“It seems all hope isn’t lost after all,” Isabella purred, placing her hand on Atticus shoulder. She stood beside his chair, lending her body against him in a rare display of affection.
“What do you mean?” I asked, before finishing off my wine.
“Lady Chalice. It is no matter, that upset toward her reputation…” Isabella began, only to be hushed when Atticus quickly lay his hand atop her own.
“I have arranged a contract. She is to be unioned if all goes well,” Atticus joyfully boasted.
It seemed like he had benefited from the scandal. An odd glow had taken his features, and he looked like he had just one-upped on a trade agreement.
“I see.” I smiled politely and stood up, not really caring to see anything. His words had my pulse hammering in my ears. All I wanted to do was get as far from the Villa as I could for a few hours.
Chapter Twenty
Rolling Boil
Ender
Breakfast was a disaster. I had never seen a group of people so stiff and riddled with unspoken tension. Fated Few, how I hated drama.
On the other hand, ever since I was small, I possessed the ability to read a room. Little feelers that told me if it was safe, when my mother couldn’t be with us. As drowned as they were with the negative energy, every once in a while, I caught a whiff of something powerful and excruciating. When Chalice turned to leave and planted her hand on my shoulder in farewell, that feeling shot straight to my heart.
I waited until everyone was staring at Messiah, then I clipped the wine bottle from the end of the table on my way out. I was used to Aella’s scorn. Who wasn’t? She was the only one who actually looked forward to being unioned. If I had to guess, I’d say she believed it to be her only chance out without actually being out.
Aella adored the rush of spying and shadow walking. Hers were the only eyes that followed me out of the room.
I’m not sure why, but something told me to check my room first. Sure enough, Chalice was sitting by the window, staring out across the district.
“Do you want to get out of here?” I asked, hefting the bottle.
She looked at me like I had told the worst joke in history. “No one gets out of here. My only options are contract or coffin if I play by their rules, and we both know it.”
As true as her words were, I still cast a look down the stairs behind me before I stepped in and closed the heavy door. It was a butler’s closet before I staked claim to it, so the moment the area was contained I was basked in warmth and her fucking perfume.
I glanced back at the door as memories of last night flashed before me, and I contemplated leaving before I fucked things up worse. I almost did, until she reached out and took the wine. No way in this world or the next would I leave empty handed. The woman had to come off the root or wine… or I could join her. I rubbed the back of my neck and sat down as far away from her as I could. Atticus would kill us for sharing a coffee at this point, I was certain of it.
I pressed on the door assuring it was as tight as it could be and slung the lock. I never used it, but today would be a first, I thought, as I strung the row of wooden beads along the windows. Exotic curtains Isabella had called them. Wind breaks, more like it.
When I finished and turned back around, she was staring at me with raised brow. She shook her head and laughed faintly before hunting for a wick. I opened my mouth to object, but there wasn’t much I could say. I had introduced her to the shit after all.
“You know what? Fuck it, I have a lot to say,” I thought aloud and snatched her wrist. Her eyes bugged, and she almost dropped the pipe.
“What’s wrong with you?” she scoffed, trying to fling her wrist free. “What are you talking about? I didn’t say you couldn’t speak, are you already spent on the stuff?”
I leaned toward her, grabbed the pipe from her hand and threw it on the table before grabbing the arm rest so that she was trapped between me and the sofa.
“You can’t do this. I won’t let you,” I promised her. Trying to keep the growl from my voice was difficult. Things were escalating around House Krypt. The tension amongst us all was building to such a degree I feared the fucking Villa would one day erupt like the Torch of the Sea.
“You won’t let me… I don’t remember asking. Matter of fact, Sir Ender, if I recall… it was you who taught me how to properly enjoy Nirv—”
“Chalice… shut the fuck up and listen to me.” Her expression instantly went vacant save for a deadly flash of amber that sparked behind those honey eyes. I slid my arm off the back of the sofa and used it to softly cup her cheek. The warring within her was palpable. She flinched and wanted to draw away, but finally settled and tolerated my touch as I spoke.
