Nila
“ENOUGH PLAYING, JETHRO, bring her here.”
The command burned my ears, turning my false belief I could survive into dirty soot. The fire I’d nursed inside was gone. All the stupid pretending that I could block the worst from damaging my soul disappeared. My little claws had fully retracted into nothing once again.
I was cold. Cold as him.
Shut down. Same as him.
Silent. Same as him.
Only one way to get it off.
I swallowed. My head pounded. My hands flew up to tug at the jewelled collar. It was heavy and lifeless and ice. Pure ice. The perfect clarity and flawless sparkle of the diamonds leached into my skin, claiming me, marking me.
Only one way to get it off.
I thought I’d come to terms with my mortality. I thought I’d face the end with my head held high and dry eyes—but that was before they told me the method of my execution. When I thought of death, I pictured...nothing...I had no image of how the end would come.
Now I did.
Only one way to get it off.
I was to be beheaded.
There’d be no sawing off the collar or picking the lock. The way the clasp snapped so resolutely hinted at a one way mechanism. The heavy noose was now mine...an accessory slowly strangling me by diamonds.
It wasn’t breakable. But I was. So fragile really, when a single sharp blade could cast me from life into the nether. Diamonds were nature’s hardest fortress—the quintessential marriage of unbreakable ice and power.
A new unwanted respect curdled in my stomach. Jethro said his mines. Their mines. Diamonds were pure, but the method of collection had a chequered history of death and violence.
They didn’t just play the part of untouchables. They were untouchable.
No!
My tugging fingers turned frantic. I arched my neck, searching with an edge of insanity for a weakness in the soldered white gold and gemstones. It had to come off.
It has to.
I didn’t have the strength to die. I didn’t have the martyrdom to let them do this. Not for family. Not for fortune. Not for anything.
I’m weak. I don’t want to die!
Jethro grabbed my wrists, effortlessly pulling my arms away from my throat.
My eyes opened and all I saw was malevolent stone.
There was no compassion in his light-brown eyes.
No sympathy or even guilt. How did he have the power to be so close to me—to grow hard wanting me—and know all along my fate?
Only a special person could do that. A person who wasn’t born of this world, but brimstone and fire. From hell.
I struggled in his hold. The collar settled heavily, spreading its heinous ice. “I was wrong about you.”
Jethro placed my hands by my sides, then let me go. He shrugged, running a palm through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I’ve been nothing but forthright and honest from the beginning. You’re the one who spun a lie from the truth. You’re the one who ignored everything I was telling you.”
Turning to face the table, he wrapped a cold arm around my waist. “And now it’s time to face the reality of everything you tried to ignore.”
Mr. Hawk, with his ridiculous tweed and leather outfit, stubbed out a smouldering cigar. “Did you tell her?”
Jethro stiffened. “I forgot.”
His father reclined into the high-backed chair and folded his hands on his stomach. “You were meant to tell her when you put it on. It’s called the Weaver Wailer and it belonged to...”
A loud screeching sound exploded in my ears. My stomach rolled. Vertigo spread its nullifying tentacles through my brain.
It’s the necklace. The one she wore when she came back the final time.
Jethro looked down, trying to capture my eyes, but I wouldn’t do it.
I couldn’t do it. I kept my vision blank, looking resolutely over his shoulder.
“I think you’ve already guessed who it belonged to.
” Lowering his voice, he whispered, “The last person to wear this collar was your mother. She wore it for two years and twenty-three days before it was...forcibly removed. It carries not only the diamonds of my bloodline, but also blood from yours. We, of course, clean it thoroughly after every owner, but if you look closely, I’m sure you’ll see the tarnish of their lives given in return for their crimes. ”
“Nila, when you’re a big girl, you can wear my clothes, shoes, and jewellery, but you have to grow a little taller before that day.
” My mother laughed, looking down at me on the floor of her walk-in wardrobe.
I’d not only raided her jewellery box and draped myself in gemstones, but wore a feather boa with a baggy one piece swimming suit and giant high heels.
I thought I looked incredible. For a seven-year-old.
Holding up the pearls around my neck, I said, “Promise? I can have these when I’m your size?”
She ducked, pulling me into a hug. “You can have everything of mine. Why?”
I smiled. I knew the answer to this. “Because you love me.”
She nodded. “Because I love you.”
