Nila
––––––––
“WHEN WILL YOU tell me?”
Jethro’s step faltered, his eyes shooting to mine.
His naked torso was damp and flushed with heat from the cave-springs, a white towel riding low on his hips.
He’d offered to carry me, but I’d chosen to walk—even though I was just as naked with only a towel hiding my modesty.
I was alive.
The sooner my body remembered how to move, the better.
Even though hate had killed me, love had revived me.
Jethro had salvaged me and brought me back.
He’d done more than bring me back.
He’d given me a new home—inside him.
I’m alive because of him.
The Second Debt had taken everything from me.
But Jethro had given it back a hundred fold.
We ghosted to a stop outside my bedroom door. Jethro was the perfect suitor, walking me home after the strangest day of all. His hand came up to cup my cheek, a sigh escaping his lips. “I will tell you, but it’s not a simple matter of blurting it out.”
I turned my head and kissed his palm, never breaking eye contact. “Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”
He smiled sadly. “That’s the thing; you probably won’t. To tell you what I am means I’ll have to tell you everything. About the debts, the reasoning, my role.” He hung his head. “It’s a lot.”
I shuffled closer, wrapping my arms around his warm body. “Tomorrow. Meet me after breakfast and take me somewhere far from here. Tell me then.”
His nostrils flared. “You want to go off the grounds? Away from Hawksridge?”
The thought excited me. I didn’t want to go back to London or seek out my old life—not anymore, but it would be nice to go somewhere just the two of us.
A date.
“You can trust me, Jethro. You know that. I wouldn’t run if you took me somewhere public.”
A painful shadow crossed his face. “I know you wouldn’t. And that’s what fucking kills me.”
My heart stuttered. “Why?”
He slouched, pushing me against my door so my back kissed the wood and his lips kissed mine. The kiss was fleeting and soft, but the emotion behind it squeezed my chest with an agonising weight.
I didn’t know what the weight was. But the pressure built and built with words dying to leap free.
I.
Love.
You.
After what had just happened between us, it was all I could think about. I wanted to scream them. Blare them. Let him know that my caring for him wasn’t conditional or cruel.
I loved him. For him. For his soul.
His lips skated over mine again—the sweetest connection.
“Jethro,” I breathed. “I—I lo—”
He froze, slamming his fingers over my mouth. “Don’t say it.” Dropping his touch, he shook his head. “Don’t say it. Please, Nila.”
“But why shouldn’t I...when it’s the truth.
” The weight on my heart grew deeper, stronger.
I had no choice but to tell him. The words physically suffocated me, needing to be said.
“You mean everything to me.” Placing my hand over his heart, I whispered.
“Kite...I’m in love with you. It doesn’t come with conditions or commands.
I can’t hate you for what you did today or what you might do in the future.
I’m scared and lost and absolutely terrified that I’m doing the wrong thing by choosing you over my own life—but. ..I have no choice.”
He sucked in the sharpest breath. “You called me Kite.”
My heart bottomed out.
His name bulldozed through the partition I’d managed to keep in place. My feelings toward Kite plaited with my feelings for Jethro.
I slammed deeper into love.
He’s mine.
His eyes squeezed closed, pressing his forehead on mine. “Nila...you—you don’t know what you’re doing to me.” He trembled in my arms, his hands bracing himself on the door. “Take it back. I—I can’t take so much from you.”
“I can’t take back something that already belongs to you.”
Tears.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted free my terror at falling in love. I wanted to beg him to be strong enough to choose me after stealing everything that I was.
I couldn’t compete with what he did to me in the spring. He’d reached inside me and ripped my heart from my chest. I didn’t fight it. In fact, I’d carved it out for him.
My hands were bloody from presenting it to him with open arms.
I.
Love.
Him.
Before, I was in a cage.
I wasn’t any more.
I could see. I was free. I believed.
“Tomorrow.” He exhaled shakily. He clasped my jaw, running his thumbs over my cheeks. “You’re mine. You deserve to know the man you’ve chosen—the man you’ve saved.”
A shooting star sliced through my soul. “I saved you?”
A soft smile tugged his lips. “You have no idea, do you?” He kissed my forehead, filling it with overwhelming feeling. “No idea what you’ve done to me.”
His delectable smell wisped around us. I wanted to fall into him and never let go.
He whispered, “Tomorrow, everything that I am becomes yours.”
I shivered at the truth in his eyes, the echoing affection. “Tomorrow.”
