Jessamine
I get a visitor a few minutes to my…wedding. My gaze lands on Darrock’s and nothing could have held me back. I launch myself at him with whatever little strength I have garnered in the past hour—which is close to nothing and he snatches my wrist before I can impale him with the butterknife I’d stolen from my dinner tray earlier.
“Violet, please,” he rasps. “Listen to me—”
Reaching up, I slam my head into his. He groans, retreating a step back and I see that I have caused no damage except the ache spreading through my head. I stumble in the bid to attack him again and he steadies me before I can fall. “Take your hands off me—” A firm hand clamps down on my mouth, silencing my scream of outrage before it can escape.
“I’m trying to help,” he whispers. “We’re leaving. Now.”
I let him see the response to that in my gaze; Over my dead body will I follow him anywhere.
Darrock glances over his shoulder and when his eyes return to me, they’re troubled. “I know you have questions, and I’ll answer them in—Fuck!” he yells when I bring my knee up as hard as I can, jamming it into his groin. His eyes bulge, like they’re seconds away from exploding, and when he lets go of my arms, I seize hold of the flower vase and smash it into the nape of his neck.
He cusses in old Dawn tongue as he falls toward the floor, his hands the only thing keeping him from being flattened against the floor. Lifting my feet, I aim to kick his head off his neck, but he dodges, catching my foot and fall against him. His hand shoots out before I hit the ground, shielding my belly.
“Stop fighting me!” he yells, but I don’t. I tell him I’ll kill him, and I swear I mean it.
And a feeling of déjà vu takes over when he lifts me off the floor and attempts to hurl me over his shoulder. I knee his chest and he coughs, cussing again. His hands falter and this time, when I fall, I twist to lessen the impact. Still, my shoulder hurts terribly.
“The processions provide enough distraction to get you out! I know you’re mad at me but Raya’s waiting in the carriage for you. She won’t let me leave without you. Hate me all you want but we need to leave right now, Violet, or he’ll find out I’ve incapacitated the guards and Raya—” He chokes on sister’s name. “It’ll have been for nothing!”
My head clears a little, creating a little dent in the anger, and I manage a snarl, “Or you’ll kill me and toss my body in the middle of nowhere!”
“You’re being unreasonable. Why the fuck would I want you dead? I loved you—”
“Fuck your stupid love, you piece of shit. I trusted you once, and I’m here, in the enemy’s home. My life and that of my child’s are in danger because of you. You’re retarded if you think I’ll ever trust you again!”
Guilt and impatience warred in Darrock’s eyes but the latter won the fight. “You don’t have to trust me to let me help. I owe you this.”
“And how, pray tell, do you plan to do that?”
Darrock and I stiffen at the sound of the new voice, and my heart kicks when I raise my head. Atticus leans against the door frame casually, curiosity gleaming in his eyes, and beside him…Raya releases a soft sob as his fingers pull tightly on her braids. “Go on. Tell me how you planned to get past the gates. Surely, it has nothing to do with the dozen I found in place of my elite? How crafty.”
A quick glance at Darrock’s tense shoulders makes my stomach tighten with fear. For him. For Raya. In a split second, Atticus’s expression switches out from amused to livid and when Raya starts to reach for her brother frantically, he tosses her back, into the arms of a waiting guard who takes no time in restraining her. She screams, clawing at him as he purposefully wedges an arm under her breasts and another around her waist, keeping her in place as Atticus strides into the room.
I rush forward, just as he parts his lips to give an order, his eyes cold and unforgiving. “Please,” I say, gripping his wrist. His pauses, his blue eyes dropping to where I have held him. “Don’t…hurt her. She’s a child.”
Trying to use the distraction to his advantage, Darrock throws his full weight into Atticus, knocking him into the wall, and they begin grappling for each other, tearing my room apart as they battle it out. It is over as quickly as it started when Atticus takes a hold of Darrock’s neck and Raya screams when he creates a hole in the wall with Darrock’s head.
Once. Twice. I flinch each time, and when Darrock stops moving, Atticus tosses him aside like a scarecrow. I give Darrock a perfunctory glance that gives nothing of my true feelings away. He’s breathing, barely, and though I tried to kill him only a few minutes ago, I realize I am beyond horrified by the thought of him dying. Raya’s wailing uncontrollably, all of her bravado gone.
Atticus grunts, wiping Darrock’s blood off his fingers. “Take him to the physician. When he is healed, hand him to the warden,” he says to no one in particular, and when two guards march into the room, I begin to wonder just how many of them are outside.
Blood trickles down a small cut off the side of Atticus’s forehead, staining his brown hair, but if he noticed that it dripping down, soiling his metallic gold shirt with black florals embroidered delicately into it, he didn’t show. His blue eyes are fixed on me, the object of his scrutiny, and I hide my terror when he reaches out to me with bloody fingers. He turns my head left and right, a displeased frown carving his mouth. “You’ve bruised yourself, dove.” Must have been the struggle with Darrock. I can’t hide my flinch when he leans in and licks the stinging skin. “You will bear no marks, no bruises but the ones I brand you with.”
My thoughts drift to Kier for a moment. He wouldn’t like that statement at all. My lips wobble a little as emotions flood me, a deep sense of loneliness and longing drowning me. I miss him so much, it hurts.
Atticus pulls away, and upon seeing the emotions in my eyes, he mistakes them for something else. “I won’t hurt her,” he swears to me, sparing Raya a glance. Her red eyes are downcast. Resigned. Exhausted. The guard, Goddess bless his soul, holds onto her tightly, as if every fiber of his being realizes just how fragile she is.
“Killian,” Atticus sighs. “Have her moved to the second floor. It would seem my queen favors her.”
His queen, he says. I would laugh, but I have none of that left in me, so I stay still, watching Raya and the guard leave, watching him walk across my room and retrieve a piece of cloth, with which he wipes my cheeks gently. Atticus confuses me on some days. The thing about psychopaths that makes them deadly is their unpredictable nature. He would backhand me when necessary, roughen me up, and then tend to my injuries with such gentleness, it is hard to believe those hands belong to a monster.
Unhinged. Worse than my mother had been. Lucky, I had experience dealing with insane people, and as I listen to him brief me about what is expected of me at our wedding and apply salve to my wound, I understand what I need to do to get out of here. I need to begin again, using mother’s antics against him like I did with Kier. I’d need to be conniving, convincing. If he cares about me as much as I think he does, it’ll be easier to destroy him.