As if he’d read my mind, Marco handed me a new toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. “Your breath smells like ass. Brush your teeth before you try to kiss your pretty wife.”
My wife...
Warmth spread through my chest, distracting me from my spinning thoughts. I took the brush and paste with a muttered “Thanks,” and pictured Natalie sitting in the other room, waiting for me.
As I popped the toothbrush into my mouth, I glanced at the mirror, looking at Marco behind me. “You can tell...your pretty wife I’ll take that food...now. But something manlier than...gelatin.”
Marco chuckled. “You’re sure you’re steady?” When I nodded, he pushed away from the wall. “Don’t fall. I’ll be right back.”
I rolled my eyes and started brushing my teeth. Outside the bathroom door, I heard Marco talking to Fee and Natalie.
Natalie...
Not just my pretty wife. My gorgeous wife. Who’d come back to me. Who’d worn that stunning butterfly dress at our wedding. Who’d thawed every inch of that ice inside me simply by loving me. Who was safe now because I’d gotten my father and the Grande Cavaliere to agree to recognize our marriage.
I leaned forward to rinse my mouth only to grimace all over again when pain ripped down my spine.
Shit, I was not bending over. Glancing around, I spotted a cup on the edge of the sink and used that to spit and rinse my mouth. When I was done, I looked up into the mirror again and frowned at my reflection. I really looked like hell. And I still had no idea wh—
My gaze caught sight of another reflection in the mirror. From across the room. The ladies’ vanity behind me was topped with a mirror, and in that mirror, I could see my back. Covered in something white.
I turned away from the mirror at the sink and glanced over my shoulder, trying to see better. “What the heck is tha—”
Everything came to a screeching halt. Everything except my adrenaline, which shot straight into the stratosphere.
I twisted to get a better look, my eyes growing wide. And when I saw the bandage covering me from my shoulder blades to my low back, memories flooded my mind. Every single memory I hadn’t been able to see let alone bring into focus since coming awake.
“Merda. Merda!” Bile shot up my throat. I gripped the sink and doubled over, fighting to keep from vomiting as the visions fired behind my eyes—being stripped, being chained down, being injected with all those drugs, the circle around me, the chanting, and those kittens—I still wasn’t sure how many—pawing at me with their hands, licking me with their tongues, and the blonde—
“Cazzo.”
I barely made it to the toilet in time. I retched, but there was nothing in my stomach, and all that came up was bile.
Footsteps pounded close. Voices filled the room. Hysterical voices—Marco’s, Fee’s...
“Luc!” Natalie screamed. “Oh my God...”
My stomach pitched again just from the sound of her voice, and I dropped to the floor in front of the toilet, bracing my hands on the bowl. “Get her out of here,” I growled. “Get her...out.”
I heaved again and bent over the bowl.
“Luc!” Panic filled Natalie’s voice.
Some kind of commotion was happening, but I couldn’t turn to look. All I could focus on was the blinding pain—not in my back this time, but in the center of my fucking soul.
“No, stop pushing me,” Natalie cried. “He needs me. Oh God. His bandages. Felicity, he’s bleeding through. He ripped his stitches. Luc!”
I didn’t give a goddamn about my stitches. That ritual, that beta riding me, pushing me toward a release I didn’t want, breaking my vow to Natalie... It all swirled in my head, making me retch until there was nothing left.
“Figlio di puttana, Luc.” Marco dropped to his knees next to me with a towel and pressed it into my hand as I sagged back. “Breathe, fratello.”
I was trying to, but, fuck, everything inside me hurt.
Long minutes passed where all I wanted to do was disappear back into that darkness and never re-emerge. Long minutes where I struggled to breathe, to think.
“Just...tell her...the meds made me sick,” I finally managed, knowing it was cowardly, but unable to come up with anything else. I swiped at my mouth with the towel and eased back against the wall only to jerk forward when my back hit the plaster and another burn shot across my skin.
“Merda.” Marco’s hands closed over my upper arms, helping me forward so I could sit up and not fucking fall. “She’s not gonna buy it.”
“She...will.” I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, shaking with the realization I was just like my father. Just like the degenerate men in my family. And I’d already broken the only vow that meant anything to Natalie. Not even two days after our wedding. “Just...whatever you do...don’t tell her everything. Let her think it was just...the flogging.”
Marco didn’t respond, and in the silence, dread crept in, sending my adrenaline surging all over again.
My eyes shot open, and I looked up at him, fuzzy in front of me, but kneeling on the bathroom floor, holding my arms. “No.” I shook my head. “Please, tell me you didn’t already—”
“I didn’t.” Marco’s lips thinned, and sympathy filled his dark eyes. “I didn’t have to. She was there, Luc. They made her watch. She saw it all.”
Oh shit. Oh fuck...
My lungs seized. I suddenly couldn’t get air. My skin grew so hot I couldn’t think of anything but clawing it off my body. Couldn’t do anything but double forward and gasp as I felt the fucking chains holding me down all over again, as I heard those chants and voices and—
“Cazzo,” Marco muttered as if from a great distance away. Then louder, “Felicity! I need you! Right now!”