With a barely-there kiss, he transmitted every emotion he couldn’t say and backed into the shadows of the corridor. “Tomorrow, I’m taking you away from here. I’ll give you what you’ve selflessly given me. I’ll tell you...everything.”
* * * * *
Overnight, I’d turned from a supple young woman to arthritic hag.
I didn’t sleep. I doubted I’d ever be able to sleep again with the excitement of what today would bring.
Jethro will tell me.
Finally, I would know.
Last night, I’d thought about reading the Weaver Journal to see how my mother and grandmother felt paying the Second Debt.
Had they made note of it? Or were they like me and saw what the Journal was—a way to monitor our hearts and minds?
I wanted to see if they’d done what I did: fall for their tormentors.
But despite my bouncing mind and infectious energy, my body grew stiffer by the moment.
It ached, it screamed, it needed to rest.
I’d returned from the dead.
Relearning to live again wasn’t easy.
I would have days of recovering ahead and it became painfully obvious when I went to stand. My shoulders cried from the simple motion of shoving my sheets away. My legs promptly went on strike as they touched the thick carpet.
I remained vertical for a brief moment, before face planting instead.
I didn’t walk anymore, I hobbled.
I didn’t talk, I croaked.
I wore bracelets of bruising around my wrists and ankles, and my skin retained its ghostly white, as if I hadn’t quite shed death’s grip.
No matter how alive I’d been with Jethro last night...today, I was paying for it.
I hadn’t wanted him to leave—not when he was blistering open and profound. I would’ve preferred to fall asleep in his embrace. But I knew that, regardless of our alliance to one another, his family was still in charge. Things had to go on as if nothing had changed—even though everything had.
My stomach rumbled, adding another discomfort on top of all the rest.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.
After a slow shower and an even slower time of getting dressed, I headed to the door, hissing between my teeth with every step.
I wouldn’t permit my body to steal my plans for today. Jethro was taking me away. He would talk. Nothing would destroy that.
Perhaps it could wait until tomorrow.
The thought of returning to the softness of my mattress almost made me turn around.
No!
I was just stiff—that was all. As long as I got on with life, I would heal faster.
Gritting my teeth, I forced my aching muscles to slowly propel me toward the dining room.
As I pushed open the double doors and entered the cavernous space with its dripping blood-red walls and excessively big portraits of past Hawks, my attention swooped to the armoury and the empty place that had held my dirk.
That same dirk was now tucked into the waistband of my yoga pants.
The scents of freshly brewed coffee and intoxicating aroma of buttery pastries turned my hunger into a sharp pang.
Cut looked up from his newspaper, a large grin splitting his face. “Ah, Nila! You’re awake from the dead.” He laughed at his tasteless joke. Folding the paper, he waved to a few free chairs.
The dining room was a busy place this morning. Black Diamond brothers were scattered around the twenty seated table, eating an array of full English breakfasts.
Tugging on the cuffs of my long sleeve baby-blue jumper, I drifted forward, cursing the creak in my joints.
I second-guessed my need for breakfast and hovered by a chair. If I didn’t sit down soon, I’d fall, but I didn’t think I could tolerate eating with my archenemies.
Where is he?
I needed to make sure Jethro hadn’t had second thoughts. That we were still together—still true.
“I see Jet revived you.”
Daniel’s voice made my head snap up. He sat between two bikers, gnawing on a sausage.
Crap, I hadn’t seen him. If I’d known he was here, I would’ve forgone an entire day of food.
Daniel sneered. “He’s such a soft-hearted prick. If it were me, I would’ve just let you drown.”
My fingers curled around the back of a chair. “Lucky for me, you’re not firstborn.”
Daniel lost his smirk. His face grew black. “Not lucky for you, though, little Weaver.”
What did he mean by that?
Then the doors swung wide and Jethro appeared.
The man who’d drugged me, kidnapped me, and stolen my heart strode quickly to my side and took my elbow.
Every atom wanted to sway into his support. Every cell demanded I turn and kiss him.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t let Cut see what’d happened.
It was one thing to be blatant in my hate for Jethro at the beginning, but now it proved a hard task to pretend. I had to openly despise him, all while suffocating my heart from showing the truth.
It took all my willpower, but I sidestepped out of Jethro’s hold. “Don’t you think you did enough yesterday? Don’t touch me.”
Jethro sucked in a harsh breath.
Daniel chuckled, smacking his lips. “Seems you’re as hated as us now, brother. Congratulations.”
Jethro’s eyebrows knitted together, his gaze flaring with hurt.
I willed him to understand.
The tightness suddenly faded around his mouth, his forehead smoothing into a perfect mask.
He knows.