Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
I bite my lip and glance into the next few rooms. Nothing but storage. Okay, so maybe there’s nothing else to find anyway. It’s just a basement after all. I’m surprised by a flash of disappointment.
When I come to the end of the hallway, I flip another light and gasp. It opens to an arched stone vestibule that’s frankly fucking stunning. I step in, my eyes on the intricate corbels and vaulted ceiling so that it takes me a moment to take in what the room is being used for.
But finally my eyes drop back down to the huge open room…and all the very familiar equipment carefully set out on a neat array of lab tables.
Computers hum at several stations. There’s a lab-grade DNA sequencer off to the left, set up incongruously beside a gothic stone column. My feet take me towards one of several electron microscopes and my inner lab geek takes over. I pull on lab gloves from a box underneath the table and then sit down at the little stool in front of one of the machines. I grab a slide from a set labeled ‘specimens’ and put it underneath the microscope.
It’s a blood sample and when I turn on the microscope light and put my eyes to the eyepiece, the sight through the viewfinder is so familiar I gasp.
Battleman’s? He’s studying Battleman’s disease?
I jerk back, bewildered. I don’t understand. If he’s interested in finding a cure for Battleman’s—Belladonna’s research is the best hope for a cure. Why would he interrupt my research like this? Potentially derail all our efforts and shut down our company? None of it makes any sen—
“What the hell are you doing here?” A roar comes from behind me.
I swing around on my stool. The Beast is towering behind me, the same way I entered the room.
I stand up. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you tell me you’re studying Battleman’s? Why would you endanger my research? If you care about a cure, then you have to let me continue my—”
“Silence!” he shouts, the part of his face not covered by the mask red with rage. It’s only then I start to realize the depth of my misstep and back away from him. Which is also apparently the wrong move because he only glowers at me and starts in my direction.
“You think you can run from me? You violate my privacy, take what’s not yours as if it’s your right? You’re just like the rest of them after all!”
“That— That’s not fair!” I sputter. “This disease killed my mother—”
“And you own the patent on suffering,” he sneers. “I forgot.”
“You’re twisting everything I say!” I shout back. It’s not fair. I was— I was just—
His eyes burn with dark fire and when his chest heaves up and down, it reminds me of a mountain—no, a volcano—and he looks like he’s about to blow. “I think it’s time for another lesson reminding you exactly where your place is.”
And shit, as soon as his words sink in—
I run.
I just run. There’s no thinking involved. It’s fight or flight and all I apparently have the capacity for at the moment is flight.
I run the opposite direction out of the huge room. I don’t know where I’m going. Obviously there’s no thinking involved. Do I really think I can outrun the Beast? In his own fucking house? What the hell? What the hell what the hell what the hell? I manage to slam a light switch as I head into another corridor.
I careen down the long hallway, vaguely registering that the corridors correspond to the two wings of the castle above. Or am I just hoping that they’re mirrors of each other and that there will be a stairwell at the end of this corridor, too? Yes, yes, I’m definitely hoping that.
“Don’t you dare run!” the Beast roars from behind me. “It’ll only be worse once I catch you!”
Oh fuck. I sprint faster, going all out, balls to the wall for the door at the end of the long hallway. I make the fatal mistake of looking over my shoulder. Oh fuck!
He’s halfway down the corridor and gaining. I yank on the door, sure it’s going to be locked. And sure enough, it doesn’t open.
“No,” I cry, and yank again. This time the door budges with a squeal of old hinges. Not locked! Just really old and probably warped in its frame. I wrench the door with my whole body and it opens. Just in time, too, because though I don’t look behind me again, I can hear the Beast’s footsteps and he’s almost on top of me.
I don’t bother searching for a light switch this time, I just flee up the stairs. There’s no window in this stairwell so I’m running in the pitch dark but I don’t care. I run faster than I’ve ever run before, taking the steps two at a time. But he has much longer legs than me and I know he’ll catch up with me any second.
