Chapter 26
Azalea
I try to rip my arm out of Gavin’s bruising grip the entirety of our journey to Braxton’s room, but he only holds me tighter as he all but drags me across the carpeted floor.
Digging my heels into the ground, I hope to throw him off balance, but his height and overall stature make that an impossible feat.
As we approach Braxton’s door, he uses his brute strength to shove me forward, pinning me between him and Braxton’s bedroom door.
I have no way to escape, and I feel my heart leap into my throat at the realization.
Gavin never relinquishes his firm hold on my arm, but instead tightens it to an alost unbearably painful amount when I make one last attempt to pull myself free.
It’s always the smallest men who hurt women for their own sick satisfaction, and the only way they find their pleasure from the experience is if they can see how much pain they’re causing.
So I press my lips into a hard line to keep from making any kind of noise and keep my features from becoming pinched as he needlessly squeezes me tighter.
“I hope he lets me be the one who punishes you,” he sneers right before he raises his fist and pounds against the door with three loud thumps.
Each swift knock sends a jolt through my body, and I find myself no longer focused on Braxton’s reaction to finding out I was in his study but instead on what Gavin will do to me if Braxton truly does deem what I’ve done worthy of punishment.
I try to squelch the panic seizing my lungs when I hear shuffling on the other end of the door.
When it swings open, Braxton stands before us, dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel hanging low on his hips.
Braxton finishes running a separate towel through his dark hair before he sighs. “What now—” When his vision is no longer obscured by the towel, he sees me standing in front of him and stops.
His eyes dart to where Gavin’s hand is still wrapped around my forearm, then back up to my no-doubt completely disheveled appearance.
With all of the fighting and clawing I did to try and get away from Gavin, my hair has fallen out of the low bun that Rhoden pinned it into earlier, and the sleeves to my dress have drooped down my shoulders.
With my wild curls falling around my face and my chest still heaving from the exertion of trying to break free, I’m sure I look anything but regal.
After a few rapid blinks, Braxton takes in a sharp breath. Schooling his features, his dark eyes go cold as he turns his attention to Gavin. “Do you like your hands, Tim?”
I knew he didn’t know his name, but it’s pathetic to watch Gavin not correct him.
“Your Highness?” Gavin’s gruff voice answers. His once gloating face crumples with confusion.
“Do you like your hands?” Braxton quirks a perfectly kempt brow. “I guess the better question is, would you like to keep them attached to your body?”
My eyebrows draw together as I watch the interaction between the two men, if you can consider Gavin a man.
Even now, he’s practically sniveling before Braxton’s scrutinizing gaze, and all Braxton has done is ask him a question.
Albeit, a threatening one, but still just a question.
I’m more confused by Braxton’s reaction to all of this.
It’s no secret that most of the servant staff prefer my company to his, so I find it puzzling that he would treat one of the only people who willingly bows to him in this castle so harshly.
Gavin slowly nods his head, apprehension in his every movement.
“Then I suggest you remove your hand from Azalea’s arm,” Braxton says cooly.
Gavin doesn’t move at first, clearly still trying to work out how things aren’t going in his favor.
“But, Your Highness, she was—”
“Remove. Your. Hand. Now.” The lethality in Braxton’s tone has a shiver fighting to slide down my spine, and I’m not the one he’s directing his attention to.
I do my best to hold my composure as I feel Gavin’s hands finally release my arm.
It takes all of my willpower to fight the screaming urge to cradle my, no doubt bruised, arm to my chest. I can feel my heartbeat pulsing in my bicep as the blood begins to freely flow through the no longer constricted veins.
Braxton studies my reaction before turning his attention back to Gavin.
“Go,” he commands. When Gavin remains frozen in place, he curls his lip back and barks, “Now.”
Gavin bows his head and turns to leave but is stopped when Braxton snatches the wrist of the hand Gavin had laid on me.
“And John, please consider this your one and only warning on what will happen if you ever touch Azalea again.”
With that, Braxton flicks his wrist, and I hear the horrifying crunch of bones as Gavin’s wrist is twisted to an unnatural angle.
Gavin howls in pain, and I step away from the scene until my back is pressed against the doorframe.
Terror lodges in my throat as I stand immobile, watching as Braxton uncaringly twists his hand one more time, snapping what sounds like at least three more bones in Gavin’s wrist.
“Come to think of it, if you even look at her again, I will pluck your eyes from your skull and feed them to you. Do you understand?”
Snot runs down Gavin’s face as his widened eyes stare at his shattered wrist. Braxton squeezes his wrist, and Gavin howls in pain his face paling to an extent where I fear he might pass out.
“Do I make myself clear?” The question slips through Braxton’s bared teeth.
Gavin eagerly nods, tears mixing with the mucus running down his face.
“Say it,” Braxton snarls.
“I-I understand,” Gavin stammers, his voice hoarse.
“Good.” Braxton releases his wrist, but keeps his eyes trained on Gavin, an icy fury radiating behind them. After only a moment’s hesitation, Gavin scurries down the hall, leaving us alone.
“Did he hurt you?” Braxton’s words are soft, and he doesn’t turn around. By the way he rolls his shoulders and bends his neck from side to side, it almost looks as if he’s trying to regain his composure before facing me.
