But she found me anyway. Thirteen months later, she found me, far from where she should be. An angel seeking out the devil for help. Exactly what kind of help? I didn’t fucking know.
So I’d wait in this fucking chair until I found out.
I woke up to the sound of coughing. I opened my eyes and saw Cheska wince in pain. Her eyes slowly blinked open. I turned off the main light and put on a lamp so the room wouldn’t be too bright. And I waited. When Cheska’s eyes opened, I watched as confusion wrapped around her. She glanced in my direction, and recognition flashed across her face. Even though she was pale, her cheeks flushed red.
“Arthur,” she whispered, her voice weak.
“Princess,” I said. Her eyes softened at that name.
“What—?” she went to say, then froze, seeming to remember whatever the fuck had happened to her. Her hands started shaking on the bed, then her eyes filled with tears. Her trembling hand covered her mouth, and she flinched, her fingers feeling along her swollen lips.
“They killed them,” she said, voice wracked with pain, and my body tensed. Cheska looked at me, her gaze fucking tortured. “Someone killed my friends in front of me, Arthur. Freya and Arabella. They slit Frey’s throat and stabbed Arabella right through the heart.” A sob ripped from her throat. I couldn’t fucking stand it. Couldn’t stand that horrified sound or the tears in her sad eyes.
I moved off the chair and sat on the mattress beside her. She looked up at my face, hands shaking as she clutched at the duvet. “Hugo, Dad … they’re gone too.”
“Dead?”
She nodded. “Shot.” She started crying, fucking broke, and I got her a glass of water from the bedside table. When her hands were shaking too bloody much for her to hold it, I brought it to her mouth. I held the back of her head and made sure she took a sip.
Cheska pulled the glass away but took hold of my wrist before I could move away. Her fingers were weak as piss around me, but fuck did it make something pull in my bastard gut. “They sent a video to my phone,” she said. She swallowed like she had a lump wedged in her throat. “Of them killing Dad and Hugo.” She sucked in a jagged breath.
Her eyes zoned the fuck out, her thoughts no doubt taking her back to earlier tonight. “Then they came to the spa we were at and captured us. They killed Freya and Arabella in the bedroom but said they were taking me somewhere else. They had other plans for me.” She refocused on me and held my wrist tighter. “Something slow and painful.” Rage consumed me.
Slow and painful …
When I got my hands on the pricks that had done this to her, I’d make sure their deaths were fucking drawn out and agonised.
I could feel my blood start to boil too fucking high, to the point where someone, somewhere, needed to die by my hands for me to calm down. I placed the half-full glass down with my free hand.
“Arthur, they tried to drag me to a van in an alley, but … but I managed to get away.” She sobbed and moved her hold from my wrist to my hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine, and I felt a fucking shock of electricity shoot through me like I’d just been stabbed with a cattle prod.
I went to pull back my hand, needing to keep my fucking distance from her. But she held on tighter. Fucking witchcraft. This bird was the only one in the bloody world that fucked my head up this well. I didn’t hold hands. Only with her. When her fucking witch’s spell had wrapped around me.
“They said Dad and Hugo owed a debt to dangerous people but never paid up. So, they took payment with their lives. With my best friends’ lives.”
Cheska eventually stopped crying, shock clearly settling in. Her grip on my hand tightened. “They’ll be coming for me. They want me as payment. Arthur … they’ll come back for me. They’re not done.”
Her words, mixed with the sheer fucking terror in her hoarse voice, made me want to snap some arsehole’s neck. As she’d spoken every bloody word, I’d felt the fire inside of me scald my fucking flesh until the only remedy would be someone’s blood coating my hands.
She was shaking, and her pupils were blown in fear. “Arthur,” she whispered, and