Chapter 18 Mercy
Mercy
The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one Nation…
— FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Hours passed, and my arms ached with the effort to break the bed apart and free myself. The cuffs rubbed raw spots into my wrists, and my fingers had long since grown numb. Eventually, I curled into a ball at the head of the bed, trying to ignore the chill against my bare skin.
What if Lucas never came back? What if he died out there and I was left chained in his house?
With those thoughts, I’d redouble my efforts to break the bed frame, but it was antique cast iron, thick and strong. Why couldn’t it have been Ikea junk?
I drifted in and out of consciousness, dreaming fitfully of my capture—sometimes by Hunters who wanted to use my body as a toy, but other times by the man who’d chained me here.
Those latter dreams were strange. Soft. Slow.
In one, he released my arms only to draw them tight around his neck, then held me like he thought he’d never get the chance.
In another, he left me handcuffed while he lectured me on my inability to escape.
I jolted awake at the telltale thunk of the front door closing.
Dread bloomed, dampening my palms, speeding my pulse.
I made myself small and quiet, but I couldn’t stop the images of that lieutenant returning with the heat blazing in his eyes, ready to punish me or rape me or do whatever the hell he wanted.
Light preceded a body into the room.
Lucas paused at the doorway, holding a lit candle and a pile of fabric. Tears filled my eyes again, this time from relief. My shivering frame jiggled my cuffs against the metal, the only sound between us. When I could hold back no longer, his name spilled from my lips on a sob.
He drew closer, and the candlelight shed a golden glow over dark spatters on his skin. His searching gaze darted over me.
“What if he comes back?” I asked, trying not to let my voice tremble.
“He won’t.” He set the candle on the bedside table and reached for my wrists.
“You don’t know that. He knows where we meet—”
“He’s dead.”
One wrist released, and I was finally free to move my arms. I stared up at him, but his gaze was focused on my other wrist. My voice shrank. “You killed him?”
He nodded. “He was lying. I’ve never written this address anywhere. He’s clearly been spying on me. He knew this location when he should have never found it. He knew I’m keeping secrets.” His eyes touched mine, then dropped again. “He knew your face.”
My breath caught as I rubbed the ache from my wrists, free of the metal. “How do you know he didn’t tell anyone?”
His mouth twitched, and his hand spasmed into a fist. “I just know.”
Did he torture that man for information? “That’s the third person you’ve killed for me,” I said.
“I’m certain it won’t be the last.” He replaced the cuffs in the bedside drawer and handed me the items he brought—thin sweatpants and a hoodie. More of his clothes.
I pulled them on while my mind whirred. Why would Lucas assume he’d have to keep protecting me? More importantly, why would he bother?
Fully dressed, I sat at the edge of the bed, examining every plane of his blood-spattered face, scrutinizing his expression. He hadn’t even bothered to wash up before he returned to me. Had he been worried?
His gentle thumb wiped the moisture from beneath my eye, and something inside me reached for him. My hands found his shirt of their own accord, and I pulled myself closer to his safety, straight into his bloody embrace. “This is why you wanted a woman, isn’t it? You were prepared.”
His arms surrounded me like they had in my dream, forming a protective barrier, and I tried to nuzzle closer.
“I should have warned you,” he murmured against my hair.
“I’d planned for it, but I never thought anyone would find us here.
You were just so scared of it I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. ”
“Nothing about you scares me anymore.” I lifted my head to look at him. “You just saved my life.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me, and I will not tolerate threats against your safety.”
What about threats against his? What had this risk cost him?
Another tear fell while my throat dried up.
He’d committed a second act of fratricidal treason for me.
He kept risking his life, marring his soul, for me.
He’d been protecting me from the very beginning—training me, arming me, hiding me in his clothes.
Killing for me.
I buried myself in him, let his heat soak through my skin like sunlight, and suddenly I was warm and safe…enfolded in the arms of a murderer.
The familiar smoky incense clung to him, but more powerful than that was the tang of gunpowder and blood. That only made me clutch harder, because it was proof that he placed himself in lethal situations every day and the odds were stacked high against his survival.
He winced when I squeezed, and I released him. “Did you get hurt?”
Silence.
I swiped at my tears. “Let me see it.”
With a small hesitation, he lifted his shirt and showed me a knife wound stretching from his collarbone to the center of his chest, weeping blood. “One of yours. He went for my throat.”