“Hurting yourself and your reputation so you will be made less valuable to him won’t help anything. In fact, it’s something he knows you will do. The same way you ran that breakfast table, he is running you.”
She shoved me, but I held firm to the sofa, returning my other hand to the back of the upholstery.
“Nobody fucking runs me,” she hissed, drawing up from the couch a bit. Our faces were inches from each other, and I’d never wanted to kiss her so badly, but I knew if I tried, I’d probably end up with my lips chewed off.
“Let me help make that a half true statement?” I proposed, keeping my head tipped and my gaze on her. Together, surely, we could think of some plan to end or escape the madness.
She shoved at my chest and tried to rise up against me, but I stilled her with a kiss to the cheek. She froze, grabbing the arm rest right next to where I held it. Her knuckles strained, and I knew her expression all too well. The contempt, disgust and yearning. We all felt it from time to time.
“Why are you toying with me?” she asked in a low barely restrained voice.
“I’d never,” I answered quickly and honestly.
“Bullshit. You buy me gifts and look at me like you do. You threw Kantor around all over the Sip Room…” I smiled, unable to help it. Was that how she recalled it? He had given as good as he got, but I wouldn’t correct her memory.
“Why are you fucking smiling?” She shoved me again, catching me off guard. I started to slide and caught it, lowering myself to the floor in a controlled fashion. She started to move, and I kissed her leg. She stilled and stared at me while her legs shook ever so subtly.
“You can control a room, but what happens when you get your target alone? Hmm?” I kissed her other knee and used my cheeks to nudge her legs apart. The distraction almost worked, until it didn’t.
“And that makes you happy?”
“What? No! I don’t know why I was smiling.” It seemed I would never be able to focus with her around. I reached for her, grabbed her waist and slid her toward me, pinning her once again but in a much more personal way. “You make me happy… but you also fucking terrify me.”
“Why… what about me could possibly intimidate you?” She mockingly laughed.
I stared at her with the same skeptical expression she had held me to. I started to release her, suddenly keen to sit back, but she wrapped her hands around my neck and forced me closer.
“Chalice,” I warned.
“Ender,” she mocked. “What? What about me could possibly leave you shaking in your boots and hiding from me in the night?”
“I hide from shit and nothing in the night,” I quipped, flaring up a bit. “He will use anything I love against me. I can’t risk—”
“Can’t risk... Are you really going to blame your fear of commitment on House Krypt?”
“I’m not afraid of commitment. I’m afraid he will throw you in Lake Last just like he did his own daughter. Do you know what he would do if he suspected?”
“If he suspected what?” she cried, thumping her hands against my shoulders.
“That I fucking love you!” I hissed back without thinking about it. A knock thundered at the door beside me. I felt the fucking blood drain from my face, about the same time as her nails sank into my shou
lder.
“Ender,” she whispered, all but curling against me. We both knew there was no way Isabella could rattle the door like that.
“Open up. Now!” Atticus barked on the other side, confirming what we already knew.
She hid her face against my chest as I stared at the shadow of legs that peeked from beneath the door. Her hand spanned my cheek, pulling my face down toward hers. Her lips began to brush and plant against my own. A faint flicker of her tongue inspired me to kiss her back, but I couldn’t have taken my eyes off the door if I wanted to. Not in that moment, anyhow.
“It’s too late. He already knows we’re both in here,” she whispered against my ear, engulfing me in that heady perfume of hers. I turned toward her and the truths that she was spilling, but before I could reason, she began to graze her teeth along my throat. “Are you going to let me go to Lake Last over a kiss?”