“Oh shit.” Footsteps pounded close. Then Felicity gasped. “Bloody hell, Luc.”
Someone screamed. I heard Natalie’s frantic voice.
Hands closed over my body as I struggled, then I heard Felicity say, “Hold him still.”
Something sharp stabbed into my arm. Voices echoed louder around me, but I couldn’t make out the words. Didn’t know who was speaking. All I knew was darkness. A thankful darkness because it was taking away the memories, making me forget the vile things I’d done.
A darkness some part of me realized had been waiting for me all my life.
This time when I came to, the room was dark.
I also knew exactly what I’d done.
Pain echoed through my back as I moved my legs on the mattress where I was once again lying on my stomach, but it was drown out by the disgust swirling inside me.
“Easy, Luc. Don’t push it this time.”
Marco. Marco fucking Romano. Again.
“Is she in here?” I asked, afraid to move my head, my voice low and gravelly.
“No. She’s in the other room with Fee. It’s just you and me. Thought we should talk before you see her.”
I didn’t want to see her.
Nausea swirled inside me again, but I swallowed it back, knowing I deserved to feel like shit. “I-I need to sit up.”
Marco helped me maneuver to the edge of the bed. I ground my teeth against the pain, knowing I deserved that too. When I was perched with my feet on the floor and my hands gripping the mattress on both sides of my thighs, I glanced toward the dark floor-to-ceiling windows with red and blue checked curtains that ran all the way to the crown molding above. A single glass lamp on the dresser across the room shone in the darkness. “Where are we?”
Marco moved back to his seat. “Gadleigh Castle.”
Felicity’s family home in Scotland. Fuck me.
“Is Charles here?” Felicity’s father was the head of House Merrick and the Archduke of the Isles. He was a big man, very English, and very proper. And while all my interactions with him over the years had been positive, I wasn’t wild about him seeing me in my current condition. Everything in my world revolved around keeping up appearances and not showing weakness—ever.
“No. C
harles and Adelaide are at their home in Wales. His staff cleared out for us.”
“Does the Archduke know he’s harboring a fugitive?” No way my father had approved for me to leave Italy after that ritual. And when he found out House Merrick had taken me in—
“Technically, he’s not.”
When I glanced toward Marco, sitting on the fancy French side chair beside my bed with his elbows resting on his knees, he said, “Charles spoke with your father when we were in the air and got the Grand Duke to agree to give you some time.”
Some time...
Time to get my head on right. To pull myself together. To figure out the only way I could survive was to take it up the fucking ass. Just like twelve years ago. Except, this time I knew they’d never leave me alone as long as they had before. They wouldn’t leave me alone for six damn months. As soon as the wounds on my back were healed, they’d suck me back into House business and screw with my life all over again.
A familiar hatred for what I’d been born into brewed deep inside me as I glanced around the room. Everything in it was too fancy for my taste—delicate four-poster bed, lace-edged comforter, Victorian armoire with elegant trim work, gold-framed mirror. Dainty. English. And in my current mood, a perfect target for my rage. I could do some serious damage to this room. And I wanted to. I was seconds away from unleashing my fury. The only thing that stopped me was Marco’s presence.
I banked that rage for the moment and forced myself to ask the most pressing question on my mind. “What happened?”
“In the bathroom?” When I nodded, Marco said, “You lost it, that’s what happened.
No shit, Sherlock. I frowned. “What did Fee give me?”
“A sedative. You ripped open a bunch of sutures. Unless you want to die from infection, those need to stay closed.”
Fucking fabulous.
Ironically, dying was damn tempting. But I had to keep fighting. Not for myself now but for Natalie. Yes, she was technically safe after that deal I’d made, but if I keeled over unexpectedly, I wasn’t at all convinced the Grande Cavaliere and my fucking father would hold to the agreement we’d reached.
“How the fuck did she get there?” I dropped my head and breathed deeply. “She was supposed to be at your villa. Did she follow me?”
“Merda. You don’t know, do you?” When I lifted my head and met Marco’s gaze, he said, “They came onto the property and took her, Luc. After I left for the gathering.”
“What?” My eyes grew wide. “They can’t do that.”
“No shit. But they did.”
My mind spun. And then...it all made sense. I hadn’t been the target. I’d been the distraction.
A whole new fear seized my chest, and I shot to my feet. “What did they do to her? Who touched her? Which ones...?” My throat closed. “I’ll kill every fucking one of them.”
“Breathe.” Marco was on his feet with a death grip on my shoulders before I realized it. “She’s fine. They didn’t do anything to her. No one touched her.”
I stared at him, unable to believe his words. “Then what—?”
“Physically, they didn’t harm her. But they did scare her. And they made her stay on that balcony until it was over.”
Memories came rushing back. Memories I’d clearly blocked out—a light flipping on above me, opening my eyes when I’d been chained down and that kitten had been tormenting me, looking up and seeing Natalie standing on that balcony in a white dress, staring down at what I was doing.
My stomach pitched with renewed sickness, but I couldn’t give in to the darkness just yet. I needed to know all of it. “Who?”
“Your father.”
My jaw clenched so hard, I was surprised the bone didn’t crack. That hatred swirled and snapped inside me.