I touched the healthy skin surrounding it. “I assume he’s dead now?”
More silence.
“Let me help you,” I said. He wavered, but I tugged on his hand, forcing him to lie on the bed. While I grabbed the medical supplies he kept in the master bath, I called out, “So what happened?”
“Uncle Theo thought tonight would be the best time to raid the armory I told him about.”
I filled a bowl with water from the sink, then headed back his way. “Did he succeed?”
“They took losses.”
My eyes widened as I reentered the bedroom. “Heavy ones?”
“Not as heavy as us.” He winced when I wiped a rag near the wound to clean away the blood. “They got John White.”
My hands stilled on his chest. “One of the other Blood Colonels?”
He nodded, and glee spilled into my bloodstream. “Wow,” he said, clocking my reaction. “Who knew you were so bloodthirsty?”
I scowled at him. “You all murder innocent people on live TV. John White favors a hammer, Lucas. A hammer.”
His eyes fell shut, and a slow breath left his lungs. “I know.”
I reverted my attention to his wound. “I’m turning on the lamp.”
He didn’t argue.
Bathed in light, the wound looked worse than it was. I set about cleaning it with the antiseptics in his first-aid kit. “Do you have anything to numb it? It needs a few sutures.”
“It will be fine.” His hand stopped mine, and I met his eyes, fervent in a way I’d never seen. “You’re okay?”
I set my palm over his heart. “I’m okay. I was just scared. I thought I might be trapped here, and I couldn’t escape.”
His eyes scorched as he sat up and took my face in his hands. “I will always come back.”
Longing blazed through my chest.
“I won’t allow harm to come to you, Sophia.”
My every sense locked onto him, and my voice dropped to a mere whisper. “Why not?”
His gaze fell to the bed, and he released my face.
I pushed closer, begging silently for answers. “Lucas? I need to know why. Please.”
Jaw clenching, he took a steadying breath, like he needed the strength to look at me again, as if barely healed wounds inside had ripped open, and he was watching them bleed out with no way to stop it.
His attention moved to me by degrees, and the aquamarine turned liquid. Bottomless. Full of pain.
He said nothing, but the truth was there, sparkling in his eyes. He looked at me like he was staring at the rest of his life—tenuous and easily taken—and the realization didn’t please him.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry.
Without thinking, I surrendered to the urge of my body and tipped forward.
My lips touched his in a single, slow kiss, worlds different from the frantic, fake kiss from last night.
This one was soft, brimming with an understanding that something pivotal had shifted between us, even if neither of us would ever admit it.
When I pulled back, the blue in his eyes was on fire, flames devouring the restraint that always leashed him. Still, he didn’t move. Instead, his mouth opened and formed words that looked as if they hurt him to say. “You need to go home.”
He was right.
I knew he was right.
I couldn’t make myself move.
“Sophia,” he said, gaze still latched on mine. “It’s nearly dawn. You need to go home.”
I nodded—a strange, jerky movement—then stood. Before I could leave, his hand seized my sore wrist, holding me in place.
I looked down at him. “Lucas?”
Staring at his hand, he started to pull me back, then abruptly let go. “Be careful.”
“I will.” I made it to the door before I turned back to him, curiosity staying my feet. “What happens on Fridays, Lucas?”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“That officer said your Fridays were getting tame. What happens on Fridays?”
His mouth—the mouth that I’d just voluntarily kissed—tipped up at the corner in the smile buried deepest under my skin. “Maybe one day I’ll let you have my secrets.”
“But not today?”
“Not today.”
“He chained you to a bed?” Theo demanded after I rehashed the entire story, rage blazing across his face.
The impulse to defend Lucas could not be ignored, and I stiffened in the chair before Theo’s desk. “He was trying to keep his cover. For you.”
The general’s eyes narrowed, and he templed his fingers under his chin. “For the Defiance.”
I slumped back into my chair. “Yeah. He was just protecting me.”
“That is protecting you?”
“It’s more than what you’ve done,” I snapped.
Theo froze, and I regretted my harsh words at once. He hadn’t wanted me to accept this position as Lucas’s contact. I’d agreed to it willingly.
“You’re right.” He dropped his head. “I should have done more for you. After your parents—”
I raised a hand. “Stop, Theo. I don’t—I really don’t want to hear it.”
His lips pursed, and he offered one stiff nod. “Right. Did he have any information for us?”