Chapter 16
PASSWORDS MEAN NOTHING
We have been on this tour for three days, and I’m exhausted.
Being in my third trimester and travelling is no joke.
Since my fainting spell, Melek has made it his mission to make sure we take regular breaks, including an evening bath, which he always insists on joining after Sunny is asleep. I’m not complaining.
After the beeken factory, where I found out they raised the hybrid creatures purely for slaughter, we visited the greenhouse factories, a variety of indoor growth exhibits.
It’s been eye-opening, to say the least. Everything in the food factories has been somehow genetically altered to fit our diets, needs, and climate.
I pick Melek’s brain between stops. He also informed me of the mining factories within the outlying mountains.
They are further out, and checks on those are being undertaken by Adam due to the unstable landscape.
When his name came up, I’d blanched. The fae. I’ve been stuck in an intoxicating bubble with Melek since fainting at the first factory. There’s more to this—to us. Not only hate. Another emotion prevails. One I’m yet to fully entertain.
What I don’t expect is the bursting of my bubble when Melek very nonchalantly announces our next factory visit—the energy factory—as if it will not elicit a reaction from me under a different name.
Our next stop is my old home. The worst part is that he doesn’t impart this information until I am stepping out of the large black car.
Ignorance led me to not pay attention to the rods protruding from the ground, instead helping Sunny, head down, illustrating the various sights we’ve seen.
My boy is enamoured with the animals, wishing he could take one home.
We are content, to an extent, though the faces of the seronds will now be included in my nightmares.
However, I am experiencing a glimpse of normality.
Until Melek strips it away.
POP. The bubble bursts, thanks to one Lord Commander Melek Abaddon.
My hand in my husband’s, my feet hitting the ground, my eyes find it instantly; the fence bordering the factory and the fields where the X once stood.
The place where they left my brother to die now lies empty.
Perhaps, they now shoot on sight for disobedience, instead of starving them.
The lack of proof doesn’t dull the pain; it amplifies it.
It creates a hole in my chest so wide I think I will lose control of my lungs.
A muggy heat begins to overwhelm me.
Wheezing through a piercing slice of air, I pull my gaze from the offending fence line and back towards the commander, venom on my tongue.
With all my strength, I yank my hand free of his grip. His face drops instantly upon seeing mine, and I do something I know will get me in trouble. I slap him with an open palm, seething. “How fucking dare you?”
Wrath. Veins pop in his temple. I usually hold onto my blatant disrespect for my husband, releasing it privately, knowing that in front of the hollows, it’ll get me nothing more than condemnation.
This is our second-to-last day on the road, and I thought he was purposefully leaving out my old home out of care for me.
Out of, dare I say it, love.
I want to spit and stomp and stab that word.
What is love to this man? He doesn’t know the first thing about loving others.
Two large hands grip my upper shoulders, allowing the door to bash closed behind me, leaving Sunny in the car, and my body slams with a jolt against it.
His hold is roughened and menacing, showcasing his power over my form, and my body responds with a desire leading straight to my core.
If only I didn’t need him like this. Mouth at my ear, breath heaving, he grumbles, “Don’t you ever show insubordination in front of my men again.
Do you hear me, wife?” Hands cutting. Stare endless.
I look past his head to the slice of fence that took everything from me, my cavern filling and boiling with unshed tears, turning into molten lava.
“Fuck you, husband.” Teeth bared, rabid.
“Oh, that’s right, you already make me do that, don’t you?
” Leaning over me, I reach for him so we are nearly nose to nose. “I. Hate. You.”
His towering form engulfs us completely now, his lower half pressed against mine, pulse rapidly moving at an unsteady pace—unsure—his eyelashes reach too close, trying to find his calm. Clearly, I’m not it. I’m just the raging torrent of destruction, here to destroy his life. His Storm.
Letting me go surprisingly gently, he pushes off the car and barks orders at his personal keepers. “Take my wife and son home. Her hormones are getting the better of her.”
I want to scream at his rigid retreating form, yell, bastard at the top of my lungs.
“I’ll show you raging hormones.” However, before I can collect any thoughts, an unfamiliar hand takes my upper arm, and I go ice cold, a cry leaving my lips at the unwarranted touch.