When I reach the first landing, I yank open the door and throw myself through. He’s right behind me and, in for a penny in for a pound, I grab the closest thing I can find, a wing-backed chair, and shove it in front of the door.
The Beast immediately slams into the door right behind me and I screech. Should I try to put something else in front of the door or just keep running. He slams the door again and the chair topples.
I take off through the sitting room, chancing one glance back over my shoulder, sure he’ll be right on top of me.
But when he toppled the chair, it landed on its side and wedged itself in the corner and blocked the door! He can’t get the door open more than a few inches, no matter how many times he rams it with his huge body.
At least that’s what I think…until the chair splinters and he bursts through. Shit, he’s strong.
What the hell was I doing yesterday, letting myself cuddle up to such a violent man? He’s blackmailing my father. He tied me down yesterday. This is not normal or sane.
I keep running. I have to get the hell out of this place. Screw everything I thought was keeping me here. This guy’s a madman. He’s fucking chasing me down like an animal. He’s been lying to me. He wants things I don’t understand, can’t comprehend. I can’t do this, any of this—
I see an exit, two double doors made of colorful panes of glass. Now that I’m back above ground, I can hear that the thunderstorm I suspected earlier is now in full swing. Lightning flashes through the windows. Good. Maybe it’ll distract the Beast and I’ll be able to get away. I need all the camouflage I can get.
I grab the long-handled knob and push through the door and out into the storm. It’s mid-morning but the dark clouds overhead make it look like forbidding twilight. Rain lashes my face but I don’t stop. I run down the stone steps and into a vast garden.
At least I think it’s a garden… Until I stumble and slip on the mud as I enter through an iron lattice archway and find myself in…another fucking labyrinth.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I shout into the rain right as thunder booms overhead. But maybe I can hide inside, wait out the storm, and then escape? That’s totally a possibility, right? Right?
In the heat of the moment, it makes sense to my frenzied mind, and besides, I’m already running and stumbling through the maze of bushes.
Rose bushes. They’re freaking rose bushes. A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me. Of course they’re rose bushes. Sagging under the weight of the raindrops. Red and white and pink blossoms flash on the periphery of my vision as I continue to rush headlong deeper into the labyrinth, turning left and then right, right, choosing at random whenever I come to a fork in the path.
“Daphne!” I hear the Beast’s shout somewhere behind me, barely audible above the storm. “Stop this. It’s not safe out here. Call out to me and we’ll go inside!”
I scramble forwards at the sound of his voice, right into a rosebush. Thorns tear at my flesh and I yank back, only scratching myself worse as I try to disentangle myself from the brambles. The pain only adds to the sense of disorientation from the storm and the crazy adrenaline pumping through my veins. I stumble back and start running again. I thought adrenaline was supposed to make my mind think clearer. Where’s my fucking clarity?
I don’t know how long I k
eep running and stumbling through the maze but I never come to the end of it. I’m probably going in circles without even knowing it.
“Daphne! Stop this! It isn’t safe, let me—” Thunder drowns out the rest of whatever he says. But he sounded closer than before.
I look over my shoulder…and my sweater catches on another rose bramble. Dammit! I rip my sweater to get away, again the thorns tear at my flesh. Lightning flashes right overhead and almost simultaneously, thunder booms.
That means the storm’s right on top of us. I come to another fork in the path, sheets of rain coming down so hard that even if I hold my hand over my eyes, I still barely make anything out. The squelching mud beneath my feet tugged off my socks a long time back and my toes sink into the freezing mire.
I blink, suddenly dizzy, and so, so cold. How long have I been out here? My chattering teeth are a rat-a-tat-a-tat snare drum in my head. Have I ever been warm in my life? With the rain lashing me from above, and the sinking mud from below, it’s suddenly hard to remember if I have.
Maybe when my mother was alive. But she’s been gone a long time.