My hand shot to her throat, before I could stop myself. I didn’t think, I just reacted, I wanted no part of those thoughts. Her lips and scent had kept them at bay for a minute. The door rattled with what sounded like all his weight, but it hadn’t splintered. She was right. He knew we were both in here. I didn’t know how, but I knew one way or another, we would be made to pay.
She was his. We all were.
Chalice
Atticus raged against the door, and Ender’s hand pumped at my throat, every so often I could feel the tremble in his touch. I watched through glossed eyes as the storm played behind them. It made a smile stain my lips, and my breath quicken.
I saw him in that moment. Not the slick criminal or the drug peddler or even the warrior he had proven to be. In that instant, I saw the caged creature Atticus was tormenting. The terrified child he had hidden in there, the browbeaten young man, and the love-starved monster he had been made into as an adult.
That creature who had been made as cold as the darkest crevices of House Krypt, was cornered and bared. It was what convinced me his words weren’t some rhetoric the Krypt had taught him. The louder and more profane things became on the other side of the door, the higher my hem travelled.
With his hand still on my throat, he guided me back until the pillows of the sofa caught me. His body swam over mine. He bit and licked his way across my neck and chest. Every stolen moment and caress spiked my pulse and heightened my senses in a way that only the forbidden could. The same hand that had done so much damage down at the Sip Room caressed and clutched my ass until I was squirming against him, oblivious to the still present hand on my throat.
A quick flicker of his tongue against my thigh made my pulse soar until it kept time with the manic thundering of the door. All I could do was gasp when the same quick stroke found its way up the center of my folds and planted a kiss at the top. My legs instinctively clenched and hugged him into a headlock.
His thumb feathered over the pulse point on my throat reminding me to breath and to allow him to do the same. The door rang with a final snap, and I screamed a high-pitched sound that turned into a poorly muffled moan.
Atticus stomped down the stairs, and Ender’s magical mouth gently sucked my core. I knew Painted Ladies knew tricks. This had to be one of them, not that it stopped me from lifting my hips against the lashing of his tongue. They could call me whatever the fuck they wanted, as long as he didn’t stop.
Somehow, I forgot about Atticus. I lost track of my surroundings and everything except the foreign delicious things he was doing to me. My legs had begun shaking some time ago. His hand slid from neck to my breast where he claimed and crushed it while lapping against my clit with firm, merciless strokes.
I began to buck, chasing a maddening sensation that I had no name for, my body quaked from the excruciating yet exquisite overload. His hands anchored my hips, forcing me to yield to his mouth and whatever dark art this was.
I cried out, likely promising him the moon and the stars while I melted against his mouth and shattered beneath his grip.
I couldn’t open my eyes. Everything felt like it was spinning. Even when it had stopped, I didn’t know how to look at him. Not that it mattered. As soon as I opened my eyes, my entire attention shot to the shadow on the balcony across the street.
It was Atticus, with that fucking looking glass.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Preparation
Chalice
I awoke with an ache in my neck that even the Fated Few couldn’t have inspired. Half the night had been spent having nightmares of Atticus tossing me into a lake of acid, the other half I spent practically suffocating between Ender and the fucking sofa.
I was certain that Atticus would find a hatchet or an axe and turn the door to firewood, but it never happened. Daylight turned to noon and still there was no sign of him or anyone else.
“What do we do?” I whispered, like someone might hear us conspiring over the sound of people coming and going on the street below.
“We can’t stay here all day. Atticus is all about pretenses anyhow. Maybe he won’t say anything until he can catch us alone?” Ender mused, running a hand through his hair. “Are you sure that’s what you saw?”
He’d asked me that a hundred times throughout the night and the past few hours. I nodded as I had all the other times and nibbled on my lip as I considered what he said.
“Come on,” he insisted, making the choice for me. He stood up and wiggled his fingers in an offer to help me do the same. I allowed but hesitated a moment before following him out the door.
We moved in silence through the house, him dropping my hand the moment we were at the bottom of the staircase. We rounded the corner and noise trickled from the kitchen. His hand shot out like a mote and caught me in the gut.
