It can’t end like this. This isn’t supposed to be how it ends.
“Give her to me,” I say, holding out my arms for the woman I’ve been searching for far too long.
Owen doesn’t hesitate. He slides her frail, cold, wet body into my hold, and I cradle her to her chest. She is so cold, I start to shiver. “We need to get her down to the infirmary,” I say, staring at her soft, delicate face. God, she looks like a porcelain doll. Her lashes are wet and shadow long spikes over her cheeks. She looks thinner, but she is so goddamn beautiful, my chest hurts.
It fucking hurts to look at her like this.
And she is still wearing that goddamn collar. This one has a lock on it.
“She’s dead,” Owen says. “I tried CPR, Sebastian. I tried, but nothing worked. I’m sorry.”
I ignore him. She isn’t dead. I didn’t spend seven years of my life waiting for her only to bury her. Fuck no, there is a plan. I have a plan. I reach for the pocketknife in my pocket and fling it open. I dig the sharp metal under the collar, careful not to cut her skin, and saw away the damn disgusting thing off her.
“Sebastian—”
“She’s not fucking dead!” I shout at them, tossing the collar to the side. Her neck is bruised; the collar was too tight. “She’s not dead,” I repeat as I lay her on the floor. I tug her robe together, so she isn’t exposed, and I cup the back of her head and carefully place her against the hardwood. “You can’t die, okay? You can’t. We have been through too much to find each other.” The fucking ocean brought her to me. Everyone, everything, the fucking universe knows we belong together, and I’m not going to let Kendrick take that away from me.
I lean my head over her heart and wait.
“I found her a half mile away, on the shore, face-down in the water—”
“We have to make him realize that he has to let go.”
“Will you two shut the fuck up so I can listen? Shut up. Just shut the hell up!” I hold my breath as I listen to her chest, but Owen is right, there is no beat, no small thud, nothing. “No. I fucking refuse.” I open her mouth and give her the kiss of life. Filling her lungs three times before I lay one hand over the other in the middle of her chest and press “I fucking refuse to let you die. You can’t. I’ll be so fucking mad at you if I have to go the rest of my life without you.” I count in my head with each press I give to her chest.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
“Come on, baby. Please, don’t do this to me.”
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
I'm scared out of my mind. I can hardly think. I try to wrap my head around what Owen said, the hard truth that Gabriella was dead. The world couldn’t hate me this much to take away the one thing in this life that I have stayed alive for.
Thirty.
I jerk my hands away and cover her lips with mine again, doing my best not to fall apart by the fact this I the first time I’ve touched her lips, and they are frozen. I breathe down her throat and continue another set of compressions.
I remember the first time I saw her. Kendrick had come over to the house to borrow something, I can’t remember what. To be honest, I can’t remember much about that day besides Gabriella. God, she looked beautiful. She wore black jeans and a white sweater, it was fuzzy, and her hair was up showing the long, slender column of her neck. My eyes were locked onto the side of her throat the entire night.
And her perfume.
Fuck me, that perfume had me harder than fucking nails. I was relieved when they left, but guilt sank its way into my bones when I knew she was with the wrong brother. Kendrick has always been an asshole, but I told myself I’d win her over, make her realize how a man was supposed to treat her.
“Come on!” I yell at her, getting angry at the fact that she isn’t breathing. My arms are starting to burn. “Breathe, baby,” a sob breaks from my chest, and I wipe my left eye on my sleeve when a damn tear falls free. Fuck this, I am going to lose it. “Fucking, breathe!” I scream and lift my fist it in the air, slamming it down into the middle of her chest, knowing it is a last-ditch effort; knowing Owen is right.
I’ve gone from happy when I found a match on the camera, to confused, to fucking devastated in a matter of minutes. If Gabriella dies, where does that leave me? No one understands the depth, the … the obsession, the infatuation, the fucking undying need Gabriella makes me feel. It controls me. I’m not a man in possession of my own mind or emotions, and I haven’t been since I first met her.
She ripped out my heart and left me bleeding that day, and I have continued to bleed for her ever since.
