CHAPTER 4 ALFIE #2
She’s positioned herself facing me, so she can keep an eye on me.
She attempts to keep the hard expression on her face, but I can tell she’s just entered absolute bliss.
Her head tilts back onto the rim, exposing that slim column of her throat, small purple circles on either side.
She’s been strangled. That much is obvious.
Her eyebrows fall away from that deep frown she’s had since she opened her eyes, finally giving her a more feminine grace.
I can’t help the question. “What happened to you?”
The feminine grace instantly evaporates. “What does it look like?”
Oh, boy. “It looks like you’ve been around some shitty people.”
“Bingo.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Fair enough.
I look down, inspecting the tatted letters on my knuckles, ‘PAIN’ written on my right, ‘GAIN’ on my left, letting her have one moment to herself.
“What’s expected of me here?” Her weak voice echoes in the bathroom.
I blow out my inflated cheeks with that one. What a question. I try to simplify it as much as possible. “Be a wife. Love your husband. Do your transactions. Be a good girl.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy with Caden.”
I frown. Then the lightbulb clicks in my mind. By the uncertain, uneasy tone in her voice, she was awake a lot longer before she opened her eyes.
I clear my throat. “What did you hear, exactly?”
She shrugs a bony shoulder. “That he won’t go near me. That none of you can either.”
I purse my lips before tucking in my top one. This could be a tricky one to navigate. I don’t know what the hell Caden expects me to tell her or not. He should be the one here with his naked fiancé, for fuck’s sake.
I take a deep breath in. “Caden will respect you, look after you, if you do the same for him. If you keep out of his way, don’t disrupt his work, his routine, then you’ll be absolutely fine here.
You might even find that you enjoy it. You could live amicably together even.
” This is totally true. If she behaves and doesn’t give Caden a lick of grief, I wholeheartedly believe that he’ll be a good husband to her.
All that honourable-hero-perfect-son-ass-licker complex he’s got going on.
It’d be platonic and distant, but at least he won’t be a prick.
He’s not usually one if he’s not given a reason to be, but if he is given a reason…
well, I just hope she doesn’t. For all our sakes.
She scoffs. “Sounds like such a fair marriage. I keep out of my man’s way and he’s nice to me. Sounds like a cunt to me.”
I keep my face indifferent, although the shock of her audacity is sharp.
“My biggest piece of advice I can give you is this: do not, no matter what,” I enunciate every word to make sure this gets into her skull, “do not talk like that to him. Don’t call him names, don’t be difficult.
Trust me, those sorts of thoughts are better to stay internal.
I promise you, Caden will be good to you if you watch your mouth. He doesn’t take disrespect lightly.”
She stares at me studiously, trying to decide if I’m exaggerating or not.
I’m not, but if she wants to fuck around and find out, then she’s welcome to.
I just need about three days’ notice to get the fuck away from this house before she does.
I need peace and quiet, not Hurricane Cade.
I’ve had enough of them to last ten lifetimes.
Finally, she breaks her intense glare and focuses back on the bubbles. “He’s not impressed with me.”
I eye her. “Would you be impressed with you?”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Appearance is only surface level. I’m talking about him not being impressed with any of it. He seems like this will be a burden to him. Being married… I was expecting…”
She trails off, so I hop in. “Excitement? Joy? Did you expect Caden Blackwood to come to your front door – with you looking like that – and be all, ‘my darling, beautiful wife-to-be, this is the best day of my life’? Come on, princess, you’re smarter than that.
The foundation of our business is new, frail – eggshells, really.
Step out of your little fantasy dreamland.
This isn’t a magic kingdom, sweetheart, this is one step closer to Hell. ”
She winces at my words, but it’s best just to be honest. She won’t be getting any fairytale here.
Clearly ignoring it, she changes the subject. “Which one of you was going to touch me earlier, while you thought I was unconscious?”
I love the little fire in her voice there, as if she could have done anything to protect herself if my boy decided to frisk her, conscious or not. “That’d be Fiz.”
“And who is he to you?”
“To me, he’s an annoying little shit. But he’s part of the family. He initiated in, so unofficially, he’s a Blackwood too. Sworn in by blood and death. He’s as much a Blackwood as I am, really.”
She thinks this over. “But not a Blackwood for real.” Not a question.
