Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
AUDREY
A week later, I was at Lilah’s house, sitting in her theatre room as I watched Worth staring at his wrist, one now encased in a cast, courtesy of the Trial Three, when he had been forced to break his own bones if he wanted to free me.
He blames you. My mind wouldn’t allow me to believe he didn’t regret saving me, even though I would have done the same for him or Lexington.
“Based on the trials we’ve had so far, I think Game One will be a mental challenge…Maybe physical in a sense, but so far they have definitely been trying to test our mental fortitude.”
I looked over at Lilah as I finished my thought, seeing a slight dip of her chin as she continued to furiously type away on her laptop.
“Trial One was about our fears. Two was about being willing to give up something that could be detrimental to our public standing or reputation…” Trailing off, I was unsure exactly how to finish since most of them were unconscious during Trial Three.
“Trial Three was designed to force me out of The Ludi. They truly weren’t expecting me to break my wrist in order to get you free.” Worth’s voice finished my unsaid thought.
None of us truly expected him to be okay with forgoing summer training, especially since this summer would be his first one playing at the professional level. And it was all because of me.
“The last trial was complete bullshit to me. Why target Worth so harshly?”
Swinging my head to Lex, I eyed his almost relaxed facade, noting the way he seemed to be barely hanging onto a thread of restrained chaos and fury.
Unsure how much I should tell him, I contemplated how hurt he would be if he were to find out the truth.
Worth protected Lex just as much as Lex watched out for Worth, a tested and true sign of brothers who were truly one soul split into two.
“The new head of The Guilda showed up to relay to us…” I squinted my eyes, recalling how he taunted us, playing his game and then disappearing into the dark again.
“That we should stop putting our noses where they don’t belong…to let us know that he will be overseeing the remainder of The Ludi. That we should prepare…”
Casting a look at Worth, I saw his face pale as his leg began to shake. Looking over everyone else in the room, I finished at the same time as he did.
“From here on out, it will only get worse.”
“We need to figure out how to get us all through the game. No doubt it will be a spectacle now; the new head has something to prove. A way for him to show his worth. Cement his reign.”
“Yes, but what would they have us do? What way would they try to split us apart now?”
A rustling by Lilah’s computer interrupted our musings, as we looked over and saw Ellery’s kitten, Willard, attempting to hang-glide down the cables around her desk, much to Lilah’s disdain.
“Ellery, go get your pussy before the little hacker pops a blood vessel over there.” Lex guffawed as we saw the little terror continue to disrupt Lilah’s space. Ellery popped up and grabbed his fur ball, wearing the kitten as a furry necklace as he went back to laying down on the floor by our feet.
“We will likely be doing this one alone.”
Lilah’s voice caused silence to echo throughout the room. Internally, I nodded my head, Lilah’s comment matching the conclusion I came to as well.
“I think they’ll force us to face something we’ve been unwilling to acknowledge or accept…the options are endless since we all come from families that’re dipped in secrets and sin.”
“Damn, Audrey. Don’t sugarcoat it for us or anything.” Ellery whistled as I turned a glare on him in warning.
“Speaking of our Little Queen, where’ve you been recently?”
Lexington decided to include himself, his deceptively innocent question laced with ire since he had never been Aleks’ biggest fan.
Not since the summer I turned eighteen, when Edward and Sonya Yates had sent me away and I refused to tell them what occurred.
Choosing to keep my secret from them, The Cove, and all the games of power these families played.
Before I formed my excuse, Worth took it upon himself to answer for me. A rare cunning lingered in his gaze, one rarely seen outside of the ice he called home.
“We all know where she’s been, brother…” He grinned, but it was all teeth and violence, instead of his normal happiness. “She’s been fucking that Russian prick we’ve never been able to get her to stay away from, even if she’ll never be more than an easy lay to him.”
Ellery nodded in silent agreement and Lex turned a dark shade of red, the picture of calmly banking fury searching for an outlet for release.
In her corner, Lilah’s eyes were wide, her skin a sickly white.
That razor’s edge we were all balancing on as the guys made their long-silenced opinions known.
“Fuck you all. You have no clue what goes on between Aleks and me.” I stood, shoulders tensed and hands balled at my sides.
Open. Close. Attempting to restrain the anger bubbling to the surface.
Open. Trying to prevent myself from saying something that may destroy friendships that meant more to me than most of my family did.
Close.
Open.
Close.
Open.
I relaxed my fists. My hands fell to my sides as my insides grew cold. A calmness fell over me as my face blanked and shut down right in front of them.
“Fuck…” Lilah’s soft voice was heard as the room went silent. Lexington, Worth, and Ellery blanched as they finally realised they may have pushed me too far.
