good, and it helps with some of the aches. I’m grateful for the bench in the shower so I can sit when I need to rest again.
Once I’m cleaned, a little more relaxed from the hot water washing away some of the terror and pain, I plug the tub drain, hoping that maybe soaking in the hot water will ease some of it. It fills quickly and I turn off the water and lay in the warmth.
If this is only the first day, how in the hell am I going to make it through to labor and delivery? How is my body going to survive?
Or maybe that’s just it. Maybe it’s not supposed to.
The hot water doesn’t do anything to stop my tears, and part of me just wants to sink under the surface and let myself drown.
Maybe then, I can stop Grey from getting what he wants.
Or maybe he’ll just command my body to keep working, to keep taking those damned pills, until he gets my baby one way or another.
I clench my hands into fists and stare at the ceiling. He’s not getting my baby, and if I can help it, he’s not getting me either.