by Amira Rain
One thing was for certain, and that was that I'd seen a part of who Cole really was. He was a violent, brutal man; there was no doubt about that, but without a context for his violence, I felt like it would be impossible for me to determine if that violent brutality equated to him also being an evil, dark-hearted man. Clearly, I needed more information about what had happened. I just wasn't quite sure how to get it. It wasn't like I could come right out and ask Cole. Not without also revealing that I'd made a little trip out of the mansion to spy on him.
With my heartbeat slowly returning to normal, I began making my way across some kind of vast, back-of-the-house foyer, which really looked like more of an unfinished room more than anything. This foyer or room or whatever it was led me to a hallway, and I started down it, not really knowing where I was going in the cavernous house. It wasn't a very long hallway, however, and soon it connected with another hallway that led west and east. Finally getting my bearings, I took a right, heading east, and soon found myself in a sunny, spacious kitchen.
Leaning over a counter-top with a book was Mary-Alice, dressed in a pink-and-lavender floral-printed housecoat, appearing thoroughly engrossed in her reading while a coffeemaker beside her filled a clear glass pot with steaming brew. Not wanting to startle her, I cleared my throat softly, and she immediately looked up with her softly wrinkled face clearly expressing surprise. However, this expression soon vanished, becoming replaced by a warm smile. I smiled in return and said good morning, momentarily forgetting about what I'd just witnessed outside.
Mary-Alice gestured to the coffeemaker and then to me with a quizzical look, and I said I'd love a cup, making her beam. While she busied herself getting out mugs, milk, sugar, and spoons, I leaned against the counter, once again thinking about Cole.
The truth was that despite the carnage I'd just seen, I had a growing feeling in my heart that he would never hurt me. I'd more or less come to believe that the night before, but now I was coming to believe that. It made absolutely no sense, I knew. Logically, I felt like seeing what I had should have blown any fragile feelings of personal safety and trust with him right out the window. But, bizarrely, it just hadn't. What I'd seen had shocked, horrified, and sickened me, without a doubt, but I was developing a deep gut feeling that Cole had been telling me the truth the night before, when he'd said he'd never hurt me. What was behind this gut feeling was the memory of the unmistakable look of sincerity in his eyes when he'd said that to me.
Despite this, I still felt like I needed to know the full story of what had happened in the clearing behind the barn, or more specifically, why it had happened. Liking Mary-Alice a lot but still not knowing her very well, I didn't think I dared ask her, just on account of her clear affection and loyalty to Cole, and being that she might tell him that I'd escaped the house. This was a huge problem, though, being that she was the only other soul in the house. I had no one else to ask about what Cole had done. Still, I decided that I wouldn't ask her. I'd just have to figure something else out. Maybe I'd get a chance to overhear Cole having a conversation over the phone again.
While Mary-Alice poured our coffee, I took a look at the cover of the book she'd been reading and saw that it appeared to be a mystery novel. Although it was kind of a silly question with an obvious answer, I asked her if she liked mystery books, and she nodded rapidly, setting the coffeepot down. Then, after gesturing to me to wait one second, she whipped a pad of paper and a pen out of one of the pockets of her housecoat and proceeded to scribble something on the first page, then held it up for me to read. In large but very legible, loopy letters, she'd written I really like the mysteries with a little romance in them. Those are the best, you know.
Smiling, I agreed. "I really like those, too. We'll have to swap books sometime." Pausing, I realized something. "Whenever I get some books of my own to swap, anyway."
Mary-Alice quickly scribbled something else down and held the pad of paper up to me. I'll give you some of my old ones that I'm tired of.
Smiling again, I thanked her, and after grinning in return, she gestured to the coffee, milk, and sugar, then looked at me quizzically. I told her I'd love a spoonful of sugar in mine, and she added it in before putting a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk in her own. Then, with her usually-cheery expression a little more neutral, she pointed to herself, then to a small, circular table in one corner of the kitchen, then to me, then in the direction of a dining area.
Pretty sure I knew what she was trying to express, I shook my head. "Don't be ridiculous. Come out to the dining room with me, and we'll have our coffee together."
This statement brought about the largest smile I'd ever seen on Mary-Alice's face yet, and we took our coffee out to the dining room. After she'd set her mug down, she darted back to the kitchen and soon returned with a basket of mini-muffins, some blueberry and some apple-cinnamon, and two plates. Once we'd loaded our little plates with a few mini-muffins each, we tucked in, and I soon told her that her muffins were the best I'd ever tasted in my life, which was absolutely true.
Grinning, Mary-Alice took pen to pad again, then held the pad up for me to see. Beneath what she'd written earlier, she'd drawn a smiley face with little circular scribbles on the cheeks. Heart melting, I got that she was trying to tell me that I'd made her blush. By the time we'd finished our coffee and muffins, it was safe to say that we were friends. It was also safe to say that we liked a lot of the same books. Through writing on her part and verbal communication on my own, we'd had a full discussion about some of our favorite titles.
