7. Chapter Seven
My fingers worked quickly as I pulled the spirals of my hair into a ponytail and styled it into a fishtail braid over one shoulder. The woman staring back at me in the glass window of the greenroom wasn’t the same woman Alastair Sr. had abused. This woman was rejuvenated, despite the looming cloud that hung over my head.
Three weeks since the wedding, and my statue of a husband was still the persona he chose to show me.
He was torturing Alastair’s old guards in the basement. Sometimes I could hear their screams. It brought me ease, remembering how my screams, and then my silence, had once brought them pleasure.
Each day, my husband came back to me exhausted, his fists covered in blood, and I rewarded him with my touch, lathering his skin in warm oils until he fell asleep. Sometimes, his skin heated beneath my touch, but he always stopped us short when I tried to entice him into my arms, into my body…
Now and then the light would flicker in his velvet eyes, mostly whenever I spoke of our future together, or pressed kisses along his scars while he scrubbed my body in the shower. He was stressed, looking for the last remaining man we needed before justice could finally be served.
Until he could join him in the hell my husband created beneath this house, punishing them like my own personal Devil.
I wasn’t being brought in on the details of the manhunt. I’d only caught Jericho whispering in the halls with Yuliya, or on the phone with his friend, Corbin. I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. I trusted when the time came, he would see to it that I’d be there to witness the dead man’s demise.
While he managed business, I hid away in the greenhouse working on my candles and growing my plant babies. He hadn’t visited me while I was in there the way he normally did. I mostly saw him for dinner and when I went to bed. I was desperate for more time with him, but every spare second went toward the manhunt… or maybe he was avoiding me too. I couldn’t be sure.
I resented the hunt, even as it was made in my honor. Wherever Brock was, he was buried deep, hidden well, and not coming out anytime soon.
I sighed, returning to the candles. I was bored here which was new for me. I’d spent much of my previous marraige making myself invisible. Any spare moment I had was left worrying about my next punishment. Now my days were filled with empty thoughts. Did my husband care about me? It didn’t feel like it.
Not when he was never around.
What was the point of revenge, if I was alone?
There was nothing but emptiness in being alone. The numb ache wishing for… something.
I gritted my teeth as I glared at the lit candle in front of me. The black wax taunted me, the snake poking from the eye of the skull ready to attack. And for a moment, I thought about the pain that would come if I poured the hot liquid over my skin.
I was no stranger to agony, and the desire to feel again had me reaching for the candle. I stopped when I heard him.
Jericho’s hushed voice came from the library. His urgent, clipped tone made me want to rush toward him, but the hurting inside of me won. I wouldn’t be a weak woman who longed for the affection of a man. I was stronger now, more independent.
His voice grew nearer, and I peered over my shoulder for the briefest of moments. There he was, standing near the fireplace and dressed in his perfectly tailored suit and ready to reign terror on anyone who dared to cross him. He walked back and forth, phone to his ear.
“It’s been weeks,” he murmured. “Where the fuck is he?”
He never once looked toward me, but he knew I was here. This is the only place I’d be if I weren’t in our room. My heart pounded faster, and the rage bubbled inside of me. Why did he make me think he wanted me if he was just going to toss me away once we wed?
“Smoke him out.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I despised the sickening anger that came whenever he ignored me. I didn’t deserve that. Jericho had made me realize it. And yet here I was, desperate for him to love me the way I was desperately in love with him.
I hummed my song, needing to ease the ache building inside of me. The wax on my body would make me focus on the physical pain. She and I were old friends. The emotional pain was too much for me to bear.
“You look like you’ve been rolling around in a garden.”
My eyes snapped open when I felt his arms wrap around me from behind. He plucked a soft purple petal from my hair and brought it to my face for inspection.
He was touching me. I eased into him, desperate to coil into his arms. I was the wax. He was the mold.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I had some essential oils delivered last night. I wanted to get a head start on my candles.”
“From Charlie?” Jericho asked, referring to the man who owned the greenhouse botanical that held the single Queen of the Night bloom. The same greenhouse I visited when I realized I was in love with the man I was bound to. “He’s been getting you everything you need?”
He looked around my little sunroom, and I wondered if he noticed the little snake plants, and tropical flowers. Did he recognize the dark purple orchids? All the little companions that had been around that little Queen of the Night flower, that had cemented my place by Jericho’s side? The gesture that had made me fall intoxicatingly in love with the man I had feared and stabbed when I first met him.
His hands snaked around my waist and he tugged me into him, my arse pressing against his groin.
“Have lunch with me?” I hated how desperate I sounded.
He hummed against my neck. “I’ve already eaten.”
“Oh.” I tried not to let the disappointment show in my reaction, but my voice held it anyway. I moved to pull from him, but he gripped my waist so I couldn’t get away.
