Chapter 13
Thealina
A pulsing ache rattles through my brain. The side of my head tender and throbbing as my fingertips tentatively prod around the stitched wound. An embarrassing, husky moan vibrates my throat and haunts my ears. Embarrassing because I feel eyes on me.
Rafe’s eyes.
“Easy now,” he says, holding his hands out ready to steady me as my body fights the aches and pain and fatigue, jerking as I sit up.
“We had a heavy landing. That’s on me. I do apologise you got hurt.”
An apology by someone who has a penis and testicles hanging between their legs. Well, I never.
“I can almost hear your mouthy response,” he smirks, though his eyes seem sad and wary.
Colours, smells and sounds filter through the haze. Wood, lots of wood. Wooden walls, floors, furniture—a small cabin type home it seems. Open-planned kitchen in the corner, couch beneath me in front of the hearth, and a tidy bed on the other side of the room.
It’s nice, cosy even, but none of Rafe’s personality shines through.
Embers flicker in the hearth, a soup or stew bubbling in the hanging cauldron above. Scents of lamb, and rosemary, mix with the sharp notes of spice and mint—Teatree. Bringing the fingertips I used to prod my wound to my nose, I inhale the potent, medicinal oil.
My ears absorb all the different noises—a faint trickling of water seeps through the half-opened sash window, an owl’s hoots, a slight breeze rustling some foliage outside, the wood in the hearth spitting, and the deep, steady breaths of a now fully dressed Rafe, who perches on the table in front of me. His knees touching mine.
“How do you feel?” He asks, bringing the back of his hand to my forehead. “Hot, cold, tired, sore?”
He seems jittery. Fighting the blanket off me, I search for my book and quill, except I don’t appear to be wearing my dress.
Rafe points to the back of the couch, to my cut-up dress. I swing my head back to him, narrowing my brows, his palms fly up.
“There was no looking. No touching. I did what I had to. You were shaking. Cold and wet. Bleeding. A breath away from deaths door.”
Quit being dramatic. I roll my eyes, wincing at the sting of my cut.
“I know, I know, I’m being dramatic.” He squeezes his eyes between his thumb and index finger.
Where’s my book and quill?
I can’t find it no matter how many times I pat around my dress and the couch. Rafe twists his body to reach behind him and present me with not my book and quill, but the bottle containing the milky fluid—the linking serum.
Where’s my fucking stuff, Rafe!
I lunge up between his bent knees with my fists pumping and my jaw clenched. He sits on the table, and with the several inches of height I have on him in this moment, I feel strong, powerful, lethal, ready to take him down and make him suffer if he doesn’t return my belongings.
Sureness empowers me… until my trousers slide down, exposing my bare legs. Luckily the dark tunic is as long as my usual shift, covering my most intimate parts that are almost eye level with Rafe.
My feet become stuck in the spot I stand, my whole body frozen as awkwardness replaces my extremely short-lived confidence.
Rafe sniffs and grunts, leans back and unbuckles his brown leather belt, he whips it out in one fluid motion. And I? I just gawk at being man-handled—or taken care of—by someone I’ve only known for several days.
Keeping his eyes to the right of me, he yanks up the trousers, bunching them at my waist with one hand, and threads the belt through with the other.
He’s rough and jerky at one point and I steady myself by holding his shoulder, his corded muscle tensing beneath my palm, though he’s still careful not to hurt me as he buckles it tight, needing to create another hole to accommodate my shrinking frame.
My skin shivers as his fingers graze the bare skin of my stomach, making my core pulse.
His tight jaw and pulsing neck vein tell me he’s annoyed, angry maybe?
Which pisses me off seeing as I’m the one stolen in the night, I’m the one with a bloody gash on my head, and I’m the one without a fucking voice!
Be that of my tongue or my book and quill.
He’s taken another voice from me, and it hurts.
Rafe stands, gripping my upper arms, his heavy breaths floating over my skin.
