Chapter 17
Silas
I may have been drunk as fuck, but I remember everything up until I blacked out. I tore her apart. I ripped open every old wound she had and forced her to bleed for me. I had to hear her say it. I had to hear her admit it because I’m going to kill every single one of them. I’m going to move down the line and take each of them out for what they did to her.
I raise my head, and my fucking body aches from hanging from these damn chains all night. I get why they did it, though. They didn’t have a choice, and it was probably for the best I was strung up like that, so I didn’t hurt Angel any more than I already did.
“You awake?” I hear Hunter’s voice. I turn my head to the side and see him walking toward me and nod. Angel lies on a cot, sound asleep right at my feet.
“What’s she doing here?”
“She wouldn’t leave you,” he tells me. Fuck. How did I get so lucky with her? A sick bastard like me doesn’t deserve a girl like Angel. She deserves better.
Hunter moves to unlock the chains from around my ankles and then my arms. I lower them slowly and work them out to get some feeling back into them.
“I won’t say sorry,” he tells me.
“I wouldn’t ask you to. In fact, I’ll thank you.”
“Don’t do that either. We’re friends, right? It’s what we do for each other.” I nod my head. He’s right. We would do it for the other. I look down at Angel as she sleeps and I debate crawling on the cot with her or walking away.
“Don’t walk away,” Hunter warns softly as if he knew what I was thinking about. I nod my head as he walks off, and I slowly climb onto the small cot behind her. It’s as if she knows I’m here and scoots over, giving me space. I wrap my arm around her and pull her as close as I can get her. I lean my face into her hair and inhale her scent.
“I fucked up, Angel,” I whisper, not knowing if she can hear me or not. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have forced you to do that.”
“You didn’t.” She is awake.
“Yeah, I did. And I’m so fucking sorry,” I apologize to her.
“You made me let go of something, Silas. You forced me to give up a part of me that was holding me back. Don’t be sorry for that.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admit to her.
“Don’t say anything. Just listen. I hated what was done to me. I’ve lived with it all these years, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. The pain, the hate, the anger. I couldn’t make any of it stop. And now I can because you know. They know. And I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore,” she says softly. Is she crazy? How could she think I wouldn’t want her? She’s all I fucking want.
I reach for her face and turn it so she can see me when I see the tears in her eyes.
“Why wouldn’t I want you?”
“I can’t have kids, Silas. Don’t you want kids?”
“I’ve never thought about it much, but if having kids means losing you, then I don’t want them.”
“What if you change your mind?” I shake my head.
“I’m not changing my mind, Angel. We haven’t come this far, and I haven’t killed people just for you to leave me. If that’s your plan, you better rethink it because I will hunt you down, and I’ll make you pay for trying to get away from me.”
“I-I don’t want to leave you, Silas.” That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I lean down and press my lips to hers, savoring every bit of her. She’s everything to me and I don’t know how she can’t see that.
“Glad you’re awake,” I hear Rylan and pull away from Angel. I sit up and shove off the cot before walking toward him. He holds out his hand to me and I take it before he pulls me into a hug. “Don’t do that shit again, Silas.”
“I know. I won’t. It all just got too much,” I tell him before Levi pulls me in next.
“You could have lost something last night. You’re lucky you didn’t.” Levi nods toward Angel. I look over my shoulder as Tamsyn pulls her off the cot, and they both walk toward us. I reach for her and pull her to my side, tucking her in tightly against me.
“I appreciate what you guys did for me.”
“None of that girly shit. We do what the fuck we do, and we move on,” Rylan says, causing everyone to laugh.
“What do we do now?” I ask them.
“We know what the ultimate goal is for you. We’re behind you but like I said last night, we’re waiting until after the ceremony.” I nod my head. I agree with that. I think we should wait.
“You want my fucking input?” Hunter asks as he walks toward us.
“Of course,” I say.
“You take it all back. The three of you. Once you handle the leaders, you take the society back.”
“Why the hell would we want it? They’ve fucking ruined it.”
