Chapter 11
ELEVEN
NATTY
PRESENT
Something had changed.
It was as if the air in the room had suddenly been sucked out…it started with the low rumble outside, which had me quickly sitting up in bed and searching for the source. Alec was asleep next to me, his hand still cuffed to mine.
For what felt like the thousandth time, I tried squeezing out of the metal restraint.
My wrist was raw and red from how many times I’d tried to slide it free; it wasn’t budging but with him asleep, I had to keep trying.
I had to do something…maybe I could try suffocating him, or hit him so hard in the dick, he couldn’t breathe.
But it all still left me with the issue of being chained to a man that easily weighed two hundred pounds with his height and all that stacked muscle. There was no universe in which I could drag his dead weight around with me.
The rumble came again, this time there were shouts going off outside. Then gunfire.
Hope soared as I searched the clouded windows for any indication on what might be happening, because opposition could mean a rescue.
Alec finally woke up and realized his little hiding place was under attack, so he pulled me off the bed and briskly walked to the door.
I trailed him, still in just his shirt, nothing under it, my feet bare and my hair wild.
“What the fuck is happening?” he bellowed as he thundered down the hall. With his bare chest, his boxers and all the ink on his skin, he looked like an angry god. It was early enough that light flooded the halls and the dining room.
The rumble of motorcycles echoed louder than before outside, which had me turning toward the windows but Alec yanked me into the kitchen.
“Fuck, who’s attacking us?” Alec murmured under his breath, scanning the counters for something. I saw Rachel huddling down on the ground, near the pantry with a wild look of terror in her eyes. She looked up as we entered, and then slowly stood.
“It started ten minutes ago, but Fable isn’t here. I have no idea where he went…he was just gone when I woke up, and now we’re being attacked.”
Alec slammed another drawer closed, cursing.
I was close enough that I could slide a knife free from the drying rack.
I had to be slow about it, as to not alert him.
I waited until his head was turned and reached, but I must have overestimated his peripheral vision because once he realized what I was doing, he pulled me close, so my free hand was now locked in his.
“We need to get out of here.”
I wouldn’t slip through the cracks and be held hostage again. I couldn’t. Whoever was attacking had to mean my freedom. Somehow, someway.
I tried to push against Alec again. “Let me go!”
He held tighter.
“Rachel, help me. Please, we can take him if we both just…” Tears burned my eyes, and I must have looked wild and unhinged because I began tearing at Alec’s skin, scratching and marking as I screamed for him to let me go.
Rachel moved toward me, but with one look from Alec, she closed her eyes and began rubbing at her wrists until her back was against the wall.
She obviously had endured some sort of torture or abuse.
My heart was a wounded, panicked thing. I knew she was struggling but I needed her help.
I was desperate for her to use this one chance to free us both.
A loud scream came from outside the exterior kitchen door, accompanied by a gunshot.
I jolted with how close it came, making my footing slip and my back land into Alec’s chest. It allowed him to get a more secure hold on my hips, but before I could even try to start fighting him again, the door slammed open.
Brightness flooded the kitchen; I couldn’t make out who had stepped in, but I heard their voice, and it was a familiar echo, a soothing, dark caress over my heart.
“Caelum,” was rasped and broken, like he’d finally found the one thing on this planet that was precious to him.
You could only fight monsters with bigger monsters; my heart belonged to the worst one I knew of.
I gave a tiny sob as Alec pulled me backward, making my feet slip out from under me, but my eyes had finally adjusted as they landed on Silas.
He was tall and so perfectly outlined by all the darkness in his heart that I nearly choked on my tears.
He wore his leather cut, his hair a slash of black across his forehead, and his arms were swathed in dusky tattoos, all the way down to his fingers.
Trapped pieces of the moon stared back at me, a flicker of relief glimmering in them.
Time seemed to stand still as we stared at each other, and I wondered what he saw as I stood in his brother’s arms, wearing his shirt.
How I must look with my hair wild, frizzed and my bare legs on display as Alec tugged me farther into the kitchen.
From Silas’s expression, it wasn’t good, and it worsened when his gaze dropped to my hand.
