Killian’s arms moved on either side of mine, caging me. “Maybe you’re sorry for kissing me. Or for not being able to fake it when I made you come. I wonder if Brad will be able to do the same for you,” he slurred, letting the short bristles of hair on his jaw scrape over my neck. He was mocking me, not only with his words but his body as well.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the nothingness in his voice—the memories of a time when his body against mine wasn’t a threat.
Self-preservation pierced the numbness in my chest, and I turned to look back over my shoulder at him. “I think I want to go now.”
Neither one of us was leaving here a winner.
He threw his head back with a low growl. “Not until you tell me why you’re doing this.”
“You’ve already decided I’m guilty, Killian,” I ground out. “What else is there to say?”
“I don’t know, Ariana. Maybe start by telling me why you’re accusing me of rape!” He slammed his fist against the railing, just inches from my hand. “Christ, how could you? I fucking let you in—told you things I’ve never told anyone!”
I flinched in response, which only seemed to anger him further.
“Goddammit, answer me!” He grasped my wrist, pulling me to face him. “Just tell me—”
Rule number one- answer me when I ask you a question.
I hissed in pain and brought my other hand up to his chest, pushing him away. “I’m sorry—please be gentle with me!” I sobbed. “Please! I’m so sorry!”
It only hurts if you let it…
Killian released me immediately and stumbled back. I briefly registered the flash of movement from the corner of my eye, and then Dean was in between us.
The security guard held Killian against the railing, breathing normally as if he hadn’t just crossed the beach with superhuman speed. He gave me a once-over before asking, “You okay?”
I nodded and tugged the sleeves of my v-neck sweater down over my trembling hands. “C-c-can we just have a m-m-minute?”
“You sure? I don’t mind staying—”
I took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”
“I’ll stay close in case you change your mind.”
Killian straightened his shirt, waiting until Dean was a reasonable distance down the dock. When he approached me, his hands were raised in surrender.
My heart sped up, each beat pulsing in my ears as his intense gaze moved down my body. This wasn’t lust, though. Killian was cataloging my injuries.
“Don’t—please.” I ducked my head and turned away, feeling stripped of all dignity.
“Ari, look at me,” he pleaded softly. “Please.”
I channeled my pain into stubborn determination and shook my head. “Was there anything else you wanted to say, or can I go now?”
“Please.”
I slowly turned around to find the fight gone from his eyes. He gazed down at me with a look of anguish I felt in the place my heart used to be.
Killian cupped my chin in his hand. I let him tip my face up, longing for the numbness from before. I didn’t want to feel anymore.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I lied, as he gently traced the bruises around my throat with the pads of his fingers, swearing under his breath.
“Who did this to you?” he asked, his blue eyes wide and frantic.
I sucked in a ragged breath and shook my head, trying my best not to cry. There was a familiarity in rage, a comfort in something I’d dealt with all my life. But Killian’s compassion was going to be my undoing.
He lowered his head and brushed his lips over my skin, kissing my wounds as if it might make them better.
“Don’t do that,” I protested, pulling away to wrap my arms around my belly. “Don’t treat me like I’m a bird with a hurt wing or something that deserves pity. I ruined your life. Be mad. Scream. Just don’t be nice—not to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Killian admitted, his nostrils flaring. “For all of it. I didn’t—”
“I said it,” I suddenly confessed, needing him to hate me. “I told Brad you took my virginity—I’m the reason you’re going to lose everything.”
“Why would you lie—” Killian paused before lifting his eyes back up to my throat with a low growl. Then, his arms were around me, cradling my broken body against his like it was made of glass.
Instead of fighting his embrace, I sank further into it, breathing him in. I let myself take comfort in the only sanctuary I’d ever known.
Killian’s chest heaved in anguish. “It’s okay, baby. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I shouldn’t have said it, but I didn’t know what else—”
“Don’t,” he warned in a gravelly tone. “You did what you had to do to survive. Do you feel my heart beating? I want you to focus on that—nothing else.”
The guilt I’d been carrying for the past two days fell away as I submitted to the only man who’d ever deserve it, in the only way that had ever felt right.
By being protected.
Submissiveness had never been about degrading or making myself small, but in being strong enough to let him shoulder the weight of my burdens.
“There won’t be any need for a press conference because I’m turning myself in.”
I lifted my cheek from his chest, swallowing a whimper to whisper, “No, you can’t. You’ll go to prison—lose everything.”
Killian’s nostrils flared, and he ground his jaw, fighting to stay in control of his emotions. “I lost you. Nothing else matters.”
“But your dream—”
“Was you, girl,” he sniffed, his heavy stubble grazing my temple. “It’s always been you.”
He tipped my face up, brushing his lips over mine like a whisper.
There and gone.
Hello and goodbye.
I instinctively leaned into Killian’s body with a soft moan, needing more, demanding an act of atonement. My broken and bloodied fingernails moved up to his neck, guiding him back to me.