Water leaks from the corners of her mouth, and my eyes widen. I slap her cheeks gently. “Gabby, wake up, baby. Wake up, come on,” I beg. She coughs, sending a fountain of salty water into the air. I turn her head to the side and let the water continue pouring from her lungs out onto the floor. I look up to the ceiling and blink away the tears. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” I whisper to up above. I don’t believe in God, not after everything I’ve seen, but right now, I am nearly convinced because it is a miracle that Gabby is breathing. Her heart is beating. Her eyes blinking and her lips, while still blue, they are moving.
She is weak. Once she is done coughing up the water, her eyes fall shut, and she slips into unconsciousness. I watch to make sure her chest rises and falls, and my shoulders sag as mollification takes over.
“You just saved her life,” Owen says, clapping me on the shoulder.
I gather Gabriella into my arms and hold her so tight, I’m afraid I may cause her to stop breathing again. I narrow my eyes at Owen as I place my feet under me and stand. “No thanks to you. You two wanted me to give up on her. Owen, I expected it from you, but Jaxon? If this would have been Quinn, you wouldn’t have given up. Fuck the both of you for telling me to.” I leave them behind as I walk down the hallway, passing Quinn who has tears in her eyes as they lock onto a limp Gabriella.
“Is she okay?” Quinn asks in a wispy, barely breathing kind of voice. Her light footsteps tell me she is following me, but I want to be left alone.
“I…” I swallow the lump of emotion in my throat, the one that has been clawing at me for years now. “I don’t know, Quinn.”
Quinn presses the elevator button for me and when the doors slide open, I step inside, and she follows. Quinn and I never spend much time together, so I’m not sure why she feels the need to come along. The ride down is silent, but not awkward.
I lift Gabriella up and place my ear against her chest to make sure she is still breathing.
Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.
She is still alive. That is something, but she is freezing. If I don’t warm her up soon, my newfound relief of her heart beating will be short-lived.
When the ding sounds, the doors part, and I step out, not expecting Quinn to come with me, but she does.
I run to the nearest room, the motion lights turn on, and Quinn opens the door for me. I lay her on the bed and go to strip her robe off to drape her in heated sheets, but then I freeze. She wouldn’t want me to see her body like this for the first time.
Quinn’s hand falls on top of mine and squeezes. “I got it. You go get the sheets, blankets, and heating pads. Crank the heat up, and get an IV ready. I’ll change her.”
I give a brisk nod, not wanting to pull away from Gabriella. I’m afraid if I turn my back, she’ll vanish into the thin air.
“I’ll take good care of her. I promise.” Quinn’s small smile gives me a tad bit of reassurance, so I back away, letting Quinn take the wet robe off her. I hear it fall to the ground with a wet plop, and Quinn inhales a sharp breath. “Oh, you poor thing,” she says in horror.
I freeze my movements while turning the thermostat up. “What? What is it? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She has little scars all over her body. Who knows what she has gone through?”
I close my eyes and count to ten while I take a deep breath. I have to keep my cool. Once Gabriella wakes up, I’ll get to know h
er all over again, and maybe she’ll feel comfortable telling me how she got the scars. It’s hard not to imagine the scenarios.
My brother whipping her, cutting her, putting cigarettes out on her—I have no idea. What I do know? I am terrified to find out because I’ll feel a massive amount of guilt for not getting to her sooner.
I open the cabinets and grab extra blankets, including the ones that are warmed, and grab a heating pad for the hell of it. She is beyond frozen right now, and anything will help. “Is she decent?” I ask, turning my chin to my shoulder to make sure I hear Quinn’s response.
“Yes, she is. She’s in a gown now. You can turn around.”
I spin around so fast, my feet almost get the best of me, and I nearly fall to the ground with my arms full of things that will keep Gabriella alive. Quinn hooks up the heart rate monitor, and the steady beep has me breathing easier. I lay the heating pad on her first and plug it in the wall, turning the dial to a medium temperature. Next, I lay the sheets over, then the green blanket, and pull a chair close to the side of the bed. I sit take her cold hand in mind, and rub my thumb over her knuckles.