“I have about an hour before my next meeting. I’ll sit with you while you do your witchy business.” I turned in his lap, and he leaned down to graze his lips against mine. For a moment I pretended the weird tension between us was gone. I wanted to get back to how we were before the wedding. To the man who loved me, who demanded I have meals with him in the common areas.
Where had that man gone? He was replaced by someone who was a world away despite the firm grip on my hips, tugging me into him. I closed my eyes, inhaling his familiar sandalwood spice, savoring the warmth of his breath against my ear. It tickled me, causing a shiver to run down my spine, but it was gone just as quickly as he pulled away.
I hated the insecurity that came with his lack of affection. How his indifferent tone made me believe he didn’t want to be here with me. Didn’t he know that I was like a plant? I needed watering before my petals withered into crumbled brown death.
He settled onto the couch beside me and I turned back to my work table. I couldn’t focus though. Not with him here with me. Even without looking at him, I knew he was staring. He held a certain intensity with him always, and now was no different.
“Are there any leads?” I asked, pouring melted wax from a metal container into the silicone molds. I never pulled my attention from what I was doing. I knew if I did, his stupid face would make me weak in the knees. I’d abandon my candles and crawl into his lap, only for him to tense and push me away. I didn’t want to be rejected.
I had to stay strong. I couldn’t give in and beg him to want me. I’d grown too much in the time I spent here to resort to my old ways.
“There aren’t. He’s gone underground. But we will find him. I promise.”
I shrugged as I wiped the excess liquid that had spilled down the molds and onto the tables. “Does it really matter, Jericho?”
“Of course, it does,” he practically growled.
My body stiffened as I caught the subtle tensing of his hand closing into a fist before opening again. I huffed in annoyance. “I don’t want this to continue anymore. I want to go back to how things were before.”
“Before?” He let out a condescending laugh. “Before, when your first husband beat you? Raped you? When he allowed his men to violate and abuse you?”
My stomach flipped with uneasiness.
I hated angry Jericho. He was worse than the calm, barred off Jericho. His rage built inside of him the way it did inside of me, and I was scared for him. He was good before me. Before me, he killed for the right reasons. Now, he was on a war path. And it was to defend my honor. What honor was there if it meant losing the sliver of good inside of his soul?
“No,” I managed to grit through my clenched teeth. “Before you knew what they did to me.”
“Evie.” His face softened, and his tone dropped to become more soothing, less cruel. “What happened to you is not your fault, and I’m glad I know so that I can give you your vengeance.”
My teeth clattered and the pressure built behind my eyes. It turned out that when I was allowed to feel my emotions, I was one of those people who cried whenever they got angry. Such a stupid, pathetic reaction. “Vengeance is suicide. It eats at your soul, tears away any good you might still have left in you, Jericho. You have grandchildren on the way. They do not need this kind of evil in their lives.”
He stood quickly, and in one long stride he was wrapping me in his arms, shaking me as if to knock sense into me. “I saw you that night as we stood before the pyre, Aoibheann. You came alive as the darkness consumed us, and the wind blew around you, commanding you to seek your peace. You don’t get to ask me to quit now. Not when the worst of those men are still out there.”
He said my name. There was something significant in that, but I wasn’t ready to explore how, or why. Instead, I argued, because I wanted anything but his indifference.
“I’m not asking you to quit.” I pulled from his grip. “I’m just trying to make sure that giving this to me doesn’t kill you too. You’re slipping away from me. From Rose.”
His head dropped against the top of my head and he exhaled. His body sagged when I returned his touch with a comforting hug. “My job is to protect you, wife. And to protect my child.”
My lips twitched. He hadn’t called me that in a long while, and I hoped it was a sign that I was bringing him back to me. “Your job is to keep me happy, husband.”
“Keep you happy?” he asked, a hint of amusement laced with something else that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. His lips brushed against my forehead. “I’ve given you an entire arboretum. You have unlimited access to herbs. What else does a witch need to do her spells?”
I hummed, grateful that the mood had shifted. But I wasn’t stupid. I knew he was deflecting, that we were changing the subject because he wasn’t going to agree to put a stop to this blood path. We were pausing it for a moment though, and I’d take what I could get.
I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him.
“She needs a sacrifice,” I whispered against his mouth. Then I bit his bottom lip, melting at the way he groaned.
He grabbed my hand and pressed our scarred palms together.
“I’m yours to give, Evie. Yours to sacrifice, to use and expend. My only job is to keep you safe.” He peered down at me, and that amused and care-hearted piece of him slid away, replaced with regret and sadness. “Your happiness is important. But it means nothing to me if you’re dead.”
He leaned down to kiss me, and I kissed him back. I had no choice. I could never deny him a touch, a kiss, or a longing gaze. It was not in my nature to do so. Not anymore.
“Your life, witch, is the one thing I will not compromise.”
He pulled from my arms, storming from the room as though we had just had a fight. My heart ached as if we had. I felt the chasm growing between us, and it threatened to bring me to my knees.