Chapter 11
ELEVEN
ELENA
After splashing her face with water and seeing her face after wiping away the remains of the thick makeup she’d applied that morning, Elena avoided the mirror at all costs.
The hazel green of her eyes looked haunted, the bruised smudges beneath them making her look sickly and as exhausted as she felt.
She didn’t even bother with her hair besides to smooth it down with her hands, working the worst of the tangles free with her fingers.
Her clothes were a mess, beyond all hope, and he’d made it clear she wouldn’t be returning to the hotel for what little remained in her possession.
The hours ticked past, shadows lengthening over the floor as afternoon slid into evening.
He didn’t return for her. Neither did Mrs. Jacobs.
Shrugging at the feeling of being slighted and forgotten so quickly, she sighed and looked around the room.
Perhaps she should get some much needed rest. To steel her against the next battle she’d wage against Marchetti, or whatever demands he made her endure.
She turned the lock on the door and then crawled up onto the narrow bed.
Plumping a pillow, she dared to let her eyes drift closed just for a few minutes.
She screamed and vaulted off the bed as the door shuddered against the frame. Plastered her back into the far corner of the room as it jostled once more with a heavy thud, something within the wood splintering with a deafening crack.
Leon Marchetti burst through the door with a vicious roar, his stalking strides bringing him to her as his unerring gaze caught his prey.
Grabbing her arms, he lifted her straight up, giving Elena a brutal shake before he turned and carried her from the room.
Toes skimming the plush rugs, Elena shrieked and battered him with her fists, unable to claw at his face for the grip he had upon her.
Twisting within his grasp had his hands tightening, bruising her already tender skin further.
Her scream died in her throat as he launched her through the air. A moment of weightlessness that terrified until her breath left her in a heavy grunt when her back slammed into a wide bed. Bouncing across the plush mattress, she clawed at the covers to remain on the wide expanse.
“This,” Leon bellowed, grabbing hold of her ankle and elbow to haul her to the center of the bed, “is where you sleep.”
It wasn’t the dreadful red room.
Elena’s mouth opened and closed over dead air as she looked around bewildered.
Neutral shades with bright pops of rich navy blue and indigo surrounded her.
Dark paneling climbing halfway up the walls before being overtaken by a delicate tonal pattern of beige and gold on the wallpaper in soft geometric shapes.
The nightstands held golden lamps with deep blue shades and nothing else.
Two doors stood at right angles in the far corner, showing nothing of what they hid inside.
“I thought it would be all right for now,” Elena stammered out, still uncertain what he was so angry about if he hadn’t taken her back to the red room.
Still, she was loathe to get Mrs. Jacobs in trouble simply for not making her remain in the hideous space.
“Until I could talk to you about… maybe redecorating it…?”
“Already spending my money, I see,” Leon said as he leaned in close over her. Covering her in his shadow, smothering Elena in his heat.
“No, it’s… I’ll stay in there if that’s what you want,” she whispered, looking anywhere but up at him. Unconscious as it was, she bared her neck to him in a sign of submission as his hands tightened upon her.
“Are you hard of hearing or just incapable of listening,” Leon ground out, releasing her leg in favor of pinching her chin between his fingers. Forcing her to meet the molten brown of his eyes. “This is your room now. You will sleep here. Your things will be kept in here. I will fuck you here.”
All of a sudden it clicked on a wave of deep evergreen that didn’t come only from the man above her.
“This is your room.”
“It is.”
“No,” Elena hissed, struggling in his grip. Prying her face from his fingers as she squirmed across the too large bed.
“Yes.” Leon shifted his hold from her face to her waist, dragging Elena towards him.
“That isn’t how it’s done,” Elena tried to reason, going still as Leon climbed onto the bed, pinning her beneath him. She swallowed hard, attempting to appease the anger suffusing every line of his body. “It isn’t proper.”
“Neither are you, Miss Costanzo.” Leon lowered his body onto hers, suffocating her with his scent as he caged her in with his limbs, his heavy body tight against her.
“Don’t,” Elena pleaded in a broken whisper, closing her eyes as she turned her head away. Everything hurt, his considerable weight crushing them into throbbing agony. One tear became many, staining her cheeks with icy misery as she waited for him to continue what he’d begun the night before.