“So, this is your meaning for revenge?” Quinn asks, taking a seat in the chair on the other side of the bed.
“In the flesh,” I say, and I bring Gabriella’s hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. It is the first time I’ve ever kissed her, and even though her hands are ice cold, the touch of her skin against mine warms me from head to toe.
“You love her very much.”
“More than anything this world could offer me; it will never amount to what I feel for her.”
My capacity to hold anything else near and dear to my heart is impossible. Gabriella takes up every square inch of the organ inside my chest. Really, it is an unhealthy need I have for her. If she dies, I’ll die. It is as simple as that. I don’t want to live in a world where she doesn’t exist; the thought is too much to bear.
Gabriella doesn’t know how much power she holds over her me.
When it comes to her, I am irrevocably powerless.
Chapter Ten
GABRIELLA
There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t hurt. The constant beeping draws me out of the darkness that clouds my mind. My lashes flutter open, and the bright lights scorch my eyes. I grunt softly and try to move around to readjust my position, but everything hurts too bad to try on my own.
The ceiling is different than the one I'm used to. This one is simpler, what a ceiling is supposed to look like, and I know by the smell of things I am in a hospital.
Which means they called Kendrick.
The beeping grows quick as I start to panic. Fuck the pain—I need to get out of here. I’m not going to be subjected to his cruelty. I force my eyes open and they water from the harsh light. When I sit up, my arm tugs against something, and I hiss. I look down to find an IV in the crook of my arm.
I’m alone in the room. There aren’t any other beds. Mine is the only one in here, and it doesn’t look like a typical hospital room. I have no idea where I am, but I have to get out of here before Kendrick comes back and punishes me. It will be a terrible punishment.
One filled with pitch black rooms for weeks, scraps of food, and only enough water to wet my tongue. He’ll lash my back with a belt, yelling at me, telling me how hates disobedient bitches. When he makes my back bleed, he goes off on a tangent about how I’m going to be presentable if I don’t know how to behave.
I have no idea what that means.
I have a sick feeling he is in some sort of gang or sick religion; I’m not sure. I know it isn't anything good.
Voices coming from down the hall has me laying back and faking sleep. I shut my eyes and wait for Kendrick.
“She’ll wake up,” one of Kendrick’s goonies reassures him.
“She has to.”
My eyes fly open when the voice I expect to hear isn’t there. It’s better, deeper, a bit broken and sad. I sit up in the bed, forgetting about the pain to see if I’m where I think I am. Maybe I am dead. This is Heaven. Sebastian has been my heaven for so long, he is the only brightness in my never-ending dark days.
My heart pounds, crashing against my chest, a wild freight train on the loose. The door opens. The heart rate monitor speeds up. I wait to see his face. I clutch the blanket in my fists, tears gathering in my eyes as a sob breaks from me before he enters the room.
But once he does … oh, god, once he does, and I see his face, I can’t hold back anymore. The torment rips from my chest, and I cup my hands over my mouth and weep when Sebastian fills the doorway. He pauses, staring at me with wide eyes, like he can’t believe what he us seeing.
“What’s the hold up?” someone asks behind him and pushes him forward.
Sebastian catches himself on the end of the bed, and I gasp, afraid he’s hurt himself.
“Oh, I’ll give you guys some alone time.” The stranger turns around and closes the door behind him, leaving me alone with a man who I thought would forever be a distant memory that would eventually fade.
There is nothing worse, living day after day and only remembering certain things about someone. The more time that passes, the more things I can’t conjure up, like how he really looked. I knew he was handsome, but I forgot how sharp his jaw is, how intense his eyes are, and how thick his hair is.
His hand moves on the bed, inching closer to me. “Gabriella?”
“Sebastian?”
His eyes shine like glass as he hurries to my side and cups my face with his hands. His thumbs rub along my cheekbones, soft and tender, a gentle touch I haven’t felt in an awfully long time. My eyes close as a tear slips free from my lashes, and instead of punishing me for crying, he wipes my tears away.
