Chapter 6
SHE WILL BE MINE
Twelve Hours Later
Blindfolded, I’m kept in the back of a hollow car for the better part of a day like a dying animal, fed scraps, and only let out to use the bathroom in front of the keepers.
At the end—or start—of my prison sentence, I’m made to walk, a gun cocked at my lower back, towards an unknown target.
My blindfold is finally released as I’m thrown to the ground, surprisingly soft against my stinging palms.
“What is this?” a gravelly, biting voice asks before me, shiny black leather boots mere inches from my heaving state, unable to catch a decent breath since I last saw Nix. I stare at those shoes, gaining strength for what is going to come next, the fate of my existence in the hands of a man.
“She is the half-breed swine from the energy factory you were informed about, Lord Commander. We were told to bring her straight to you for placement.” Two Halo keepers stand behind me, addressing black boots, different to the voices I heard on the way here.
Knowing this man with the perfectly polished shoes and thick black pants—without a hole in sight—is going to be my fate-giver, I look up.
Bad idea. Height used to be my weakness. I suddenly find my second. The man they call Lord Commander. The man who, in my mind, put this whole endeavour in motion. The man who now holds my life in his hands. A life I’m not sure I want anymore. Not without Mam or Nix.
Madness boils from my core, all the way out of my lips, bubbling to release.
Steel eyes watch with a cunning awareness, assessing every twitch of my lips and flutter of my lashes before he speaks. “She’s Halo?” He stares me down as he says it, but he’s obviously addressing Stupid and Stupider at my back.
A giggle releases from my lips at my new nicknames for the assholes who hauled me towards their leader at gunpoint. Insanity has befallen me, and I welcome it.
Thick, lush brows rise, and the fucking lord commander bends before me.
He does not kneel—no, he curves ever so slightly at the hips and raises a hand to grasp my chin harshly.
This man is strong. If I didn’t know it from his broad size and unending height, I do as his hand encompasses the whole lower half of my face.
Silence descends as he assesses the contents for sale. My head is jerked left to right. Up and down. Lastly, his eyes linger on mine, squinting.
Too long, his eyes are on mine. Until the grey is moving around in circles like the snake on the bronzed badge sitting proudly at his chest. And I can’t handle the heat radiating from my heart any longer, his fingers moulding to my skin.
“You will never have me.” Fury laces every syllable. If he couldn’t see what I was before, he knows now.
Thick, evil lips turn upwards. Not just any smile, but a smirk built for sin. My thighs automatically clench. My breath is a wheezing crescendo. “She will be mine.” Heart stuttering, I’m stuck, unable to move. This man will be the death of me. If anything, I’m sure of that.
He lets go of my chin, and I almost faceplant instead of catching myself on the unusual cushioned floor I’ve been thrown on.
“She will be mine.” I take longer than a moment to understand what he just said. The keepers speak up. “But, Lord Commander, she is beneath you. Only fit for a mere keeper. Not a—”
They do not get to continue when the lord commander says two words.
“Get out.” The tone with which he delivers his beginning and end is final.
A suffocating tingle racks my body before it finds the embers that are ready to burst. It’s just him and me now as the men scurry from the room, leaving with a loud bang of the door.
Finding my senses at last, I spring into action. My bare, dirty, bleeding feet find purchase on the squishy floor, irritating my many wounds. The imposing man walks away from me.
That will not do.
I was dragged to this place blindfolded, kicking and screaming.
This man—if I can call him that—is going to find out my true worth.
I wasn’t lying when I told the commander he will never have me.
The fate of my family has been sealed, and consequently, mine.
Tunnel vision takes hold, and all I can see is dark, wavy hair and a well-kept black uniform stretched over a broad back and long legs, retreating as if I am of no consequence.
I’ll make him see.
Ignoring everything around me, I launch myself at the back of the man who just called me his. NEVER. He will never have me.
My closed fists hit hard, unyielding muscle. Each blow on the back of the commander serves to shatter my own bones.
“ENOUGH.” Anger seeps through his tone, and it spurs me on.
Grasping both of my wrists in his tight grip, he continues.
“That is enough.” I try to pull away, my foot going out to kick his stone leg.
Ouch. Instead of hurting the commander, my toe begins to throb.
Breathing laboured, I look up, eyeing him with utter contempt.
His features give way to irritation, the composure he once held when his keepers were here gone. “You’re only hurting yourself.”
“Maybe that’s what I want.” I spit the words so aggressively, my saliva ends up on the shadow of his beard and his protruding lower lip.
A pink tongue comes out to lick. I swallow.
Hands tighten around my wrists to the point that I think they will break.
“Do it,” I grit out. His plans for me can’t be any worse than the pain I feel in my heart.
“Open.” With our eyes locked in a clash of wills, I don’t understand his meaning until his gaze flashes towards my clenched palms.
“Why?”
“Because I know I’m the only one who has noticed the state of them.” Oh, that. The blisters that have popped and scabbed, red, angry lines from welding burns and new cuts I got a few days ago when a particularly petulant screw decided my palm wasn’t fucked up enough.
Old scabs are no longer old, and solence has stained his otherwise unmarked floor.
Good. Teeth on show, I take in the space around me.
It looks to be some type of room, about the size of my tent back home, with a small table, cushioned chairs, and lines and lines of books.
Taken aback for a moment, my mouth parts slightly, and I close it just as quickly.
He hates that I’m messing up his tidy space, with his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and desk that holds a compact screen and a stack of papers, with a pen waiting on top.
