9. Elyse
CHAPTER 9
ELYSE
I t's a strange feeling. Wanting to see someone but hoping they stay away at the same time. It’s ridiculous how much I think about him. I think about the way his hands mold to my body, the way he makes me feel, all of it juxtaposed with memories of a gunshot.
The hurt in his eyes when I confronted him about killing his own grandfather.
I stare at the now cold soup on the tray near my hip. The first day I'd been stuck in this room, Drew brought me food for each meal, the next day, Lee, then Aries, and then back to Drew. Some fucked up football rotation of making sure I eat. Well, news to them, I'm not really eating. I’m picking at the food, kinda hoping Sebastian is going to show his face. Or maybe he’s given up on me.
After everything he said and did, I doubt he’s done with me. No, this is another tactic, another way for him to try and control me.
I shove the tray away and hop off the bed, wincing as pain radiates up my back with the movement. I ignore the discomfort and cross the room to stare out the window. I can only see the perfect sloping lawn from here. It's a clear sunny day, probably cold, not that I would know since I haven’t left this room.
The thought alone sends a wave of fury through me. I was kidnapped...and… I refuse to think about the rest. But if I’m his wife, then why is he locking me up like I’m a criminal?
Something in my mind pings. Because that’s what you are. A criminal.
No. No. No.
I shove it away like I usually do before a wash of guilt accompanies the thought.
The door to the bedroom opens, but I don't bother turning around to see who it is this time. "I'm done, you can take the tray if you want." I clench my fists, and breathe out a slow breath, hating how it comes out choppy, stuttered.
I’m home again. I’m home and safe.
The desire to scream almost consumes me, the pit of despair swirls in my gut, and I clench my hands into tight fists, fighting back against it. I remind myself that this isn't Sebastian's friends’ fault. They are helping. Everyone is trying to help.
I squeeze my eyes closed and rein in the anger that seems to fill me for hours at a time.
"I’m not here to collect your tray." A deep voice that I know all too well sends shivers up my spine. I spin as it registers, finding Sebastian standing near the end of the bed, staring down at the tray.
“Then why are you here? I didn’t ask to see you.” I try my best to sound as angry as I feel, but what I really want is to run into his arms and let him hold me. The anger is fading. Damnit.
“You never have to ask to see me, and even if you can’t see me I’m always watching you. Always making sure you’re taken care of.”
“Creepy, but okay.”
“Which leads me to my next question. You haven’t been eating; why?”
I blink and look up at him. Damn. Why does he always have to look like that? Like he walked off the front page of GQ Magazine. His black slacks are perfectly pressed and paired with a crisp white dress shirt. His leather shoes are so shiny I can damn near see my reflection in them. He’s put together far better than me, minus his blonde hair which is mussed, shoved to the side like he's been running his fingers through it.
Red hot jealousy slices through me. Who is doing his laundry? Cleaning his room?
The other day I wanted nothing to do with him, and now I’m angry about the prospect of someone else doing my job. About someone else touching his things, taking care of him.
I’m losing my damn mind.
"Who is doing your laundry?" My cheeks burn hot, and I pray he doesn’t notice. Who am I kidding? He notices everything. I can’t believe I asked such a stupid question.
The small tilt of his lips flashing into the hint of a smile stirs the embers of desire. The need to touch him overwhelms me so I wrap my arms around my middle and stare at him instead. I have to resist the temptation.
He’s bad for you, bad for everyone.
"The housekeeper has been doing the laundry, both mine and yours."
That makes sense. Sure. Carey is great.
"Any other burning questions in that brain of yours?" He asks, sitting—no sprawling—off the end of the bed.
I retreat toward the window, the sill bumping my back. "I...no..."
"Good," he stands suddenly and moves toward me, but I skitter to the side, putting my back into the corner. He freezes in place, cocks his head to the side, and examines me. Oh no. I don’t want him staring at me. He'll see everything. The way I've been biting my cuticles until they bleed, the dark circles under my eyes because I can't sleep. The couple of pounds I've likely lost because of my refusal to eat.
I miss him, even if parts of me hate him. Hate him for what he’s done to us.
"Ely," he prods gently, like I'm some kind of wounded animal, and I don't know why that hurts more. Is that how he sees me now? As a victim? No, that’s wrong—he called me a survivor. I’m a survivor, but I don’t feel like it.
Closing my eyes, I sink to the floor. "What do you want, Sebastian?"