However, like all good things, our discussion came to an end when Mary-Alice wrote that she needed to go get washed up and dressed so that she could look presentable and have a hot breakfast ready for me and Cole, who she called Commander Marlowe, when he returned to the house. I told her I understood. Then, realizing that an opportunity for getting info without coming clean about my spying had presented itself, I asked her if she knew where Cole was and what he was doing, trying to be casual about it.
With her expression unreadable, Mary-Alice took to her notepad briefly, then showed me what she'd written. He's out protecting. It's what he does best.
Her response definitely surprised me. It wasn't like I'd expected her to write that Cole was out murdering, but to say that he was out protecting was just such a different descriptor than what he was actually out doing that it really threw me. In fact, I wondered if Mary-Alice actually didn't have a clue what Cole was really out doing, or had been told some made-up story.
Whatever the case, she seemed to want to prevent any further questions from me. Once I'd finished reading and looked up at her, she abruptly got up from the table and quickly began scrawling another note, asking me if I wanted a coffee refill before she left. I said I would, but that I'd get it myself, and that I'd take our muffin plates out to the kitchen, too. After her protesting and me insisting, she finally went to go get dressed. I got another cup of coffee and took my seat at the table again, lost in thought. So lost in thought actually, that I completely failed to realize that I wasn't confined in my room like I was supposed to be, and that Cole would likely be returning home soon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I'd just lifted my second cup of coffee to my lips when Cole suddenly just appeared in the dining room, seeming to have come out of nowhere. I hadn't even heard his footsteps. And as he approached the table, glowering at me, I saw why. He was wearing only socks on his feet, probably having removed his gore-covered heavy black boots at the door.
With his gray eyes appearing to be a shade or two darker than they normally were, he came to a stop by my seat at the table. "Last night, I locked your bedroom door from the outside. How did you get out?"
I swallowed, struggling to maintain eye contact with him. "Magic. I'm a sorcerer, too. Surprise." I'd thought that a little joke might lighten his dark expression, at least a tiny bit, but I'd thought wrong. In fact, Cole went from glowering at me to outright scowling at me with muscles working in his jaw.
"Let's try this again. Last night, I locked your bedroom door from the outside. How did you get out?"
Now I was struggling mightily to maintain eye contact with him. "I...I guess I just...crawled right on out my window."
"Why?"
Looking up into his stormy eyes, I swallowed. "Well...I woke up really early, and I wanted a cup of coffee, but you hadn't unlocked my door yet, so—"
"Let's try this again. Why did you escape your room through the window?"
I just couldn't look up and into his eyes any longer. I'd set my coffee mug on the table, and I now shifted my gaze to it. However, Cole wasn't having this.
"Please look at me, Lauren."
I didn't.
"Please look at me, Lauren, and tell me why you escaped through your window."
Finally feeling compelled to comply, even though I definitely didn't want to, I slowly looked up and into Cole's eyes again, beginning to feel sick to my stomach. "I heard you talking on the phone last night, and this morning, I decided I wanted to spy on you at the clearing. So...I jumped out the window, and I did. I just wanted to find out more about you."
Cole's expression softened just slightly. Just a fraction.
"And you couldn't have just done that by talking to me more today, maybe asking me some questions?"
"No. We seem to fight when I ask you questions, and some questions, you simply refuse to answer, which has made me feel frustrated, confused, anxious, and scared...and even a whole lot of other unpleasant emotions. And even right now, you should know that the angry way you're glaring at me is making me feel sick to my stomach."
With something like a look of pain flickering across his eyes and softening his stern expression greatly, Cole sighed. "I'm sorry. I never want to cause you any kind of emotional distress or pain."
"Well...too late."
He just looked at me for a long moment with clear pain still visible in his eyes, then took his seat next to me, at the head of the table, heaving another sigh. "On my way back to the house, I picked up a trace of your scent near the barn and put two and two together. I just wanted to hear you admit what you'd done, because you shouldn't have done it. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have had to witness what I'm sure you did."
"Well, now that you know that I did, will you at least just please tell me why you did it? Will you just tell me what that man did to deserve death? I'm just desperately hoping that you tell me he did something absolutely terrible, because I...." I paused, debating whether or not I should continue saying the words I was thinking. After a moment or two, I decided to just keep going. "I feel some funny connection with you, Cole...even though I don't really want to be feeling this way about you. And something in my gut keeps telling me that despite kidnapping me, and then killing that man this morning, you're not evil. I just want you to tell me you're not. I just want you to tell me that you had a damned good reason for doing what you did out in the clearing."
With his stern expression now completely gone, Cole looked at me silently for a long moment before speaking. "Come sit on my lap. Only if you want to, but just know that I'd love to hold you in my arms while we continue talking."
Surprisingly, or maybe not, I realized that I actually wanted him to hold me. Badly. I actually wanted a kidnapper and a killer to hold me. However, I suddenly felt shy or something for some reason, and I didn't respond to Cole's invitation, making him repeat it.
"Come sit on my lap if you want to."
Slowly, I got up and began making tentative moves to have a seat on his long, muscular thighs, but before I could complete the action myself, he pulled me onto his lap in one swift motion, causing me to make a little shriek that tapered off into a giggle. "You're lucky that I was actually going to sit on your lap. What if I'd gotten up just to fake you out?"