“If they ask… you will say that I forced you to suck the Nirvana Root. That I tricked you,” he quickly rambled. I shook my head and he turned on me, just as he had the Dock Master, and my heart jumped into my throat. “You will tell them you were drugged, Chalice, do you understand?”
I shoved him away from me and staggered backward a few paces.
“No,” I firmly told him, hurrying to place some distance between us. He didn’t run after me, and I was glad for it; I didn’t want him to see the hurt and confusion that had been weighing on me. He really expected me to watch him suffer while I pleaded innocence? If I did that, I wasn’t worth the love he professed to have held for me.
I slowly made my way to the jail, moving through the crowd with my head down and my vision blurred. Over the months, I’d grown somewhat used to the whispers that escorted me through the public areas. Today in my prickled state, I heard each one of them, which only brought painful memories of my first day with Reverie. Was this what things had felt like for her? Things had closed in and she was too sweet to thrive in such conditions, I was sure of it.
I claimed a rugged breath of the waterside air and threw the door to the jail open. Instead of Messiah sitting at the desk, Isabella sat with her legs folded properly and a wine glass in her gloved hand.
“Isabella…” I whispered on a gasp. I struggled to keep the shock from reaching my face, so I ended up rambling. “Where… um, where’s Messiah?”
“With his intended, I would imagine,” she purred, sitting up all the straighter. Diamonds glittered in her hair when she tipped her head, forcing one to give her a second glance.
“Is that meant to hurt me? It’s almost as desperate as that bid for attention you’ve placed on your head.” The venom leapt from me, without thought or care. I wouldn’t be Reverie, nor would I let her death go without notice. I called them out for her. “I’ll not be his fucking boon, and I can play the same games as you. I can play them better.”
It was a ludicrous assertion, but I pictured my mother and her outlawry when I said it. I held my head high and stared down at her with enough confidence that it made her shut up and afford me a second sizing.
Be that woman. Don’t pretend. Don’t try. Be. Her.
The same conscience that roared so loudly when I tri
ed to disguise myself or pull one over back in my herb peddling days screamed and insisted. I wanted to run, but instead, I imagined my spine to be as stiff and straight as steel. I pictured my eyes the way Messiah had described them. She would be forced to see me as he did, if I had anything to say about it.
She shifted and sat her wine aside. Her feet were shifting toward the door, and I knew she would stand before she did. She was rattled. I stepped with confidence, allowing the spiked slippers to clip crisply against the floor.
“Truly… that was uncalled for.” She flinched and tried to bring her hand to her throat. Just as Messiah had said, some mediocre criminals paint their voice into a more vulnerable tone when they wish to instill such a belief in a victim. I was through being her victim. I’d never be anyone’s victim, even if it meant I had to be as cold and ruthless as her. Even as I told myself that, I knew it wasn’t true.
“Stop it, Isabella. You’re insulting both of us. We’re both mature women. Adults. These childish games are beneath us,” I hissed.
“I do not play games, Chalice. I come out of love for you.” Isabella sighed and averted her eyes in an attempt to play the submissive. “Please do not take your hurt out on me. It is Atticus. He is the one who arranged all of this. I had no say in Messiah’s matter and well, with yours I only knew once it was all set.”
“My what?” I laughed, she truly was good, trying to distract me. Any moment the sting of a blow would come. I listened to the waves to see how long it took her.
“Your contract, dear.”
I laughed, but the flicker of a smile at the edge of her lips told me it was true. My head was starting to hurt. Was she with me or against me? Could I trust her… No!
“Who?” I shook my head and stared at her long and hard. “Who would have me after…”
“Yes, well. You and Ender will pay for your thievery, even my Lisette didn’t escape that comeuppance,” Isabella said with a hefty dose of poorly imitated compassion.
Chasing the Night (The Krypt Series Book 1) Page 17