I’m not too sure how much she knows, but she clearly knows enough to be aware this could be a weakness for Fiz. Is she digging for weaknesses already?
The thought triggers a protective bubble in my body. That statement doesn’t imply she intends to behave here. To me, it sounds like she’s preparing to be a nuisance. I keep my tone cool as I say, “He’s as much a Blackwood as me or Caden. I wouldn’t press him on it either.”
She doesn’t look bothered. “And he gets off on touching girls in their sleep?”
I can’t hold back the chuckle. That’s not even the tip of the iceberg with Franklin Hart.
“Listen, princess, your world is about to change drastically if you think that’s so terrible.
Trust me, the sooner you ditch all your previous expectations of the men in your life, the easier it’ll be to live here. ”
“I have no expectations anyway,” her voice curls around the words with a disgust so thick I no longer wonder what she’s been through. It’s all been men. “But if Caden, or Fiz, or even you think you’re going to do that shit to me, we’re going to have a problem.”
I actually find her quite adorable. Does this girl think she can be a problem for us? She could be the world’s greatest shot, a ninja with knives, or a kung fu master, it wouldn’t matter. She still wouldn’t match up to us, and it’s cute she thinks she can.
I let my grin grow wide, my cheeks pinching as I assess her.
“Oh, darling, it’ll be your problem, not ours.
You want an easy life, you’ll take heed to everything I’ve just told you.
I’m not explaining it again. If you weren’t listening, not my problem.
Now, get yourself washed, that water’s black now. ”
She glowers at me for another moment, then obeys my command, grabbing the sponge and soap.
She keeps her body under the water as she washes. I don’t bother telling her to wash properly. Any state is better than what she started with.
When she’s about halfway through, she says quietly, “How can it be an easy life if my husband hates me?”
There’s an extraordinary weight to that question.
The sad tone in which she says it, the wistfulness in the words as they fall out of her mouth.
She’s just a typical girl. Princess of an underworld or not, she wants what they all want.
A fairytale ending. The knight in shining armour to save her and give her a love so profound she suffocates from it.
I don’t know if Caden is capable of loving anything other than order and destruction, but he is capable of civility. He does hate her though.
But the way she asked that question, I don’t have the blackness in me like Fiz or Caden to tell the truth and rub it in. So I ignore it, instead saying, “You already look a lot better. I bet it feels nice to be clean again.”
Her wistful expression withdraws into something vacant. She looks down into the water. “Yes, it does.”
I clear my throat and gesture to the bottles I’d placed on the wider part of lip of the tub. “For your hair.”
Her eyes grow wide as they fall on the shampoo.
The sparkle of overwhelm that lines her eyes with silver impels me to go over to her.
My motion jolts her from that stupor, a trickle of fear tightening her mouth as I approach, grabbing the bottles as I pass.
“Relax,” I say, kneeling by her head. “I’ll do it.”
She’s practically paralysed as I take the position behind her and gather her hair together. She tenses at that first touch, shoulders shooting to her ears.
The reaction spears through me and I find myself saying, “I’ll be gentle.”
She doesn’t respond, but as I start working on her nest of hair, as gently as I can, her shoulders ease back down.
I don’t say anything as I knead through the matted strands, using dollops of shampoo and conditioner to work out those awful stains I refuse to contemplate, my mind drifting to her question.
Caden will never love her – regardless of the fact there’s something about her he so blatantly likes – he’ll only look after her, if she’s good for him. And something tells me she’s not in a rush to do that.
I do know one thing. There’s something that connects the two of them in a way that they won’t ever find in anyone else.
Something that links their souls so deeply that even if they never have any emotion toward each other except hate, they will always have an understanding deeper than anyone else.
One of great loss and devastation. She carries it with her exactly as he does.
It’s like an infected shadow, a stagnant gloom around them.
Caden’s grief is as black as hers around their silhouettes.
I’ve known Caden all my life and this girl for five minutes.
But grief is grief. It’s distinct. And black as fuck.
It hasn’t eased in the months that have passed either, the gravity of a significant loss that dims the glow in a person’s eye.
They’ll always be connected in a unique way that may one day bring them together or tear them further apart.
Because the day Elodie Valor lost her only brother, Caden Blackwood lost his only brother too.