Cole cracked a devastatingly sexy half-grin. "Then I'd let you up and off my lap right now, considering myself lucky to have stolen at least a couple of moments with you in my arms."
Smiling, I looked into his dark-lashed eyes, thinking how gorgeous they were when they weren't churning with what appeared to be dark, stormy water.
With his expression becoming a bit more sober, he asked me if I was still feeling sick. Having forgotten all about that, I realized that I wasn't and I gave my head a little shake. "Not anymore."
"Good."
Gently tightening his strong arms around me, he brushed a kiss against my lips, and although it was brief, it immediately made me hungry for another. Which I knew would probably lead to me wanting yet another. And who knows what after that. All I knew was that I needed to put a halt to the kissing and get right down to business, so I did.
"Cole...please tell me why you did it."
Now it was his turn to struggle with maintaining eye contact, and after a moment or two, he looked away, toward the table. "Many Angels are good men...strong fighters. But many others of them have a habit of putting their hands on their women in a violent way. It's really something of an epidemic in most Angel communities...here in New Bad Axe, it's not even as bad a problem as it is in most, because we currently have so few women, but...." Exhaling with a near-inaudible sigh, Cole paused. "It's still bad."
"So, is that why you did what you did? Because that man was an abuser?"
"Yes."
"Well...I think committing abuse is a horrible crime...but did you really have to immediately kill the man for it? You couldn't have given him a second chance?"
Cole now returned his gaze to my face, expression one of possible slight exasperation. "I didn't kill him immediately upon his first offense, and he was given not only a second chance, but a third, and a fourth. See, when I first became leader of this community, I decided it was time to clean house and establish some consequences for bad acts. The first time men in this community commit abuse, they're put in our jail for ten days. If it happens again, they're given twenty days. If it happens a third time, they're given thirty days and a choice."
"Which is what?"
"They're given a choice to either leave New Bad Axe and go to another Angel territory voluntarily, or stay here, knowing that the next time they commit an act of abuse, they will be made to fight me, and they will likely be killed. I consider it good justice...because for once, these abusers are made to fight someone of their own size. It's also a good deterrent. After the first of the three times now that I've had to kill an abuser, we had a stretch of six weeks without a single reported incident of abuse."
Relieved immeasurably by everything Cole had just told me, I further relaxed into his arms. "So, the man you killed this morning made the choice to stay here in New Bad Axe? Even knowing that if he abused again, it would probably lead to his own death?"
"Yes. I think that whether consciously or unconsciously, he thought he could do whatever he wanted to his wife, then simply fight me and win, then become leader of the whole village himself or something. Didn't quite work out that way for him."
"No, it didn't."
"And now maybe his wife can enjoy some peace and safety. Maybe even remarry to a man of better quality if she so chooses eventually."
"Well, how does she feel right now? Do you know? Is she relieved that her husband was killed, or...or what?"
"Yes...I think she's relieved on some level, although I also think her feelings about her husband are always going to be conflicted. She says she really loved him in the beginning. But then things quickly turned violent, and the past year or so has been hell for her, by her own admission. Several months before I became leader here, her husband, whose name was Dominic, pushed her down a flight of stairs, making her miscarry their baby. Then, in addition to hitting her with a fist and throwing her against walls, he took to putting cigarettes out on her body. The call I received last night was from one of my men telling me that Dominic had pinned his wife down in the lane in front of their house and had put a cigarette out on the side of her face while several others of my men were running to try to pull him off or zap him off."
> Experiencing a chill, I snuggled a little deeper into the warmth of Cole's hard chest. "That's awful."
Just then, Mary-Alice came out from the kitchen, fresh bouquet of flowers for the table in hand, but she stopped short when she saw Cole and me. Then, with her free hand, she made a motion that I just knew meant carry on, carry on, while simultaneously backing up toward the kitchen.
Cole looked at me with a little smile that quickly faded. "I wish I didn't have to tell you this, but I have to leave for a trip out of town, and very soon."
"What? Why?"
"Because Dominic has a brother, Bennett, who is also an Angel, and I'm expecting some sort of retaliatory trouble from him for what happened earlier. I want to go to the village where he lives, which is called Northwoods, and talk to his group's leader in person. Then, I want to talk to Bennett as well. If he wants to have it out, then I want to do things right there. I don't want him bringing trouble to my doorstep."
"Well...how long will you be gone?"
"Not sure. Northwoods is in the very northernmost part of the state, so it's going to take some travel time, plus however much time is necessary for me to ensure that Bennett won't be causing any trouble for us here. I'll try to return as soon as I can, though. And in the meantime, you'll have Mary-Alice to keep you company, and you can also go out and about in the village to make friends if you'd like.
"There are only a few dozen women here, and I won't deny that some of them come off as a little strange or cold. But some are very friendly and eager for new friends. You might want to meet a woman named Cassie, who's married to my second-in-command, Clark, who, by the way, is going to be in charge of the village while I'm gone, and he'll make sure you stay safe. He's also going to make sure that the North Haven shifters stay the hell away from here. One of their scouts was spotted maybe only a mile south this morning, probably sent by Commander Northrup to try to sniff around and see how easy or hard it might be to rescue you."
