The Price (House of Sin #5) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,18
was just like my father. Just like the degenerate men in my family. And I’d already broken the only vow that meant anything to Natalie. Not even two days after our wedding. “Just... whatever you do... don’t tell her everything. Let her think it was just... the flogging.”
Marco didn’t respond, and in the silence, dread crept in, sending my adrenaline surging all over again.
My eyes shot open, and I looked up at him, fuzzy in front of me, but kneeling on the bathroom floor, holding my arms. “No.” I shook my head. “Please, tell me you didn’t already—”
“I didn’t.” Marco’s lips thinned, and sympathy filled his dark eyes. “I didn’t have to. She was there, Luc. They made her watch. She saw it all.”
Oh shit. Oh fuck...
My lungs seized. I suddenly couldn’t get air. My skin grew so hot I couldn’t think of anything but clawing it off my body. Couldn’t do anything but double forward and gasp as I felt the fucking chains holding me down all over again, as I heard those chants and voices and—
“Cazzo,” Marco muttered as if from a great distance away. Then louder, “Felicity! I need you! Right now!”
Someone screamed. I heard Natalie’s frantic voice.
Hands closed over my body as I struggled, then I heard Felicity say, “Hold him still.”
Something sharp stabbed into my arm. Voices echoed louder around me, but I couldn’t make out the words. Didn’t know who was speaking. All I knew was darkness. A thankful darkness because it was taking away the memories, making me forget the vile things I’d done.
A darkness some part of me realized had been waiting for me all my life.
This time when I came to, the room was dark.
I also knew exactly what I’d done.
Pain echoed through my back as I moved my legs on the mattress where I was once again lying on my stomach, but it was drown out by the disgust swirling inside me.
“Easy, Luc. Don’t push it this time.”
Marco. Marco fucking Romano. Again.
“Is she in here?” I asked, afraid to move my head, my voice low and gravelly.
“No. She’s in the other room with Fee. It’s just you and me. Thought we should talk before you see her.”
I didn’t want to see her.
Nausea swirled inside me again, but I swallowed it back, knowing I deserved to feel like shit. “I-I need to sit up.”
Marco helped me maneuver to the edge of the bed. I ground my teeth against the pain, knowing I deserved that too.
When I was perched with my feet on the floor and my hands gripping the mattress on both sides of my thighs, I glanced toward the dark floor-to-ceiling windows with red and blue checked curtains that ran all the way to the crown molding above. A single glass lamp on the dresser across the room shone in the darkness. “Where are we?”
Marco moved back to his seat. “Gadleigh Castle.”
Felicity’s family home in Scotland. Fuck me.
“Is Charles here?” Felicity’s father was the head of House Merrick and the Archduke of the Isles. He was a big man, very English, and very proper. And while all my interactions with him over the years had been positive, I wasn’t wild about him seeing me in my current condition. Everything in my world revolved around keeping up appearances and not showing weakness—ever.
“No. Charles and Adelaide are at their home in Wales. His staff cleared out for us.”
“Does the Archduke know he’s harboring a fugitive?” No way my father had approved for me to leave Italy after that ritual. And when he found out House Merrick had taken me in—
“Technically, he’s not.”
When I glanced toward Marco, sitting on the fancy French side chair beside my bed with his elbows resting on his knees, he said, “Charles spoke with your father when we were in the air and got the Grand Duke to agree to give you some time.”
Some time...
Time to get my head on right. To pull myself together. To figure out the only way I could survive was to take it up the fucking ass. Just like twelve years ago.
Except, this time I knew they’d never leave me alone as long as they had before. They wouldn’t leave me alone for six damn months. As soon as the wounds on my back were healed, they’d suck me back into House business and screw with my life all over again.
A familiar hatred for what I’d been born into brewed deep inside me