I feel the air move around me. His scent fills my nostrils, and I breathe him in, breathing that clean warm scent into my lungs. My tongue darts out over my bottom lip. I want to kiss him, taste him. Even if I don't want to want him, there is no denying the desire gnawing at my bones.
"There's only one thing I want, My Little Prey. You. Only you."
I blink my eyes open at the confession and find him staring at me. It's a shock to my fragile system. "Funny, I haven’t seen you in days. In fact, I’ve seen more of your friends than I have you, so I don’t believe a single word you just said.”
Stupid, Elyse. Don’t let him know you miss him.
"I might be wrong, but it sounds like you missed me?”
I shake my head. “Nope, just keeping tabs on the enemy.”
“Mmm, yes. The enemy. The monster.” He mocks and gives his head a slight shake like he’s trying to stave off some imaginary beast. “Not that it matters since you hate me anyway, but I decided it might be better for you if I wasn’t the one delivering your meals every single day. I just assumed I was the last person you wanted to see right now.”
“You were right.” I let the lie roll off my tongue. “So what now? Are you going to disappear again? Are you going to let me go?”
It’s a hopeful question, but I know his answer will be no.
“Not sure if you noticed, or even care, but you are my wife. Marriage is important to me, believe it or not, and it’ll be hell or high water before I let you go. Not even death will keep us apart.” He leans in, and there's something manic in his expression. "You belong to me, Elyse, and the quicker you accept this reality the easier all of this will be.”
I swallow around the knot in my throat. "Why? Why would you want me after everything that happened? After I told you that I don’t want you and that I hate you?"
"You’re upset, and I understand that but I made you a promise a while back, that I’d keep you safe, and so far, I've been shit about keeping that promise. That has changed. Going forward, I will do whatever I need to do to ensure you’re safe.”
"What about...?"
"You killed Yanov, rather spectacularly, I might add…?" I flinch at the menace in his tone. "Or let me guess, your father? Are you worried he’s going to come after you, or maybe me?”
The thought terrifies me, but I say nothing. Sebastian merely stares at me as if I’m the most important thing in the world, looking past that fear and down in the dark depths of my soul. “Who the fuck knows what your father’s next move will be. It doesn’t matter, not when you now share my last name.”
"I see how it is. You only married me to protect me, huh?”
His eyes lose some of their warmth, and the muscles of his jaw clench tightly. "I wouldn’t go through the trouble of marrying you if I didn’t plan to keep you, to fill you with my seed, and watch your belly swell with our children. If I didn’t want to show off my ring on your finger, and my marks on your skin.”
The air becomes electrically charged, and I bite back a moan. The possession in his tone and words…how could I ever run from that? But how can I stay, knowing it was never real? That he kept me around because he wanted to know if I would remember anything important, anything incriminating.
“I married you because you’re mine. Giving you my name is merely another layer of protection, but don’t think for one moment anything about this marriage is fake. I want everyone to know who owns your heart and soul.”
God, I should be terrified. This man is a killer. But then…so am I.
"Okay, so now what? I’m yours, we’re married. What happens next?”
He shifts over on his knees, and I wince since he's no doubt ruining his pants.
What the fuck do I care about his pants right now? As he slides closer I realize he's trapping me, boxing me in with his body. At the last minute, I shift and jerk away from the corner but he’s fast and sly like a fox. With little effort I’m trapped by his broad shoulders, muscular arms, and thick thighs. I look everywhere but at his face, because one look and I’ll unravel at the seams.
That must be what he wants, since he captures my face between his palms and forces me to look at him. His gaze pins me in place, so heavy I nearly whimper from the weight of it.
"Please. Just let me go." Am I begging him to release me, or let me walk out of this house, away from him? I don't know.
Something twists on his face, and I can instantly see the way he takes it. "Let you go? Do you really think I’d walk away so easily? That I’d leave you to fend for yourself?”
I try to calm my breathing as I’m now almost panting. "I...I don’t know what to believe anymore. I thought I knew you, and I don’t. All of this is a bad idea. I won’t let you be responsible for my wrongdoings. We both know you don’t want the publicity that something like this brings, and especially not on your family name.”
"I don’t care what anyone else thinks. All I care about is you. Your safety, your well being, your happiness. Which is why we are here, right here, in this situation.”
A dark cloud of anguish fills the room. Or maybe that’s just me.
“Tell me you understand, Little Prey. Tell me that you see how important this is. If your father gets a hold of you, who knows what he will do? We both know an international human trafficker has developed an interest in you."