Dead. She’s been dead a long time. Cold in the ground. She’s so cold and I did nothing to save her.
I failed her. I’m still failing her. I’m failing everyone. I try so hard but it doesn’t matter. Every day I wake up and think, maybe this will be the day, but it never is and now— Now—
I sink to my knees in the mud, and then lower. I drop my forehead to the mud, the forceful rain lashing my head from above forcing me even lower. Maybe I’ll just finally join her and give up all this struggling. I can only fight for so long.
And suddenly all the fight’s gone out of me. I’m as weak as a kitten. Even the thought of trying to get back up again and take another step feels like trying to climb Mount Olympus.
The cold creeps up my legs, from the outside in. I’m coming home, Mom. I’m sorry.
I close my eyes and give in to the cold.
“Daphne! Oh gods!”
And then suddenly, I’m being lifted, I’m flying. Is this what it’s like when the gods pick you up to carry you to heaven? Will I wake in the Elysian Fields with my mother, finally at peace? A smile crosses my face.
And then I pass out.
Twelve
Beast
I sprint with her back into the house. She weighs nothing in my arms. Insubstantial. Beautiful and precious even covered in mud, more precious, because her shivering and clacking teeth mean she’s still with me.
I run with her up the main staircase and straight to the bath. I cradle her in my arms as I start the shower in the corner. It’s custom made, big enough for two with double shower heads. I turn on both of them to full blast. As soon as the water is even moderately warm, I climb in with her. We’re both wearing clothes and filthy but I don’t care.
Nothing matters except getting her warm.
“Come on, baby,” I whisper, rubbing my hands up and down her arms. “Come on, warm up for me. Can you hear me? Give me a nod if you can hear me.”
Her eyes open to mere slits but she nods as steam starts to fill the bathroom when the water finally heats. I run my hand under the jet of water.
“Fuck,” I hiss. Too hot. I don’t want to send her into shock, either, so I turn down the temperature. We should go slow.
I turn it to a moderately hot temperature and then arrange her under the spray. She jerks and tries to turn away from it but I hold her steady. “Shh, it’s alright. Everything’s gonna be alright now. I’ll take care of you. I swear it. Just give into the warmth. Let it seep into you.”
And it’s like those are the magic words, or maybe it's just my voice she’s responding to, because she turns and curls into my arms like it's the most natural place in the world for her to be. My breath hitches but I don’t stop.
I peel her soaked, filthy sweater off over her head and she lets me, then curls right back into my chest. And then she just nestles there. Like I’m her safe place in the storm.
Ha. Right. She ran away from you into the storm.
If she’d been out there even five more minutes… What the fuck was she thinking?
But I know, don’t I? I remember the look of fear on her face before she turned and fled—and that after standing up so magnificently to me, with that fire I want to harness and flame even hotter, to show her all she can be—all they never let her be. Her father has stifled and straight-jacketed her for her entire life.
And then to find her, curled up and nigh unto death in the garden, my beloved labyrinth where I’ve spent so many hours cultivating my precious roses…
I want to rage. I want to throw things and roar and scream.
But not while I have such precious cargo in my arms. I hold her to me and rub her back as the mud sluices out of her hair, the powerful water cleaning her.
And that’s when I notice that it’s not just mud swirling down the drain. There’s blood, too. I pull back from her and she lets out a little whine of protest, but I have to see what she’s done to herself.
“You’re hurt!” Long scratches wind up and down her arms.
She looks down at herself impassively and shrugs. “The rose thorns. It’s fine.” And then she flashes her big, luminescent green eyes at me. “I don’t mind the pain sometimes. My mom used to say that feeling pain meant she was still alive. It’s why she loved roses. They always come with thorns. Beauty plus pain. They were her.”
Then her eyes blink woozily and her forehead collides with my chest again. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“That’s right, honey. That’s good. I’m going to know everything about you. But first, let’s get you clean and warm.”
She nods into my chest, so much shorter than me that her head only comes up to the bottom of my chin.