It was as though all the sound and sight had suddenly stilled and bled into one vibrant dark stroke of black.
His eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched so tight I thought it might break.
He took a measured step forward, the gun dangling in his right hand, then it was tossed to the counter with a loud echo.
Which told me that Silas had a much more violent punishment in mind for Alec than a simple bullet to the head.
“Brother, please do explain to me why the fuck you’ve cuffed yourself to my wife?”
Alec froze behind me.
I heard his small intake of breath and noticed mine had stalled in my chest too.
Silas had never claimed me in such a manner, especially not in front of anyone.
A fluttering sensation mixed with relief swelled inside me, even as I was being held by a monster.
Even as I knew this was dangerous. Silas had swept it all away with one word.
Wife.
“Silas,” Alec stammered while we both watched the man known as The Roman procure a meat cleaver that was magnetized against the back wall.
“I’m going to allow you the chance to choose, Alec.
I’ll either cut high enough so that tattoo of Artemis, which we all know you got for Natty, is removed from your body completely.
Or you can lose your hand. Personally, I think you should choose the arm, make a big statement since that’s what you originally intended by getting this fucking piece, right? ”
There was shuffling from near the back, and Rachel darted out of the room through the open door. I watched her go, wondering if Killian would find her.
Alec was slightly shaking, and I wasn’t even sure he noticed that his hold on me had gone slack.
I left his arms and moved as far from him as possible, while our hands remained connected by the cuffs.
I saw him eye the firearm that had been discarded on the counter, just a few feet from where I was standing.
There were veins protruding from Alec’s neck and forehead as he watched his brother slowly move around the counter in our direction. “Silas, let me expl—”
“Choose!” Silas roared his eyes going wide, his lips twisting angrily. “Your hand or the tattoo you had created because of your obsession with my fucking wife!”
“I didn’t know you were married,” Alec stammered back.
Silas laughed. “You knew she was mine, Alec. She’s been mine from the first moment you saw her. Don’t pretend you didn’t know. Hand or arm?”
“Just fucking wait, let me talk to you about what Dad is doing. I can help you.” Alec tried to get Silas’s attention, but he was already in front of me, blocking my view, facing his brother. Nowhere for him to go.
“I’m losing my patience and the longer you’re cuffed to my wife, the more violent my thoughts are becoming.”
“Just wait…Silas, no…Fuckkkkkkkkk.”
Alec’s words faded into a soul-shattering scream along with a loud thump and the sound of metal clattering to the counter.
There was so much screaming.
I knew Silas had removed Alec’s hand, and with there no longer being any resistance when I tried to pull my arm, I covered my chest and took a few steps back. Alec continued to scream obscenities behind me, but I refused to look.
I heard Silas speak over the yelling, “Do not ever touch her again. She does not belong to you; she is not your toy, and she certainly will never be your girl. Next time, I’ll take your heart.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alec holding his bleeding stub to his side, seething in anger.
“Fuck you, brother.”
I felt numb as I watched, completely detached from the moment.
I knew Alec had lost a hand, and that should have bothered me, but all I could think about was leaving this house.
I wanted to go home, back to my room in the Stone Riders club.
I wanted to wake up, have this all be a dream, and go back to how things were.
Silas tossed something and bent down into a squat in front of Alec. With his finger, he pushed against the tattoo on Alec’s arm, making him seethe in pain. “She was never a huntress or a goddess. She was none of those things.”
Alec tried to stand; his teeth were clenched so tight, and he was starting to grow pale. His gaze clashed with mine and I wanted to cry. Not for him, or what had been done to him, but because of the friend he used to be to me.
“She is to me.”
Silas turned toward me, his focus on where I was watching.
I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes from Alec or push out what he’d said.
I wanted to scream all the pain that was locked in my chest. All the agony and anger, but nothing would come out.
Instead, Silas stood and his hand came to my hip, guiding me away from the scene and toward the open door.
Giving one last glance to his brother, he said. “You locked her up, thinking you could make her love you…but you can’t force the sun to shine, just like you can’t stop it from setting. I hope betraying her trust was worth it, Alec.”