“You can change it, Ry. You can make that shit what you want it to be. Change the fucking rules. Hell, you’ll have millions of dollars at your disposal once the leaders are out of the way,” he says. It makes sense. The businesses our dads own, in the event of their death, would come to us.
“He’s not wrong,” I tell Rylan.
“No, he’s not, but is that something we want?” he asks, looking between all of us.
“I don’t know,” Tamsyn softly answers as Angel clings to my side. “There’s been so much bad shit that it’s hard to see the good,” she says. She isn’t wrong, either. They’ve driven this society into the fucking ground and made it into something it never should have been.
“Yeah, I get that, but look at the bigger picture, right? Change it. Make it better. Give those girls different expectations. Give them something to look forward to and not dread,” Hunter adds.
“I don’t know about all that because I plan on kidnapping a princess.” We all look over when Hoax speaks. He doesn’t care; he just shrugs.
“Who?” I ask, and he shrugs once more.
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“And what the hell are you going to do with her?” Rylan asks now.
“Keep her. What the fuck did you think I was going to do with her?” We all share a look and then laugh. Only fucking Hoax would want to kidnap a princess and keep her for himself.
“So we think on this. We talk about it. We don’t make any fucking rash decisions,” Rylan says, looking between everyone.
“Sounds like a plan,” Levi agrees. I look to Hunter.
“You have space if we stick around here for a while? I don’t think I can go back home,” I tell him.
“You’re good here. We have extra rooms you can stay in,” he tells me. I nod my thanks before he turns and walks away with Hoax. I sigh, not knowing what to do right now. The fact is, I want blood on my hands. I want more blood than there already is.
“You need a shower,” Angel tells me. I smirk down at her.
“Do I?”
“You smell like alcohol so bad,” she teases, smiling up at me.
“Then come with me,” I tell her. She bites her bottom lip before she nods her head. I knew she wouldn’t say no to me.
“We’re going to head out and grab food and clothes. You need anything else?” Ry asks. I shake my head. They turn to leave, and I grab Angel’s hand and lead her toward the other rooms.
We walk down the hall and into the room, closing the door behind us. Then I lead her into the bathroom and start the shower before stripping us both down to nothing.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask her. I know what I did to her last night, and as bad as I feel about it, I know she needed to get it out. I just hate that I forced her into it instead of letting her come to me herself.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I do worry about you, Angel.”
“I know you do.”
“I just have a shit way of showing it,” I laugh.
“Yeah, you’re not the best at it,” she agrees before I drag her into the shower. The warm water hits us, and I sigh under the sprayer.
I close my eyes and tip my head back when I feel Angel’s hand on my cock. I don’t bother to open my eyes; I just let her have her time. Then I feel her fall to her knees and take me into her mouth. It takes all the strength I have left in me not to take charge and fuck her face the way I want to.
Instead, I let her do what she needs and wants. She bobs her head, sucking me in deeper. When I open my eyes to look down at her, she has one hand between her legs, playing with herself.
“Fuck, Angel. You’re doing this on purpose.”
She groans around my cock, and I know I’m right. She’s fucking torturing me now, and I let her. She sucks me deeper, harder, her tongue trailing down the underside of my cock, and I can’t hold back. I let go. For her. I fucking come down the back of her throat as she swallows me whole. I grunt a few times when she finally gets herself off. She doesn’t come as hard as she does with me.
She stands up and that’s when I pull her into me and kiss her. Then I let my fingers wander down to her stomach to the scar I knew meant something.
“Do you wonder about the baby?” I ask her softly, not wanting to upset her anymore, but I’m curious.
“Sometimes. Obviously, I wasn’t ready to have a baby, but it was still mine.”
“Have you tried to find it?” she shakes her head. “Don’t want to or just didn’t know how?”
“A little of both. Some days, I worry something bad could be happening to her, too.”
“It was a girl?” She nods now.
“Yeah. I got to see her for a second. She was beautiful,” she whispers. I pull her back against me and hold her there. I can’t let her go. I don’t want to. Not now. Not ever.