Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
ANABELLE
Iwake with a pounding headache. My eyes flutter open, and I don’t recognize where I am and I still.
What the hell?
I cast my mind back to the last thing I remember… robes and… masks? Asher’s hand reaching out to pass a knife to another man.
Did I have some weird kind of dream?
I remember meeting that guy at the bar… what was his name? I can’t remember, but I think it started with a P. A lot of last night is blurry.
None of that matters, though. The first thing I need to do is figure out where the hell I am. I try to sit up, but I have to squeeze my eyes shut from the way that makes my brain feel as if it’s rattling around in my skull.
When I bring my hand up to my head, there’s a tug on the back of my hand and a sharp stinging sensation.
I open my eyes and see an IV in my hand, but I’m not in the hospital.
I raise my head slowly to look at my surroundings and freeze when I see Asher sitting in a chair at the far side of the bed, staring at me.
He doesn’t look as though he’s slept. His hair isn’t styled to perfection. Rather, it’s falling down over his forehead and the sides of his head. His face is stubbled with dark hair, and his dark shirt is rumpled, along with his pants.
I’m not sure what to make from the look in his eyes. There’s some type of emotion simmering beneath the surface, but I can’t be sure what. As always, he’s an enigma.
“What happened?” My voice comes out in a croak, and it’s then I realize how dry my mouth is.
“There’s water on the bedside table.” Though he speaks, he doesn’t move a muscle.
I slowly turn and reach for the water with my hand that doesn’t have an IV in it, then bring the glass to my lips.
It’s so refreshing that I want to guzzle the entire thing, but I refrain.
Once I’ve returned the water to the table, I turn to Asher and repeat my earlier question. “What happened? Where am I?”
“In my bedroom.”
My eyes widen, and I do a quick mental inventory of my body. “Did we…” I don’t feel like I had sex last night, but who knows?
He scowls. “Unconscious women aren’t my thing.”
Unconscious? “I remember being in the basement of the manor and some kind of ceremony going on… and that’s it.”
“You passed out.”
“What? How? Why?” Is there something wrong with me?
He sighs. “What do you remember from last night?”
“I went and saw my mother. She wasn’t doing well, which just added to my shitty week, so I decided to go to Black Magic.
” I don’t tell him I intended to pick up someone to make me forget him.
“There was this guy who stopped to use the bathroom, and we started talking. He invited me to a party… it’s kind of blurry from there.
I remember he took me to the manor, and then I just have this vision of a bunch of people in red cloaks and masks on and you… ”
“Me what?” He arches an eyebrow.
“You were there… you passed a knife to someone who…”
“Did he buy you a drink?” he snarls.
It takes my brain a minute to catch up to the change of topic. “Yeah.”
Asher’s hands grip the armrests of the chair he’s sitting in so hard that the white of his knuckles bleeds through his olive skin.
His reaction has me more worried than ever. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“You allowed yourself to be picked up by Preston Wallace.”
That name doesn’t mean anything to me. “Who’s Preston Wallace?”
“A predator.”
A chill runs through my body, and I shiver. Asher’s gaze dips down to my chest where my nipples harden, and it’s then that I look down and realize I’m not wearing what I was last night.
“Where are my clothes? How am I in my pajamas?” I’m wearing one of my shorts and tank sets that I wear to bed. I hoist the blanket up far enough to cover my chest.
“When the doctor came, I had the nurse change your clothes. You vomited on your other ones when I got you back to my room.”
I blink a few times at him. “What doctor? Are you going to tell me what happened?” Panic flares, and I need to know exactly what happened last night.
He stands from the chair, and so slowly, he walks toward the bed while he speaks.
“Preston drugged your drink and brought you to Midnight Manor to a private event that he knew you were not permitted to attend. When you passed out, he brought you into a back room to do God knows what. I intervened then brought you to my room and had the doctor come to make sure you’d be okay. ”
I don’t know what to say to that, let alone how to feel about it. My brain is still sluggish, and it’s a lot of information to take in.
He reaches the side of the bed. That’s when I notice that the knuckles on his right hand, the one with the bear tattoo, are bloodied.
“What do you mean you intervened?”
“I beat him within an inch of his life.” There’s zero remorse in his voice.
Some man drugged me, and Asher was angry enough to assault him. It takes me a second to wrap my brain around that fact.
I look at him, overwhelmed with emotion—gratitude that he got me out of that situation before Preston could do whatever he was planning to, shock that Asher would be angry enough to attack him, and desire because apparently, my Freudian brain likes it when someone stands up for me like that.
“You saved me?”
He scowls. “I’m no hero, Anabelle.”
“But you saved me. You did. Who knows what he would’ve done if you hadn’t stopped him. Thank you.” Tears prick the corners of my eyes because I realize how lucky I am that Asher stepped in.
I’m not an idiot. I know that anyone invited was someone powerful in their own right, especially if they were a part of whatever was going on in that basement.
I glance at his knuckles again. “Will you get in trouble for hurting him?”
His jaw sets in a hard line. “That’s not your concern.”
I clutch the blanket to my chest harder. “It is, though. If you get in trouble or arrested for assault because of me—”
Asher presses his hands on the mattress and leans in across the bed.
“Let’s get one thing clear, Anabelle—he is at fault, not you.
He drugged your drink. He brought you somewhere you should never have been.
He probably saw you, your beauty and your innocence, and wanted nothing more than to defile you. ”
My heart speeds up when he calls me beautiful. Not in a conventional way maybe, but if he says the words, he must think it, right?
“But I invited his attention. I wanted it even.” My face heats with that admission, but it’s true.
Asher stares at me for a beat, gaze intense. “I’m sure he was as charming as he always is.” He hesitates, almost as though he doesn’t want to ask the next question but can’t help himself. “Why did you want to leave with him, or were you already messed up when he took you from the bar?”
“I might have been a little messed up, but I knew what I was doing when I left with him. I… I…”
“You what?” he snaps, causing me to snap.
He’s going to judge me after what he did? I don’t think so.
“I was pissed at you for going out with that socialite and rubbing it in my face after what happened between us. I wanted to forget you even existed, and I thought that maybe messing around with someone else might help.”
He pushes off the mattress and throws his fingers through his hair, blowing out a breath and pacing away from the bed. “It was because of me.”
I don’t respond to that. I don’t know what to say.
There’s something I want to know though. “What goes on in the basement?”
He whips around to face me. “The doctor said you need to rest, get more fluids in you. We’re not discussing that right now.”
“I’m fine. I have a headache, but other than that, I’m okay. I want to know what happens down there. Is it some kind of cult?”
He walks toward the door without acknowledging my question. “I’ll get the doctor so he can do something about your headache. I want him to have another look at you now that you’re awake.”
Then Asher is gone, the door closed behind him, before I can even process his words.
With a sigh, I let the blanket drop and fall back into the pillows behind me.
Will I ever get a straight answer from Asher Voss about anything?