“And your mother,” Marco added.
For a moment, I was sure I’d heard him wrong. But when he only met my gaze head-on and didn’t flinch, I knew he was telling the truth.
“Both of them?” I asked in a low voice, a dark loathing growing inside me, one that was stronger and more dangerous than anything I’d felt before.
“They made her stand between them. Wouldn’t let her leave. And I’m sure they got a sick sort of satisfaction listening to her beg and plead for them to stop the ritual.”
Of course they would have. Because they were monsters. Vile, evil, black-souled monsters who sucked every bit of life and light out of the innocents they encountered. And now, thanks to what I’d done, I was just like them.
I sank back to the side of the bed, braced my elbows on my knees, and dropped my head into my hands, barely even noticing the pain in my back because the agony consuming every other inch of my body was too strong—too fresh.
“She’s worried about you, man,” Marco said. “After what happened in the bathroom—”
“I don’t want to see her.”
“She’s your wife.”
“I don’t fucking care.” I glared up at him. “Don’t you dare let her in this room. I’m not kidding, Marco. You saw me in there. I could snap at any moment. I don’t want her anywhere near me.”
Marco rested his hands on his hips and leveled me with a disapproving look. “She loves you.”
“Which was the biggest mistake she ever made.” Despair rolled through me. A black, bitter despair I was never going to be able to claw my way out from under. A despair I didn’t deserve to be free of—ever. “If you and Fee want to help someone, you’ll help her get out of this fucked-up House once and for all. And this time, you’ll make sure she doesn’t come back.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I do.” I turned toward the pillows on the bed, wishing for those drugs again so I could just pass out and think about nothing. Instead, I was going to lie here all night and relive every awful thing I’d done to Natalie since the moment I’d met her.
“Do it tonight,” I said before I could change my mind. “By morning, I want her out of my life for good.”
Chapter Four
Natalie
“No,” I said emphatically, staring at Marco in complete and utter disbelief. “I’m not leaving. Don’t even think about asking me to leave him right now.”
“I’m not asking.” Marco’s hands closed over my shoulders, and he looked down at me in the dim light of the kitchen where I was standing. “I’m a hundred percent on your side. You need to be here. I just wanted you to know what he’s thinking.”
As far as I was concerned, Luc wasn’t thinking. Not rationally at least. His latest order proved that.
After checking on Luc, Marco had joined Fee and I in the kitchen where we were sitting at the table sipping tea, quietly talking. I was so tired, I was barely keeping my eyes open, but the second Marco had dumped the latest bombshell in my lap, I’d come wide-awake.
“He really said that?” I asked, disbelief twisting through my chest. “He wants me to leave?”
“He’s in a dark place right now, Natalie. He’s angry and feeling self-destructive. And realizing you were there isn’t helping matters. I told you things were going to get rough. For tonight, I think it’s best if you give him space. Let him work through some of this stuff before you go in and see him.”
My heart pounded hard as I glanced toward the stairs and thought of Luc suffering in that big room all alone. Every instinct inside me said to go to him, to comfort him, to be the strength I knew he needed. But then I heard his voice from that bathroom, gravelly and filled with so much hatred, screaming for Marco to get me out of the room, not to let me get anywhere near him.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes all over again, and I blinked rapidly, then looked back at Marco. “If he wakes during the night—”
“I’ll take care of him. Trust me. I know Luc. In a day or two, when it’s all not so fresh and he’s had time to process, you can go to him. I just think seeing you right now might make things worse.”
I didn’t believe that for a moment. But I also realized that the Luc I’d
seen writhing on that bathroom floor had not been my Luc. It had been a shadow of the man I knew. And I wasn’t willing to give that man any reason to keep my Luc locked away.
I swallowed hard. Nodded. And somehow managed to say, “Okay.”
Marco squeezed my shoulders, then released me. “It’ll get better, Natalie. Just have faith.”
Faith was all I had left. I just hoped it didn’t fail me.
“Come on.” Felicity pushed back from the table. “I’ll take you up to a room. There are lots of suites in this old castle, all with super comfy beds.”
I followed her out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and when she turned into a different wing from where Luc was staying, it was all I could do not to protest. But I didn’t, because I was willing to do whatever it took to bring my Luc back to me. Including give him space even though my heart screamed that was the wrong thing to do.
I just wasn’t sure how long I could stay away from him.
As it turned out, I wasn’t able to stay away long.
I couldn’t sleep not knowing how Luc was doing. So after two or three hours of tossing and turning, I threw back the covers and crept out into the dark hallway.
Marco and Fee had gone to bed sometime after me. I didn’t know which room they were staying in, but I figured it was probably close to Luc in case he needed Marco’s help in the middle of the night. Moving as quietly as I could down the hardwood floor in my bare feet, I reminded myself that everything was going to be okay. I had faith. I believed in us. I wouldn’t let Luc’s family break us, no matter how hard they tried.
The doors in Luc’s wing were all closed, and I held my breath as I stopped outside his room. A shiver racked my spine, one that made me wish I’d tossed a sweater over my tank in this cold castle, but I didn’t want to waste time and go get one now. I just wanted Luc.
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