Chapter 20 #3
Eventually, I stretched my aching limbs across the straw-filled mattress and let my body sink into the musty linens. Time slipped by in uneven gasps of breath. I didn’t know how long I lay there before I heard the distant clatter of hooves and wooden wheels.
I dragged myself to the window.
Outside, a horse and buggy had arrived. A dapper man climbed down from the buckboard, his dark mustache waxed to a sharp point, his black coat crisp despite the dust. He retrieved a leather satchel from the back and stood still momentarily, surveying the dry land around him.
The sun hung low in the sky, turning the fields to fire.
The broken barn in the distance looked like a tombstone.
The man disappeared, striding toward the house.
Moments later, boots tromped toward my room. The door opened, and the caretaker entered with the mustached stranger.
“Hello, miss,” the newcomer said in Italian.
I sat up fast, a flood of questions bursting from my lips. “You speak Italian? Where am I? Who brought me here? Who is he?” I pointed to the man who’d cared for me. “What is this place?”
“Wait, wait,” the mustached man said, pumping his hands in a calming gesture. “You must speak slowly. I am not fluent in Italian. But first, introductions. This is Philip Weston.” He gestured to the other man. “And I am Dr. Clive Carson. What is your name?”
I shook my head and gave my most practiced blank stare. “Non ti capisco.”
Dr. Carson didn’t flinch. “Philip tells me you’ve been unconscious for days,” he continued, slower now, his Italian passable. “He said he found you bloodied and half-dead on the plains after returning from the war.” His eyes narrowed. “Who beat you?”
“I don’t recall,” I lied flatly. “I was attacked in the forest.”
“Pity,” he murmured. “You’re… gravemente ferita. Severely injured. That’s the phrase I was searching for. May I examine you?”
My gaze flicked between him and Philip. I hesitated, then shook my head.
“Please, dear,” he said gently. “You won’t recover properly without treatment. Let me help. Philip will step outside. Won’t you, Philip?”
Philip nodded once and left the room without a word.
I let out a long sigh and gave the doctor a weary shrug. He didn’t waste time.
He pulled out a mix of polished instruments and small glass vials from his worn satchel.
There were herbs, a saw, forceps… the works of a battlefield physician.
He peeled open the tattered front of my dress, working with a mechanical grace, careful not to expose more than necessary.
He touched and prodded, murmuring to himself.
When he finished, he packed everything away and slipped out in silence.
Minutes later, he returned—his expression unreadable.
“I don’t know where Philip has gone. But I do have news. I hope…” He struggled with the words. “My Italian is… rusty.” He raised his arms and rocked them like he held an infant.
A cold dread shot up my spine.
“No…” I whispered, eyes widening. “No no no no…”
It couldn’t be.
It had to be Balthazar’s.
“No!” I screamed, fury detonating in my chest like a cannon blast. I lunged from the bed, pain forgotten, and snatched the doctor by his collar, my nails raking across his throat.
“Get out!” I shrieked. “Get away from me!”
Dr. Carson stumbled back, stunned, his mouth agape.
“I must leave,” I growled, panting like a feral beast. “Now.”
His voice fractured as he yanked free of my grip. “Philip!”
The door crashed open.
Philip barreled in like a thunderclap, his face contorted with alarm. Together, the two men descended on me. I kicked, thrashed, and screamed, but they slammed me back into the mattress, trapping my arms beneath their combined weight.
“She’s gone mad!” Dr. Carson barked in Italian, spitting a string of curses in English. “We’re not going to hurt you! We just want to help—damn it, calm down!”
I bucked beneath them like a wild animal. Every nerve in my body screamed Don’t let them win.
Dr. Carson turned to Philip and shouted something I couldn’t hear over my breathless sobs. Philip nodded, then pinned both of my wrists in one ironclad grip, holding me like I was nothing but a feather.
Dr. Carson rummaged through his bag and pulled out a small glass vial. He knelt beside me and pried open my jaw.
“No!” I thrashed my head, but his fingers clamped my face like a vice. The bitter liquid burned as it spilled into my mouth. I gagged, choked, but he pinched my lips shut, forcing me to swallow.
“This will help you feel better,” he said. His voice was too calm, too clinical.
My muscles slackened almost immediately. The world became heavy. Slurred. Like drowning in molasses. My limbs gave up, melting into the bed.
The men hovered over me momentarily, watching to see if I’d spring again. But when I didn’t move, they backed away. I heard the door creak open, then click shut behind them. Their voices drifted outside, muffled and distant.
Hot tears spilled down my cheeks. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. All I could do was lie there, a prisoner in my own body—haunted, drugged, and undone.
A baby would ruin everything.
It would slow me down. Tether me. I had no room for that kind of weakness. I needed the daggers, and I needed them for me, not for some child or some doomed fairy-tale ending.
I rolled to my side, gritting my teeth through the ache, and spotted the broken shard of looking glass on the floor. My fingers stretched for it, sluggish as if moving through molasses. The glass was sharp. Jagged. Perfect.
I pressed it to my skin and began to slice—clumsy, shaking, but determined.
Then the air shifted.
Heavy. Suffocating. I couldn’t breathe.
And then she was there.
Zara.
Materializing out of the shadows like a specter made of ice and wrath, her obsidian eyes locked on mine. My heart shrieked in my chest.
Before I could move, she seized me by the throat and slammed me against the wall. Pain surged through my body as my skull ricocheted off the wood. My mouth opened in a silent cry. There was no point in screaming—Zara didn’t care.
She held me there, her frozen fingers branding my skin.
Then, she laughed.
A sound like bones splintering.
She yanked a fistful of my hair and smashed my head against the wall once, twice, again. My vision went white. The world spun. Still, I didn’t scream.
“You’re going to keep this baby,” she snarled, her voice a death sentence. “Or I’ll show you what real torment feels like. Maybe I’ll start with your fingers.”
She snatched my hand, gripped one finger tight, her nails like claws digging into the bone. “Let’s rip them off, one by one, shall we?”
I let out a strangled cry and twisted away, wrenching my hand free from her claws.
She threw her head back and laughed again—an unnatural sound that made the walls vibrate.
Then she vanished, just as footsteps echoed down the hallway.
I collapsed onto the bed, my whole body throbbing, my head ringing with pain. Sobs tore through me, real and raw. Balthazar, I thought, his face flickering in the chaos of my mind.
But he wasn’t coming. Not this time.
Not after what I’d done.
The betrayal. The lies. The poison.
I was alone.
Utterly, unforgivably alone.
Then the door creaked open.
Philip stepped in, balancing a tray. “I come bearing sustenance,” he said with a soft smile. “You look like you could use some comfort.”
His kindness made me want to scream. But instead, my tears dried. My pain turned cold.
And something inside me shifted.
A new plan began to take shape, dark and sharp as the shard I’d used to cut my skin.
I would seduce him. Make him fall for me. Let him believe the child was his. I’d bury the truth so deep it would never surface.
And while he clung to hope, I’d find the blades.
No one would stop me, not Balthazar, Zara, or fate.
Not now.
Not ever.