My chest squeezes, and not just because she’s wrapped her arms around me. I’ve never— I mean, this isn’t what I was— I’m supposed to be the one—
“You’ll never be cold again,” I lean over and murmur into her hair, and she nods again, like she believes me.
Thirteen
Daphne
When I wake up, it’s the middle of the night and I’m shivering in spite of the fact that there are blankets piled on top of me.
“Daphne?”
It’s him. The Beast. The same one I ran from earlier today. Gods, I’m so cold. My teeth are still chattering. I can’t remember why I ran. I think he yelled and it all seemed scary? Or maybe I was scared of myself? All the things he’s made me feel since coming here?
“S-so c-cold,” I manage to get out through clattering teeth.
The fire is blazing in the corner. Even without glasses or contacts, I can make out that much. And when he moves from the chair by the fire, I can see his dark, hulking form moving closer to the bed.
But I’m not afraid. Not now and maybe not ever again. Not of him. Not of the man who brought me in from the cold and so tenderly held me and washed the mud out of my hair. Who tucked me in bed and murmured to me in that deep, rumbling voice of his the entire time. I don’t even remember the words he said, just the deep, reassuring bass of it.
A giant, cool hand presses against my forehead and I wince. I’m trying to get warm here, and he touches me with his freezing hand. I pull away.
“You’re burning up,” he rumbles. Of course I am. My immune system was depressed from stress and no sleep and the stint in the tower, and then a run in the freezing rain…
I frown groggily and peek one eye open at him. Then I squint. I don’t even remember closing my eyes. Huh. Funny.
He starts to pull away and walk out of the room.
“No!” I sit up in bed and hold out a hand to stop him, then the room whirls dizzily. I grab my head and wince. Ugh, my head feels full of cotton and I’ve got a deep, thudding headache.
“Don’t go,” I still manage to grind out. And then, more plaintively than I’d probably prefer if I were feeling one hundred percent, “Don’t leave me alone.”<
br />
But I feel like crap, so even as I collapse back onto my pillow, I still hold out a wan hand. The scratches on my arm are looking better, the healing salve he rubbed on earlier doing its work. “Please. Stay.”
And then I lose the fight to hold up my arm and it drops to the bed, too.
He hesitates a moment in the doorway like he’s second-guessing himself but then he comes back to the bed and sits beside me. I nestle against his hip. He radiates warmth.
“You’re so warm. Lay down beside me?” I murmur. “I just need to get warm.” A shiver wracks its way down my spine.
“What we need is to get your fever down.”
Then he does the last thing my feverish brain expects. He leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. Every muscle in my body relaxes at the contact of his lips against my overheated skin. It feels so right.
He moves to rise again and my hand shoots out, shackling his wrist. And then he kisses my hand. “I’ll be right back, beautiful rose. And if you’re a good girl and take your medicine, then I’ll stay with you through the night.”
“In bed with me?” I’m using the last of my energy to hold onto his wrist, but it feels like the most important thing in the world to wrest this promise from him before he goes.
“Maybe so.” Another whisper of a kiss to my forehead and then he’s gone, and the whole world seems like it's gone cold.
It feels like an hour before he finally returns, but he does come back. With a tall glass of water and a couple of pills.
I try to take the cup, but my strength almost immediately fails me and water sloshes out of the cup and onto my blanket. But he’s right there to grab the cup before I drop it completely.
“Here,” I’ve got it, he says calmly. Then he helps me sit up, cradling my back to tilt me up, and he lifts the rim of the glass to my lips.
“Take a sip first,” he murmurs, and I do. The water is cool, but it feels good slipping down my throat. When he holds out one pill, I obediently stick out my tongue without waiting for instruction. His lips curve up and I watch the edge of his mask thoughtfully as he places the pills on my tongue and then lifts the glass to my lips again.
Billionaire’s Captive: A Beauty and the Rose Box Set Page 8