“We will drink the serum, and I don’t care if I have to pin you down and force it down your throat.”
You won’t make me drink shit!
He grips me tighter when I try to take a step away from him.
“I’ve been going insane here. I have questions, lots of them, and I want proper answers. So, you either take a sip of this linking serum or I’ll use force. Five seconds. You decide.”
I call your bluff.
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
Our eyes lock into a battle, our heaving chests brush against each other, the moment too tense for the both of us.
“Two.”
No way he’ll use force. Will he?
The vein in his neck pulses again. He takes a deep breath.
“One.”
Nothing happens. No force. No fight.
His grip on my arms loosens, his fingers stroke down my fevered flesh, leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
He reaches behind him, his dark gaze still locked on mine while he pops the cork, brings the bottle to his lips and tips it back to pour a healthy swig.
I watch, mesmerised by the movement of his throat as he swallows.
I swallow too. Because my intuition knows what’s coming.
His reaction is quick. His sturdy arm circles my waist when I turn from him to run.
He lifts me off the ground like I weigh no heavier than a feather.
My feet kick his shins, my arms flail, body twisting around in hope of landing a thump to his head.
He’s quick though, strong, but gentle when he lays me down, straddling both my legs, using his weight to stop them from moving.
Both my hands are held above my head by one of his.
I don’t stand a chance.
“I’m sorry, Lina. Please do forgive me.”
Burning bile scorches my throat, this vulnerable, helpless position similar to that used by my husband when he sliced my tongue while his mother trapped my head between her thighs with a steel grip.
I still remember her sinister grin, and his exasperated expression, though he didn’t say sorry, nor ask me to forgive him, his words told me this was for my own good.
And it’s what Rafe’s pretty much saying now, that drinking this potion is for my own good, or his.
Clamping my mouth shut tight, he battles my lips with the spout of the bottle, struggling to break through the barricade I hold. He needs his other hand, and as soon as he takes them off mine, I’ll strike, going for the eyes.
Always go for the eyes.
“Lina, please. It’ll make things easier for us to speak. Please.” Rafe’s pleading doesn’t change my mind, I don’t want the fucking serum, I don’t trust it.
“It’s safe, I promise, I’ve drank it, I feel fine. And it came from a trusted source.”
I make the mistake of scoffing, and he takes the opportunity to get the bottle to my mouth, but my reaction is quicker this time, I keep my lips tight and clench my teeth so hard I think I chipped a molar.
Ha! Fuck you asshole.
“Ok, fine.” He closes his eyes. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
He pours another generous helping of liquid into his mouth before closing his lips.
He leans forward, our noses touching, his sorrowful eyes glaring.
Carefully, he places the bottle on the wooden floor and slides it out of the way.
In my periphery, his hand comes to my face, stroking my cheek so tenderly like a lover would his woman.
My neglected, traitorous body leans into his touch.
He keeps stroking, mapping out my face with soft fingertips, caressing the scar beneath my chin, before resting his forehead on mine like he truly is sorry.
Before I can spend any time processing his touch, fingers clamp down on my nose. My eyes pop from my sockets, my chest screams at me to open, but my teeth clamp down harder.
No. No, he can’t do this.
My lungs start to burn.
No, I won’t give in.
My throat aches, vision blurs, ears ring, legs kick; all the while Rafe waits patiently on top of me, his heavy weight like a deadly constrictor wrapped around my ribs, squeezing me of every drop of oxygen.
I lose control of my own body, and warm liquid spreads beneath me.
A tear slips free as it registers in my mind that I’m wetting myself.
The survival part of my brain steps in to gasp as much air as possible.
It’s at this moment Rafe strikes by bringing his lips to mine, spitting in the milky fluid.
No!
His hand clamps over my mouth before I can spit it back in his face and bite off his nose. I thrash, as violently as I can muster but Rafe doesn’t budge.
I’m going to kill him.
But I need him, don’t I. No. Another abuser is not what I need.