The memory came and went, stealing the firm ground beneath my feet and sending me headfirst into nausea. Spirals, loop de loops, and spin-cycles all churned my brain until I didn’t know up from down.
It wasn’t vertigo this time, but grief.
Crushing, crashing grief. A grief I hadn’t suffered, because all my happy memories of her had been blocked by the wall of hatred.
She was supposed to be the bad guy for leaving my father.
I’d been safe from hurting. Safe from reliving everything with the knowledge of how precious she was.
How tragic her life became and for two years after she’d left. Two years we didn’t try and save her.
The Hawks had stripped her from me and torn away any armour I had against missing her. She wasn’t the bad guy. They were. They would all die for this. They would rot for eternity. I would find a way.
Please, let me find a way.
I wore a necklace every firstborn woman in my family wore before they were murdered—I was owed serious revenge. Disgusting, painful revenge.
A sob escaped my mouth. I couldn’t fight the spinning anymore and doubled over. With a sickening splash, I threw up all over Jethro’s shiny black shoes.
“Shit.” He jumped back, not that there was much mess. It’d been almost twenty-four hours since I’d eaten—I had nothing to waste or purge. But the dry heaves wouldn’t stop racking my frame.
“For fuck’s sake, Jet. Get her under control. We don’t have all day.” Mr. Hawk’s voice shouted across the room.
Cold hands grabbed my shoulders, jerking me from bowed to straight. I moaned as my head sloshed with pain.
“Stop embarrassing me,” Jethro snarled.
Embarrassing him? Bastard. Arsehole. Son of Satan. I glowered with tear-swimming eyes into Jethro’s cold uncompassionate gaze. Something flicked over his gold irises—a dark shadow. That was the only warning I received before his hand came up and struck me around the side of the head.
I thought I was brave. I thought I was strong.
But I’d never been struck before. Daniel’s slap in the car last night didn’t count.
This abuse had come from a black place—a place inside Jethro where unsurmountable anger boiled.
And it was endless. He may be a glacier on the outside, but in there.
..in his heart...he steamed with pressuring rage.
Crashing to my knees, I curled my smarting head into my arms. I came from a family who loved each other so much a disappointed look or stern word was enough to break your heart. Physical abuse wasn’t something I knew. It wasn’t something I could prepare for.
Jethro grabbed my hair, pulling me upright. I held onto his wrists to prevent the tearing pain. My blurry gaze focused on his grey shirt and perfectly creased jeans.
He glared. “You’ll clean that up, but for now you have other things to attend to.”
Not letting go of my hair, he carted me toward his father.
Every step I took, I tried to hide my exposed breasts and ignore the breeze between my naked legs.
The pinafore Jethro had put on me barely covered my stomach let alone valuable places.
Places I would give my entire design line to have covered.
The stupid maid cap tilted to the side, clinging to my tangled hair.
I couldn’t count how many men existed around the table, but their eyes never met mine. Most were glued to my chest or mesmerized lower down as I side-shuffled to hide as much of my decency as possible.
But it wasn’t just their eyes sending spider legs scurrying over my flesh. It was the huge immaculate paintings of men wearing white wigs, elegant coat and tails, and hunting regalia glaring down from the dark red walls.
Their eyes weren’t lifeless but full of disdain—somehow they knew a Weaver was in their midst and the crackling fireplace was useless to stop my chill.
My sentence was to be carried out with ancestors and family heirlooms as witnesses.
The moment we came to a stop beside Mr. Hawk, sitting in his ornate dining chair, Jethro jerked my neck back.
His flawless face filled my vision. “You are no longer free. Look. See your future and understand there’s no sweet talking, begging, or bargaining your way out of this.
You wear the collar. You’re ours completely.
” Jethro’s voice was arctic, glittering with power.
The collar cut into my skin. I wanted to spit in his face.
Shoving me toward Mr. Hawk, the old man snaked an arm around my naked waist, tugging me onto his lap.
“Obey and make me proud, Ms. Weaver.” Jethro crossed his arms. He shifted to stand behind his father’s chair, removing himself from the role of authority, becoming merely a spectator.
He’s never called me Nila.
The stupid thought came and went on a heartbeat. Jethro was yet to use my first name.
I shuddered, feeling overwhelmingly sick again.
Jethro was awful but being disowned and handed over to a room of men was worse. I would’ve given anything to avoid was what about to happen. I would willingly trade all my nights in a bed and return to the kennels. The hounds were loving, kind...warm.