“It’s really you,” I sob, lifting a hand over his, needing to be closer. “It’s really you.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says, pulling me to his chest as he wraps his strong arms around me, holding me as if I’m about to fly away or disappear. He kisses the top of my head and runs his fingers down my back. “I never fucking thought I’d see you again, baby. God, when Owen brought you to me, you weren’t breathing. I did, Gabriella. I fucking died seeing you like that.” He pulls away and presses his chin against his chest, staring those beautiful eyes into mine. Sebastian bites his lips together, and his eyes turn from glassy to swimming with tears. He leans his forehead against mine, and his lips whisper over mine, not in a kiss, but a heated promise, a gesture that shows control.
Another quality of a man I’m not used to.
“You can’t do that to me. You can’t die. I thought I had broken every bone in your ribcage when I did CPR. You weren’t breathing, and I—”
“Sebastian,” I catch him off-guard and swipe his tears away just like he did mine. It has been a long time coming, this moment. I hate it has to be like this, in a hospital room, where I know I looked half-haggard and dead. “I’m here now because of you.” I leave out that I survived every day over the last six years for him. I don’t want to put that on his shoulders. “You saved me. You have no idea just how many times,” I admit, cupping the back of his neck with my hand. “I thought for certain Kendrick was here, and then I heard your voice, and I thought I must finally be dead and in Heaven.”
“Please, don’t talk like that.” He leans away from me and stares at the wall. I already miss the warmth of his forehead against. “You have no idea just how close you were to death. What happened, Gabriella? How did you wash up on shore? It was sheer luck Owen found you; if he hadn’t…”
“I would be shark food.” I try to lighten the mood, but his eyes narrow.
“It isn’t funny, Gabriella.” He yanks his hand away from mine and stands, pacing the room. “I can’t believe you would even joke about your life like that.” He runs his fingers through his luscious head of black hair and then scrubs a hand down his face. “Do you value yourself so little?”
“Yes,” I answer truthfully, turning my head to the
left so he can’t see the shame and embarrassment written on my face. “You have no idea what my life has been like, Sebastian. It’s been horrible. Kendrick is a heinous man. He has something on his agenda for me. The day you found me, he had introduced me to his friends for the first time. He made me stand there with my robe parted.” I touch my belly, feeling the hospital gown on me instead of the robe. Someone changed me. Was it Sebastian? Did he see me? Did he like what he saw even with all the scars? “They talked about me like they had a serious plan for me. Then one touched me…”
“Touched you? What the hell are you talking about?” Sebastian sits and takes my hand.
“A stranger… I-I didn’t know him. He cupped me between my legs, and I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t want to be part of their plan, whatever orgy or fucked-up scenario they had convinced themselves of. I smashed my head against him, grabbed a knife and ran, but I had nowhere to go. Except to jump.”
“Jump?” He lifts a black brow and then realization dawns on him. “You jumped into the ocean. That could have killed you; the current is too strong.”
“I was ready to die, Sebastian. I couldn’t live like that anyone. And apparently, I did die. You brought me back to life.”
“I’m going to kill the man who touched you. I swear on my life,” he vows.
I squeeze his hand and groan in pain as I lean back, and I give a half-assed cocky smile, the only one I can muster. “I killed him. I stabbed him in the chest before I jumped. It was one of the best feelings in the world.”
I expect him to say something, but Sebastian climbs into bed next to me and positions us to where my head lays on his chest. I hear his heart pounding, a song I never thought I’d be able to hear.
“There’s so many things I want to say, but I know they don’t matter because they won’t help you. Everything bad that happened to you, I can’t rewind time. I wish I could. I’d rewind it so far back the Knight brother you met first would be me, and our lives would have been so different.”
“You don’t know that” I say. “Kendrick could have saw me and decided he wanted me, regardless if you and I were together. I’m here now, and I’ll admit this, Sebastian—I have never felt such peace.”
Cruel Seduction: A Dark Romance (Underground Kings Book 2) Page 8