Nothing like the messy scraps of blankets on the rubber ground and rickety, welded-too-many-times table and chairs. It’s all too pristine. If not for the waiting papers, I would’ve guessed nobody resided here. Does he sleep here as well?
I release my grip and open the mess between my hands.
Hitting his back certainly didn’t help. Solence trickles down the long cut on my left hand, and my scabs on the opposite are half falling off.
“If you haven’t already noticed, Lord Commander, my state is because of you.
” You. Halo. They are all one in the same to me.
“These”—he released his unmerciful hold on my wrists—“are unacceptable.”
Is this bastard serious? I lean forward—which means I’m now closer to his imposing body—as much as my jailor will allow, and laugh in his unhelpfully enigmatic, sculptured face.
It helps to alleviate some of the rage, which is a nice change of pace from the bone-rattling grief that has plagued me since I left the factory.
“These are the hollows’ doing.” Pushing up on my sore feet, I bring my head to his chin. The height difference is making me dizzy.
“Do you often find the need to push against authority?”
“No, just the ones who hurt my family.”
“I haven’t hurt your family.”
“You’re the lord commander of Halo, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Well”—I shove our joined hands against his rock-hard sternum—“you may as well put a bullet in my head now.” There’s a tilt to his lips that I want to slap off, but he still has my wrists, squeezing them a little tighter than before.
“And why would I do that?” He’s not getting it. I’m not here, pushing into his space, hoping to live. Far from it.
“Because if you don’t, I will.” I put all my ire behind the words. So much so that I feel it pulsing out of me. The vexation is palpable. The electricity sparking. A heady aroma of soap lets me know he’s showered recently. Another reason to hate him.
The commander’s head dips to graze my ear. Not expecting the sudden closeness, my breath stalls. “Good thing I keep my weapons locked away.” He’s here and gone, yet my lungs don’t seem to catch up. The man is back to observing my palms. “Come.”
I am heady with bewilderment as he pulls me up to his desk, takes me under the arms, and sits me in the middle of his paperwork—dirt, solence, sourness, and all.
“I did not say you could manhandle me like some unruly child.” I glare at him as he opens and closes the bottom drawer of the desk I sit on.
“I will tend to your wounds as I see fit, if you are to be my wife.”
Choking on my own saliva, I stammer, “YOUR WIFE. I—” Wholey fucking fuck-balls. Motherfucking asshole. He steps closer, and my hands fly out to plaster against his once-clean shirt and jacket. There’s an odd satisfaction in knowing I made him dirty. “NO.”
“Do you wish me to bring the keepers back and offer you up to them instead? I believe they are both unwed.” Mouth open, I stare.
I get a fucking choice? That’s laughable.
Either I choose Stupid and Stupider, and get to experience what it’s like being “passed around” as a wife of the Halo keepers, or I get to choose their leader.
No doubt, it’ll be the same with him. This will end in either his death or mine.
There is no other way. With my mind spinning, he takes me in, gripping my chin and making me look into galaxies.
“I will not touch you unless you ask me. I do not force women into my bed, and I won’t start now. ”
“You’re touching me right now,” I grumble between clenched teeth. The hollows are liars. I can’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth.
“I reserve the right to touch you if you are hurt or you run from me.”
“Those are very specific. Have you said those words before, com-an-der?”
Releasing my chin, he pushes between my slightly parted legs. My hands squeeze until I hit the rigid flesh underneath with my jagged nails.
“No. Never,” the commander responds without flinching or blinking, giving me full eye contact, allowing my hands to push into him, his arms positioned on either side of me.
“You won’t touch me?”
“Unless you ask.”
“Unless I ask.” He nods. “And what about my family?”
“We will be family. You don’t require any more.” Should’ve just punched me. Put a bullet in my skull. The blow that rips through my system is worse than a strike. Catching me off kilter once again, he takes my hands, wiping them with a cold, stinging thin towel.
“Fuck!” I try to pull away, but his grip is so stiff, it only serves to tug me closer. “Fuck you. We are not family. If touching you is what you want, save my brother and mother, and I’ll touch you all damn day.”
“No.” The heart he continues to stomp on only shatters into smaller pieces.
“What do you mean, no? Ow. Stop doing that.” I yank, and he tugs, slathering both of my palms in antiseptic.
“No, I will not make a deal with you. I am the commander. You will do as I say.”
“No. I. Won’t.” I pull. It’s no use. This man is made of iron.
Regardless of my anger, I won’t be able to defeat him.
Gaining what’s left of my logical mind for a moment, though it’s barely hanging on by a thread, I try to weave together a plan.
He may best me in strength, however, if I bide my time, I might be able to escape. “You won’t touch me?”
He’s binding my hand with a clean white bandage. It practically sparkles with its sickening spotlessness as he works from left to right with a brutish sort of gentleness. I narrow in on his lips, seeing them move in a soft mumble.
When he finishes tending to my wounds, he answers. “We will marry, and I won’t touch you.” Worlds collide as he finds me slack-jawed again. “Until you beg me to.”
My mouth closes in utter disdain.
“I don’t beg, Commander.” Slackening, my hands are released, and he steps away, taking a wide berth from where I’m perched, sullying his desk.
“You will.” He’s so distinctly sure of himself. I find the rage back with vengeance, springing up to jab a finger in the solence I left behind on his shirt.
“Don’t count on it, asshole.”
“You won’t last a year, wife.”