She gasped hard when he wrenched his body away. Every limb paralyzed with her fear, each joint locked tight in terror. Elena knew she needed to relax, to soften under his assault or she’d be even more wounded by the end of it, but she couldn’t.
She didn’t dare breathe even when she felt the bed dip and sway. Kept her eyes shut tight long after the door slammed closed.
It was a long time before she moved. Trembling, she rolled to her side and sobbed into the covers. Curling her legs up tight against her chest, she cried herself into an exhausted slumber.
“Miss,” Mrs. Jacobs called, rapping softly upon the door. “Mr. Marchetti says you’re to dine with him.”
“No,” Elena muttered into the soggy blanket crushed against her cheek.
“Miss?”
Grunting, Elena flopped to her back, dragging herself upright before clambering down from the bed.
Going to the door, she opened it just a crack, but it was more than enough for Mrs. Jacobs to see the sordid state of her.
Judging by the older woman’s soft gasp and the way her hands fluttered at her waist, Elena looked quite the sight.
“Please tell him that I’m not hungry,” Elena murmured, ducking her head to hide behind a fall of her thick waves.
Mrs. Jacobs nodded, fingers twitching before she clasped them firmly at her waist and left to go deliver Elena’s message.
Scrubbing at the stiff stains on her cheeks, Elena went to the far corner and crumpled to the floor, wanting nothing more to do with the massive bed now that she was awake.
Everything was stiff and aching, and she wallowed in her misery as she hunched over her upraised knees.
She had no clothing or toiletries. None of her things had come over from the hotel. He expected her to go about in well-worn clothes and disheveled hair apparently, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of parading her about when she’d been brought so low.
No, if he wanted to torture her, he could do it behind closed doors, not flaunt her before whatever staff he maintained. She didn’t care how hungry she was.
It didn’t take him long to come hunt her down.
Leon burst into the room as if ready to battle an Alpha of power and not a lone Omega cowering in the corner.
From her vantage in the shadows after he turned the lights on, she was in a prime position to note his eyes widening, pupils dilating as his gaze swept over the bed and found her missing.
He took a step in the direction of the doors only to pause as he saw no light came from around them.
“Elena,” he questioned, voice quiet.
She had to be mistaken. There wasn’t a note of concern there. Only derision as he finally spotted her and raked his dark brown gaze over her huddled form. Yes, and disgust as his lip peeled back from his teeth to show their even whiteness, his long strides carrying him to her.
She couldn’t help but flinch as he reached for her, a whimper already on her lips before he’d grabbed her. She whined low in her throat as the deep bruises covering her arms began to protest his rough treatment.
“Why are you sitting in the dark like this,” he demanded, giving her a shake.
“What else was I to do,” Elena hissed as she remained limp in his hold, praying he’d release her before her arms gave way and snapped altogether.
“You will come downstairs and eat with me, or you will go without.” Leon leaned down to put their faces close, his lips still set in a snarl.
“I told you, I’m not hungry.” Her body betrayed her in that instant, stomach growling with obnoxious ferocity.
“Oh really?” Leon scoffed, keeping hold of one arm to drag her out of the room in his wake when she failed to keep up at his side.
Everything hurt so very much.
She gasped as her ankle turned on the first step, plunging her forward down the steep staircase until she was brought up short by the tether of her arm. She sobbed at the excruciating pain melting through the joint and into her arm and shoulder as she was caught and held suspended.
“Are you insane,” Leon asked in a shout, hauling her upright to slam Elena into the wall.
Grunting from the impact, she had no breath to voice her cries or any response. Elena slid down the wall, curling around the vicious pounding echoing through her chest. Her heart trying to be free of its cage as she realized just how close death had been.
“Maybe if you weren’t so intent on dragging me everywhere, I wouldn’t have tripped,” Elena gasped out around the pain as he continued to stand over her fuming.
She continued in a whisper, mindful of the echoing quality of the open space, “You can’t expect me to parade myself in front of your people looking like this. ”
“It’s your own fault you didn’t take the time I afforded you to wash and dress,” Leon snapped.