“It’s only a light bruise,” I answer cautiously. “I’ve endured worse.”
“Not at the hands of my staff, I hope.” That edge is creeping back into his voice, and I see his fist clench.
“No. Not from your staff.”
I must be crazy to try and provoke the man that I just watched effortlessly break someone’s wrist with his bare hands, but the words slip past my lips all the same. I make sure to emphasize the last word enough so that he understands my implication.
My once budding fear is overpowered by a newfound buzzing frustration. How can he stand there and pretend like he gives a shit about someone hurting me, when he’s the person who’s hurt me the most out of anyone? Braxton turns to face me, his face stoic and infuriatingly unreadable.
“You may think what you would like of me, Azalea, but I would never lay a hand on you.”
“There are other ways to hurt people.” My reply holds no hesitation.
He purses his lips but doesn’t argue with me.
His onyx eyes clash with my honey ones as we hold each other’s gazes, both trying to decipher what the other is thinking.
Braxton’s stare softens becoming almost sincere, but I can’t believe it is anything more than a charade of some kind.
Everything he does is a means to an end, and I need to figure out his goal.
“Well, I’d better go put some clothes on, especially if we’re going to talk.”
He walks back into his room, and I can’t seem to stop my feet from following him.
“Talk?” The question is hot off my tongue.
“Didn’t you get my note?”
“Yes…” I draw out the word.
“And you’re capable of reading, correct?”
“Yes.” This time, the word comes out clipped.
“Then I’m sure you saw that I wanted to talk. More specifically about… what happened in my study.”
“You mean when you were absolutely foul to me after I simply asked to share a drink together?” I sit on a trunk at the foot of his bed, crossing one ankle under the other and placing my hands in my lap.
“You were the one wiggling your ass on my lap.”
“Only because you pulled me onto it.”
“You were basically already sitting on top of me.”
I scoff before standing and smoothing down my dress. “Nice talk,” I hiss and head for the door.
“Wait.”
My feet halt. My body obeys his command even though my mind is screaming at me to keep walking.
“Just… take a seat. Let me change. Then, maybe we can talk like civilized people.”
“Tempting,” I glance at him over my shoulder. “But are you capable of such a thing?”
“Of talking?”
“Of being civilized.”
He gives me an insincere laugh. “I’ll be right back. Don’t touch anything.”
His eyes dart to the trunk almost imperceptibly quickly before he grabs a pile of clothes neatly folded on the end of his bed. In a few quick strides, he’s in his washroom connected to his bed chamber, closing the door behind him.
The moment he shuts the door, I look back at the bulky trunk sitting at the foot of his bed.
I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before, not even when I was sitting on it, but this trunk stands out like a sore thumb.
There’s a weathered and vintage appearance to it, and there’s no mistaking the way Braxton glanced at it. It must have been out of reflex.
I drop to my knees in front of the trunk, ignoring how my already stiff muscles scream in protest. Defeat sinks inside my core when I see a bolted lock holding the trunk shut.
Hastily wrapping my fingers around it, I gently tug to see if it will, by some miracle, pop open on its own accord. Much to my dismay, it doesn’t.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath.
Bounding back to my feet, I rush to the table at the side of Braxton’s bed and yank the drawer open. Disappointment courses through me when I find it empty. Blowing a breath out through my nose, I plop onto his bed, immediately noticing how much more comfortable it is than mine. Figures.
As my fingers begin to twine around the laces of my dress, I suddenly remember the key to Braxton’s study that I still have.
Quickly extracting it from the folds in my dress I tucked it between, I analyze it thoughtfully.
I realize I’ve never seen Braxton walking around with more than one key, which he uses on his study and the bedroom, making me wonder if what I’m holding is actually a skeleton key for the castle.
Sending up a silent prayer, I slide back in front of the trunk and slip the key into its lock.
My heart clatters with a nervous excitement as I hear a soft click before the lock falls open.
I practically clap my hand over my mouth to cover my squeal of delight, as my fingers nimbly unlatch the lock and toss it to the ground.
I hastily toss the trunk’s lid open, struggling only slightly against its weight.
When I look into the contents of the trunk, I’m confused to find stacks and stacks of journals.
My face scrunches as I reach down, curling my fingers around the leather bindings of one of the journals lying at the top of the trunk.
My fingers idly flip through the pages, but I stop when I get a better look at the handwriting. A better look at my handwriting.
I hastily reach in and grab another journal, flipping to a random page and seeing my handwriting again. A piece of paper flutters out of the journal, falling to the floor, and I realize it’s one of my letters to Phillip. My head spins from the confusion it’s drowning in.
I grab another journal.
Another.
Another.
Another.
I keep pulling out journal after journal until they’re spread around me, and every single one has countless passages written by my hand. The problem is, I have no recollection of writing in any of these.
I recall my discovery of not being entirely sure how long I’ve been trapped in the castle, but now looking at the dated entires to some of these journals, I’m terrified to think of exactly how long my curse has been holding me hostage.
My head snaps up when I hear Braxton walk back into the room.
“What the fuck is this?” The question bursts from me as I gesture to the countless journals lying beside me.
His nostrils flare before he finally grumbles, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”