Our mouths moved together in repentance, speaking all the words we couldn’t say, the whispers of the promises we’d been forced to break. I parted my lips, letting the liquor on his tongue burn away the hurt.
Sister Helene had tried convincing me it was nothing more than young love, but the past two days had aged me a hundred years. I didn’t care if it was wrong, I felt more alive in his arms than I ever had inside the church.
Killian was my oxygen.
The only thing that had kept me from drowning years ago.
“Ari,” he broke away with a pant, dropping his forehead to mine. “I love you. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to stop. So, let me fight for you the only way I can. Let me be your knight in slightly tarnished armor.”
I laughed through the tears because I’d never been looking for a knight, just a sword powerful enough to take down a monster.
“What I said before about you being fake—” His eyes welled up. “You are, without a doubt, the most genuine and caring person I’ve ever met.”
I pressed my fist to my lips to hold back my tears, making a sound of protest when I saw Dean approaching. “No. I’m not ready.”
“Ariana, we’ve got a car waiting,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Morgan’s already been taken to a safe location—”
“No,” I repeated, my voice raw. “I won’t leave him to face this alone.”
“We need to extract you tonight before the shit hits the fan.”
Dean said it so matter-of-factly, but every part of my body tensed with the realization that he hadn’t brought me here for a nighttime reunion.
He was forcing me to say goodbye.
“Baby,” Killian murmured, keeping one hand on my jaw. “He’s giving you a way out. Take it. Don’t worry about me. I’ve been through the wringer before. I can handle it as long as I know you’re safe—”
“You don’t understand—we’re not safe! Nobody knows Tristan like I do, and he’s not go
ing to stop until he gets what he wants!”
“The case against Killian falls apart without you, Ariana,” Dean answered patiently. “It’s the only way to keep you from perjuring yourself if it makes it to trial.”
Hysterical laughter bubbled up in my throat, and I shook my head. “If I don’t go through with the press conference, they’ll have him killed.” I turned back to Killian. “It was me, or you and I chose—”
Pick up your shield and fight back.
The weight of the words nearly knocked me over, and I suddenly knew what to do.
“Oh, my God.” My eyes widened. “Me. I’m the only one who can stop him. Dean, Killian’s going to be taking my place.”
“Ari, no—”
I silenced his protest with my lips, before pulling away with a victorious smirk. “If I don’t make it out of this alive, make sure the world knows I died a hero.”
How do you destroy a monster when you have nothing?
By turning yourself into a weapon.
27
Ariana
“There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”
-Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
There was a soft rap at the door. “Fifteen minutes.”
A sheen of cold sweat coated my face. I dropped to my knees again, retching violently in the small bathroom attached to the church nursery. I'd prayed for an eleventh-hour rescue, but this wasn't a movie or one of my beloved books.
After promising he’d get Killian to a safe place, Dean had led me back to my room, where I’d spent most of the night hugging the toilet. During the rare moments my eyes had drifted shut in exhaustion, I’d been plagued by disjointed nightmares.
In them, I was back inside the car again. Only, this time, it was sinking. The community pool had decayed into ruins, no longer recognizable as the place where Ashlynn had taught me to swim. Weeds sprouted through the cracked blue tiles, and thick, choking vines had taken over the diving board.
Murky black water swallowed the front of the convertible. I kicked and kicked but couldn’t free my legs from the windshield. Something brushed against my arm, and I opened my mouth to scream, inhaling a mouthful of inky sludge before everything went dark.
In another, I saw it. The creature was darkness itself, suspended motionless above me, watching through wide pupils. Its long tentacles unfurled, dancing toward me with an almost mesmerizing grace the likes of which I’d never seen before.
Surprisingly, I hadn’t been afraid.
Not at first. It wasn’t until I tried bringing my hand up as one brushed across my forehead, only to find I couldn’t move. A pale tentacle caressed my cheek before disappearing into one of my nostrils. Two more forced their way past my lips and down my throat, silencing my cries for help, as the car sank deeper.
I wasn’t alone.
Mama. Morgan. Ashlynn. Women I’d never even met before. Their bodies were buried in the muck, mouths transfixed in horror. And, at the very bottom—Killian. His eyes, now wholly gray, were fixed on mine. But he was dead. Just like the rest of them.
Needless to say, it hadn’t instilled a lot of confidence in what I was about to do.
I got sick again with a low groan before stumbling over to the sink to rinse my mouth and wash my hands. Someone had come and done my makeup and hair, but no beauty product could erase the look of terror from my eyes.
Dean was waiting on the other side of the door with a mint and a lifted brow. “You really don’t handle stress very well, do you?”
I took the mint from his hand with a weak smile and rasped, “Apparently not.”
He pinned a microphone to the thick cashmere scarf knotted around my neck. It was the only accessory effective in covering the bruises around my throat. Tristan had it delivered to my room just after dawn, along with a Ponte knit dress that fell just past my knees. My wounds were draped in black, completely hidden from view.
With my understated makeup and messy twisted chignon updo, I was the picture of elegant mourning.
“He’s ready to see you in his office,” Dean murmured, making a final adjustment to the device.
