31
EZLA
We will protect her, and we will avenge her.
For a moment, I cannot get any air into my lungs. I cannot even move.
We will protect her, and we will avenge her.
Those did not seem like words deliberately sent to me through the bond . . . which means they are completely authentic. And the determination and rage that came through with them . . . Scotty . . . meant that.
Scotty.
It did not even cross my mind to call him “Player 38” just then. My head has just . . .
I have been thrown.
I do not like that.
I knew Cooper recognised something in me, just like I recognise something in him, and I knew there was a chance he could share this with the other Evots. But . . . I did not expect this reaction when the time came. They do not even know the full extent of things, and this is . . .
Care for her.
Keep her safe.
Find out who hurt her and pluck out their nails, their eyes, their teeth . . . make them eat it all before I cut what remains of them up piece by piece.
Oh, I like that one from the stalkerish beast.
Show Ez we love her.
I stiffen from head to toe, even more than I already had been.
I know that last one was Tiger, but I am not oblivious to that feeling growing within them all.
Yet it does not feel like how I have experienced it my entire life.
I might not be able to hear my father’s thoughts like I can these men’s, or feel what he is feeling, but I can tell his love is not the same as theirs.
It has left me in a place where I do not know which one is real.
And for the first time, I have wondered if my father does not love me at all, and that is why his definition of it does not match the textbooks . . . why these Evots’ feelings do.
I rub at my temples, blowing out a harsh breath.
Then I shake my head, aggravation blowing through me.
No. No.
All love is bad. The textbooks have it wrong.
Springing to my feet before I can second-guess myself, I turn around—
And freeze.
Every single inch of me locks up.
I hate it. I hate how after all this time, all these years, and no matter how much I hate him, I can never escape this childish fear.
“Ezla, my dearest. You did not hear me come in. Are you distracted?”
His voice has a businessman-like quality to it naturally, which some might think makes him seem put-together. Sensible. Maybe even friendly to some.
But I can only hear the monster beneath.
In each letter, I can hear the calculation.
In each word, I can hear the greed for more: more blind followers, more power, more everything.
In how his tongue curls, I can only remember the ways it has violated my body.
And in the way his mouth moves, I can see his intention to do it all over again.
“You know I do not like it when your attention is elsewhere.”
Fists clenching, I watch him cautiously, making sure not to show an ounce of fear. No matter how often he can see right through me.
He created me, after all.
“My bed has been rather empty the past couple of days.” Stepping closer, his plain brown eyes study my simple but lavish room.
I stay where I am, standing on the opposite side of the bed from him, focus fixed to his every move.
“I have allowed you to stay in your own room while you learned to understand and control your bond.” Thankfully, he believed that flimsy excuse since he has no idea what a bond feels like.
“But I am feeling very lonely, and surely you have figured out how to hide your thoughts and emotions from your Bonded by now?”
“I am close, Father. But it is harder than expected to keep things from slipping through,” I lie, keeping my gaze locked on his to will the appearance of honesty into my person.
“Hmmm . . . is that the truth?”
My black heart falters.
Moving around the end of the bed, he inches closer, and I force my feet to stay planted in place. “You would not be lying to me, my dear Ezla, would you?”
My voice is perfectly even when I reply, “No, Father.”
“So, you would rather me believe your intelligence is lacking?”
Swallowing, I open my mouth to speak. “I—”
Slap!
My head whips to the side.
“This ends now. There is no reason for you to stay in here. And I now doubt that there ever was.” His hand snaps out again and fixes itself unforgivingly around my jaw, thick fingers digging into my skin.
“But since you love it in here so much . . .” His vile gaze slides down my body, and my stomach revolts. “Get on the bed. Clothes off.”
My breathing is loud in the stillness that follows, the woody-black-pepper smell of his scent patch suffocating me.
“Now, Daughter.”
Flicking my eyes up to his face, I glare with a vitriol that would send anyone running.
Anyone but him.
My arm shoots over my shoulder, hand grabbing for one of my armoury sticks.
Blinding pain shoots from my eye and up into my head before I can grasp it, and I scream, falling to the floor, hardly catching myself with one palm while my other presses to my temple as if I could somehow stop the agony from splitting it open.
Father tuts. “Bad, bad girl . . . But you know I like it when you fight.” He shrugs out of his expensive suit jacket lined with the only Avri you will find that is darker than mine.
Because he is the ultimate power. He is power.
The Game Master. “Now strip. I will not ask you again.” I tamp down on my scream as a new pain replaces the old when he drags me to my feet by my hair.
And then, I strip.
“Good girl.”
Refusing to look at the second naked body in the room, I keep my stare firmly glued to his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, though the disgust is only slightly more mild that what looking any lower would bring me. Every part of me is tense, rigid to keep any damning quivering at bay.
This never gets easier.
When I was twelve, he touched me for the first time in a way I did not like, and I made that clear.
So I received a gift from him that scarred me both internally and externally. A lesson I would never forget that means I will never not know the pain of disobedience.
Then I received even more pain when he drove without mercy through the barrier of my innocence.
“On the bed. Legs spread for me.”
I detest myself when I only take a second to decide to climb up onto the black silk sheets, but the quicker I do this, the quicker it is over.
Laying on my back, I keep my blank stare on the ceiling as I part my thighs, sickening, humiliating tears trying to well in my eyes when I hear his deep noise of approval and the unmistakable sound of him spitting into his hand before flesh works over flesh.
I do not let them come. I must never let them fall.
The bed dips as he climbs on top of me, his face coming into view, forcing me to see him. Only him.
Just as he has always wanted.
The tip of him nudges at my entrance, and my body goes cold and tingly . . . then numb.
His lips press down on mine hard before he says, “Do not forget, Daughter, that I own you. I made you. You would be nothing without me—you are nothing without me.”
Then, he pushes inside.
***
In the aftermath, I lay there unmoving.
He is gone now, as he had to attend an important meeting with the rest of The Council.
He left an hour ago.
I counted every second.
Sometimes, that is how long it takes to come back to myself afterwards; others, I continue on as if nothing has happened at all.
I leave any emotions behind in whichever room I was violated.
Finally, I blink. There are no tears. Not now, not ever. They never fall. Not if I am awake to stop it.
Like a robot, the good machine my father likes me to be, I push myself up into a sitting position, before shifting around to touch my feet to the cold taalk floor.
I stand.
My legs walk me soundlessly to the bathroom connected to my bedroom.
I stop before the mirror.
Take in the hideous reflection staring back at me.
With a scream, the glass smashes into smithereens.
Blood sprays everywhere.