CHAPTER 2 ELODIE #2
That tongue licks over his teeth again, those eyes assessing me so intensely I can’t help but shudder internally, before he says, “You’re in my home. Our home.”
I break away from his gaze to look around the black cave again before landing on the blonde in front of me.
“You’ve hit the jackpot, little princess. You’re living in a modern mansion now. Nothing like that medieval shit you grew up in,” he says. That baritone in his voice ricochets inside me.
“We’ve answered your question. Now answer ours,” Caden says, pulling my attention back to his black, suffocating aura. “How do you feel?”
It’s smooth enough, if not a little strained, matched with the tight muscles of his forearms as he holds them crossed over his chest. He has patchy tattoos on his left arm, sporadically placed.
It looks like a bunch of black squares with different images inside, although I can’t clearly see from here.
Black lines stark against his pale skin.
Rumour has it he gets a tattoo for each murder he commits, each a cryptic symbol relating to the individual death.
Each body he rips the soul right out of.
I know I’m part of this world, his world, but I’m just a tech geek who comes from a drug lord.
I’ve never borne witness to that side, and I pray I never do now I’m his betrothed.
How does this man sleep at night? I struggle just with the stuff I’ve done from behind a screen.
But this guy is unfazed, he oozes death and darkness.
He emanates emptiness, like his soul has long been wrenched from his body.
Only a hollow, hostile shell operated by an evil, merciless entity is left staring back at me now.
There’s no life there swimming in the swamps of his eyes. Only promising death.
I clear my throat, try to rid the dry roughness there. “Fantastic.”
Curly Dark Hair snorts beside me, chuckling. It’s light and amused. I turn to him. “Sarky too. You’re going to have a field day with this one, Cade.”
I’ve heard the stories. I’ve heard whispers of Caden Blackwood and his torturous methods to keep his victims under control before he sells them off alive or cuts them up and ships their body parts to every corner of the world.
There’s no mercy to him, no kindness in his eyes.
Only impatience and irritation. Pure malice.
Caden sighs. He runs a veiny hand through his messy black hair, confirming my previous assumption.
He has long fingers, nails too short not to be bitten regularly.
Stress? Anxious tic? If I had to work with Drago, the anonymous masked man, I’d be fucking anxious too.
I had one encounter with him, to arrange this new business deal, and that was enough to haunt my slumber for a lifetime.
“You can rest for a while,” he says, his hard voice softening just an inch.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’ve been doing to make you look so malnourished, but I don’t have time to baby anyone.
You can recover freely for the next few days.
You need to eat, and you need to exercise.
You don’t have a job for the next few days, so take until then to pull your shit together.
” Caden walks away as if that’s all that needs to be said.
I watch him go, not ready to take my eyes off him. He pauses at the door, clears his throat and adds quietly, “When you’re feeling more coherent, you can start thinking wedding plans. You can have whatever you want.” Then he disappears.
The other two stay, still looking. Blonde Hair speaks next.
“Ignore the big, grumpy ball sack. We’re all a little tightly wound at the moment.
I’ll help get you back to… whatever you looked like before…
Well, whatever your desired state is.” There’s a soft caress to his voice now.
It’s taming, a comfort with it that tugs at my muscles, willing them to unclench.
Curly Hair starts walking towards the door Cade’s disappeared through. “Yeah, let Alfie fix you up for us. We can’t break you if you’re already broken.” With a wink that matches the devil’s menace, he disappears too.
Alfie stays, looking at me still, waiting for something. When he doesn’t find it, he says, quiet and hesitant, “What happened to you?”
Something about this guy unwinds my defences. He’s not like the other two. I can tell already. There’s a tenderness behind the hard glare. The glare itself only seems half-serious now, like he’s putting on a front for the other two. Now they’re gone, his shoulders seem to shrink.
“I was born,” I say, looking down to the shiny sheets.
A silence follows, with an awkwardness so thick it starts to curl around my chest.
Finally, he says, “Join the club, kid.” And he leaves too.
I let myself unfold against the mattress.
It’s far too soft, no substance, no support at all.
Is this my bed? Is this Caden’s – ours? He called this our home.
This won’t do. I’d have to get some stone lining laid in or something.
If I planned on staying, that is. As soon as I reach my target profits…
I’m out of this hellhole and miles away from its hellhounds.