Fear coated my tongue, along with bitter aftertaste of vomit, but I managed a small nod. “And everyone is still safe?”
“Completely,” he reassured me. “Just remember what you came here to do.”
As if I had the luxury to consider anything else.
I slowly made my way down the hall, my heels clicking loudly against the stained concrete floor with each measured step. When I reached the familiar mahogany door, I stopped and waited for the surge of bravery to flood my veins.
There was nothing but a steady drip of terror.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and rapped my knuckles against the wood.
“Come in,” Tristan said, using his preacher’s voice. When he saw it was me, there was a brief flash of venom in his eyes. “Ariana, sit.”
Blink. Blink.
I perched on the edge of a chair almost identical to the one in his office at the house. My hands were folded in my lap to mask the shaking.
“Have you spoken to Morgan since you’ve been home?” he asked, inspecting his manicured fingernails. He’d insisted on separate rooms after their marriage, only allowing her into his bed when he wanted sex.
“I’ve been locked in my room,” I answered sweetly. “Or did you forget?”
“Dammit, Ariana!” Tristan jabbed a finger in my direction. “Don’t play games with me—not today! If you know where she is, you need to tell me right now!”
“I have no idea,” I answered truthfully. “But if she’s smart, she’ll never come back.”
He smiled coldly. “And why is that, little dove? What makes you so sure she’d want to leave all of this behind?”
My stomach somersaulted in my belly, urging me to keep my mouth shut unless I wanted to coat the surface of his desk in stomach acid.
“The convertible,” I gulped, resisting the urge to reach up and touch my necklace. “The night of the accident, I took the convertible.”
His expression shifted to one of boredom. “Yes, I’m aware of that, little dove. I fail to see what it has to do with Morgan, though.”
Shit. Damn. Hell.
“She was supposed to be in the car that night,” I admitted, balling my hands into fists against my skirt. “It was her car, after all.”
Tristan shrugged easily and leaned back in his chair with a low chuckle. “So, you took her car and wrecked it. I bought her another. Again, I’m not following how any of this relates to her sudden disappearance.”
He wasn’t going to admit to a single thing—not without proof, of which I had none. I lightly bit down on the inside of my cheek and glanced up at the clock on the wall.
Ten minutes.
“We’ll discuss this later back at the house. For now, let’s go over what you’re going to say out there,” Tristan continued, sliding several papers across the desk. “Here’s your speech, along with which reporters you’re to take questions from. The answers to what they’re going to ask are on the back page.”
I skimmed over the pages, almost impressed by the elaborate lie he’d concocted. There was even a doctor’s report attached, detailing my internal injuries, as well as a non-existent semen sample that had been taken for further testing.
Clearly, Tristan planned on handling this problem in the same manner he’d dealt with my mama and Ashlynn, by creating a story so airtight no one would dare question or spend much time looking into it. He was willing to condemn a man for no more than having the audacity to love me, a crime in his mind.
“And if I refuse to read this?” I challenged, goading him into an emotional game of chicken. The answer had come to me as I stood on the dock last night.
I’d seen myself as a pawn. In reality, I was the one with all the bargaining power. Tristan had told me as much when he admitte
d he couldn’t do it alone. And unless he wanted to lose Brad’s money, he couldn’t kill me either.
“You’ve grown defiant, little dove.” His voice held a mixture of pride and anger as he leaned forward to rest his arms on the desk. “I’d advise against making such a hasty decision. Do you happen to know where the baseball player is right now?”
“Do you?” I asked, immediately second-guessing my decision to call his bluff.
Tristan went silent for a moment, his blue eyes taunting me. “Killian’s holed up in his condo, waiting to be arrested again. Although, I imagine if you’re not going to go through with the press conference, that might change. He might feel safe enough to let his guard down and leave.”
He lifted his hands as if to say, what can you do? I turned away, resisting the smile tugging at my lips. Killian was nowhere near his condo, but my father didn’t know that. It was just another in a long line of empty threats meant to keep me obedient.
“Did you decide?” I studied my broken fingernails, noting the dried blood on the ones that had been torn down to the quick. I’d give myself this, I hadn’t gone down without a fight.
“What?”
I looked up, pinning him with my stare. “The night Brad attacked me, you said there were a lot of ways for someone to die and make it look like an accident. I was just wondering, have you decided yet?”
Tristan chuckled at my morbid question. “Why do you ask?”
My gaze drifted back to the clock on the wall.
Five minutes.
We were running out of time.
“No reason.” I shrugged. “Just curious.”
“As long as you do your part, it won’t come to that,” he warned, rising to his feet.
“You mean, as long as I lie. We both know Killian didn’t rape me—”
“Shut up, Ariana.” His face darkened as he rounded the desk, the vein in his forehead pulsing. He came to a stop in front of my chair, forcing me to look up. “You’re going to stand in front of the press and do as you’re told. Refuse me again, and I’ll kill him myself. Understood?”
Through The Water: Fairest Series Book Two Page 33