“Audrey…we just…um,” Ellery frantically looked at the others, searching for someone to throw him a lifeline. “Hurt you…”
“What El is trying to say is that we’re just worried he’s going to hurt you,” Worth and Lex finished together. “We all know what happened last time he discarded you…”
Except he wants to marry me. Make me his wife.
Lex clamped a hand over Ellery’s mouth, no doubt trying to save him from himself.
“You got sent away. For months. And you didn’t return the same.” Worth, however, finished the thought as his brother cast him a worried look.
We all know what happened last time he discarded you.
But they didn’t. It was all a lie I had constructed to protect myself and him. A lie that began to take a life of its own when the town realised that one of the heirs was being sent away, with no warning and no statement from home.
We all know what happened last time he discarded you.
A lie that I had guarded for over two years now, afraid of the repercussions that would occur if it came out. The fallout would be detrimental to our group, for the secret that I continued to harbour from these four, the ones I had called my family over the past decade.
We all know what happened last time he discarded you.
Worth’s words echoed in my mind, swirling and refusing to go away. Pushing my thoughts in one direction, I realised why Aleks had been so single-minded in trying to have me accept the truth of us. The relentless way he had loved me for years, yet never pushed for more until lately.
“Guys, shut up.” Lilah reprimanded them, warning in her tone. “She’s going through enough; she only has two weeks before the Volkovitches return and demand that Aleks starts taking his search for a fiancée seriously.”
Two weeks.
Fourteen days.
Until the only boy I had ever been drawn to might slip through my hands.
Until the boy I watched become a man would be forced to either let me go or deny his right to the Iron Table’s throne.
Until the heart of the man, whose soul matched mine, would break so deeply that I might lose him anyway. That is, if I could not overcome the fear that his words had left me with a week ago.
I could make you mine for real, Lenochka.
A moment of vulnerability, an unguarded truth from a man who never showed the tender side of an iron-clad heart he protected so mercilessly.
Take my name, become my wife. An honest vulnerability, from a man who had done everything in his power to be there for me, a man who made me want to reach for more.
Even when my brain told me no, my heart yearned to beg for him to force my hand.
“Aleks and I are not any of your business,” I finally replied.
“Whether I take him up on his proposal or let him go, it has no bearing on you. It’s only between him and me.
And yes, Lilah. I know that there’s a clock ticking down…
” The edge was not missed in my voice as I made a point to lock eyes with each of them.
“Understood, Audrey.” Lex’s baritone voice rumbled, resentment still heard in his tone as his brother tugged him back to the sofa they were all lounging on. “Whatever our Queen decrees.”
“Dude, just stop before she goes nuclear on your ass,” was heard from Ellery as Worth’s voice sounded at the same time. “We know she’s never going to give him up. And as much as we dislike him, he always seems to go back to her.”
Or he never stopped, my mind whispered to me as I shook my head, grinning inside.
I knew that even if I feared the ripple effect of accepting Aleksandr’s desire that I become his in the public’s eye, it would shake the foundation of the Cove and the all the long dead skeletons I had been slowly releasing, I could never sit back and watch him become someone else’s world.
I could never watch him love someone else the way he has loved me.
I went to reply and let them know I understood where they were coming from as the power cut out. The television, computers, and music all went silent at once. The ever-present hum of the air conditioner disappeared as we sat in the dark.
Shadows spanned the walls, darker than the ones blanketing the room. The presence of others became known, and suddenly I knew. The start of the first game was upon us. An eerie mechanical voice shattered the silence.
“Now, now, don’t all jump up at once…” The air behind me chilled, causing my neck to break out in gooseflesh. “The less you fight it, the sooner we can get this show on the road…”
His words registered in my brain as the icy feeling of metal cuffs locking around my wrists alerted me that I likely wouldn’t be the same after whatever they intended to do to us tonight.
Across the room, I saw four other shadowy figures, balaclavas covering their faces as they cuffed Ellery, Lex, Worth, and Lilah as well.
“You know, I expected some fight, Little Vipera,” his voice whispered against my ear as his hand pushed a rag against my nose now that he had secured the cuffs. The point of a needle pressed into my neck as the chilled sensation of whatever he injected into my veins entered my bloodstream.
“Too bad you likely won’t come out of Game One the same…”
Darkness encompassed me. My body fell as strong arms caught me, the faint clink of chains heard as my bound hands were locked onto them.
I barely felt him binding my ankles together before the feeling of a blindfold tightening around my head cut off any hope of seeing where they planned to take us. Take me.
“Such a shame that your King isn’t here to protect you from me. Not this time, anyway…”