His last statement feels like a slap. I can’t do this. Not when he says things like that. I try to force my way around him, but there’s no escaping him. He even crouches down, balancing on the balls of his feet in front of me.
"Are you saying that to scare me?"
He scoops some of my hair behind my ear and leans in, inhaling. "No, I'm not trying to scare you. I’m trying to make you understand. To believe it. I'm the same man you met months ago, the same one who carried you out of that hellhole. Doesn't that earn me a little leeway here? No matter what else you think about me or what happened, you know deep down if my intention was to hurt you in any way it already would’ve happened."
I consider his words carefully, thinking about them, shifting them inside my head. What he says makes sense, and I know it’s true, but when I close my eyes all I see is the cold blank look on his face, eyes that were devoid of life and humanity as he stared at his grandfather right before he pulled the trigger.
He’s given me that same look a time or two, but he’s never hurt me…but what if it’s only a matter of time? All over again I’m confused, caught between love and hate, anger and sadness. Why does he make me doubt myself all the time? My every choice, my every decision. If I'm not worrying about what he's thinking, I'm worrying about what he's going to do next. A constant loop of darkness.
A darkness he's brought into my life.
No. That's not fair, as I remember Yanov's hands on my body. No—Sebastian didn't bring the darkness; I was already dealing with it for years before him. He showed me there's a different kind of darkness, one inside me, that answers to his own.
"Just please, tell me what you want," I whisper.
Pushing off the floor, he stands, and when he extends a hand down to me I stare at it for far longer than necessary, until I finally place my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet.
The room spins for a second, and then it rights itself as I try to look anywhere but at his broad chest, at the way his dress shirt is expertly tailored to his biceps. It's hard not to stare at him.
He leans down, his mouth so close to mine it would only take a little movement to reach him. Kiss him.
"It’s not what I want, but what we must do. We need to sell this. We are in love. We're married—young, sure, but married all the same. We must maintain a united front so that if someone comes for you, they know I will be in the way."
"You want me to pretend to be in love with you?"
He flicks his tongue against the side of my mouth gently. "Will you really have to pretend?"
I look away, afraid he will see right through me like he always does.
"If you want to call it pretending, sure. Pretend . But there’s no pretending on my part. I won’t lie about the way I feel about you,” he whispers.
He's closer now. I will not kiss him. Not now. Not when he's beating his chest and threatening to drag me back to the cave by my hair.
"Fine, but if I pretend to be the little wife, will you let me out of this damn room?"
His lips twitch but he doesn't smile. "Of course. You're my wife…you’re free to go wherever you want.” I take one retreating step when he clasps his hand around my bicep. “But make no mistake, there will be no more running, Ely. You agreed to be my wife, and you signed your name on the line.”
“I…was drugged.” I flounder for words. “Our marriage is as worthless as the paper it’s printed on. It might be a legal binding agreement, but that doesn’t mean I have to love you. It doesn’t mean any of this is real.”
I swear I see a flash of sadness in his eyes, but as soon as I blink it’s gone. “Maybe to you, but not me. I know this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen and that you’re confused and hurt, and I don’t want to make this more difficult for you. All I want is to make good on my promise to you.”
“Yay, you get to be the hero. What do I get?”
“Well, if you behave, I’ll let you go back to the room you were in before."
I nearly snort. The one connected to his room? I think not.
"Is it really necessary to keep me so close?"
A look of possession fills his features, and his eyes narrow like he’s trying to weasel his way under my skin. "I don’t think you understand how important all of this is. Do you want to go to jail for killing a man? Is that what you want?" His teeth snap together with each word, and he gives me a little shake as if the answer will fall out of me.
I swallow around the fear swarming my throat, closing it, making it impossible to speak. I shake my head hard. No, that’s not what I want. Part of me still thinks killing Yanov was a dream. But it’s not. This close I can see the toll this whole situation has taken on Sebastian. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and an impatient tick to his jaw. I want to pretend like I don’t care but I’m not him. I can’t simply shut off my emotions.
“Maybe it would be better if I stayed with Bel and Drew?”
He transforms into a thunderstorm right before my eyes. His gaze darkens as he presses closer. Maddening possession makes him appear unhinged. The look in his eyes terrifies me, but it also warms me to the core. He hauls me tighter into him, until there is only an inch of space between us, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Danger is near, and my instincts tell me to run and hide, but there’s no time for that.
He nearly growls his next question against my lips. “What do I need to do to show you that you’re my wife?”
I don’t get the chance to answer him, because he heads towards the door, dragging me behind him.