I watch the broad back of my husband as he stops and slowly pivots, ignoring the factory master talking beside him.
Vengeance. It’s written all over his face. I thought I made him angry, but this is a level I’ve never seen. If that look were ever directed my way, I’d most likely piss my pants. It’s everything I assume a Halo commander to be. Criminal.
Yanking me sideways to open the car door, the keeper who has my arm is the only person within the parking lot who hasn’t noticed his commander and the sheer terror that is radiating through the rest of his keepers. One could hear a pin drop.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY WIFE.” The sound that leaves my husband is a visceral echo through the open air, hitting its intended mark. The keeper holding me drops his hand, like magic.
Prowling towards us, the commander is out for solence.
All bravado leaves the keeper as he trembles like a leaf before us, my hulking husband looming. Melek swings back his fist and places a right hook square in his face. The man falls to the gravelled road, unconscious, nose squashed.
“Get in the car, and once you are home, you are to rest,” he addresses me first before directing his attention to the rest of the keepers circling us. “This is your only warning. The next person to touch my wife will lose his head.”
Oh, fuck. The hollow men all raise their chins in agreement, and I slide through the open car door to find Sunny blissfully listening to his Halo-approved recorded children’s story track with his headphones, drawing away.
I hate them. They are Halo brainwashing propaganda for children, though, at this moment, I’ve never been more grateful as I sit in my seat, trembling slightly.
A heavy hand pulls the seatbelt across my body, laying warm fingers over my abdomen. “We will talk when I’m home. Please rest. If not for me, then for the baby.”
The door slams before I can catch my bearings.
Waking to the sound of light tapping and a warm glow spilling through Sunny’s bedroom door, I tiptoe towards the hallway, headed for Melek’s home office.
We arrived home in the early afternoon from our morning dramas. I don’t know what time it is. It has to be late—possibly early morning. No doubt Melek drove through the night to get home before daybreak. He can’t leave his petulant pregnant wife at home alone. Halo forbid.
Standing on the threshold in a black silk nightdress, I watch the shadowed man working diligently at his computer.
His eyes have dark rings around them. He actually looks tired, which is unusual for him.
The man survives on minimal sleep. I’ve known him to pull all-nighters and be fine. Sometimes, I wonder if he’s a robot.
Nursing a whisky, Melek sits back in his black leather office chair, dark eyes finding me.
“Come.” It’s a command. I follow.
He pushes away from his computer, and I sit on the vacated desk in front of him.
Watching me closely, he sips his drink.
I observe him right back, waiting for him to start whatever this is.
Moving his chair forward, he places his hands on my knees and opens them, my dress rising as he spreads me on his desk.
“Everyone told me this was a mistake, that I should’ve given you to one of the younger keepers.
I should’ve taken one of the full Haloians to wife.
” The idea of him choosing someone else leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I rub at the burn in my sternum.
Melek travels his hands up my thighs, moving to my hips.
“They said it right up until you gave me Sunny, and then they all shut up. After that, they praised me for seeing what they could not. The woman they wanted me to marry has still not produced any heirs for her husband, even with intervention.”
Good to know I’m good for something. “Why are you telling me this, Melek?”
His piercing dark stare travels slowly over my ever-expanding breasts, up my neck, landing at my heated blues.
“Because I want you to know that from that first time I laid eyes on you, you were enough, and I would never let anyone degrade you again. From the moment I saw you, and even before that, you were mine.”
It’s possessive. Consuming. And it’s fucking nonsensical. He continues to undo my barriers of protection.
I run my fingers through his hair, and Melek’s eyes drift closed. “Why did you take me there?”
No longer accusing. I just need to know his reasoning.
“I hadn’t planned on going out into the fields. We were only going to walk through the factory,” he admits.
It’s my turn to seek solace in darkness, where I find brown eyes whispering a phrase I speak for the first time in twelve years.
“Find me in your heart where we are equals.” My husband’s fingers dig into my thighs, anchoring me in place.
“Where our souls will meet in eternity. That’s what he told me before he died. ”
Slowly opening my lids, I find my big, gruff commander looking pained.
“Storm?”