A Wife for the Torturer

by Daniella Wright

  Chapter 13

  Family

  Markus

  Ellen left my room not long after our brief cuddling moment. She feigned tiredness, but I knew she was craving some time alone after what we’d just witnessed from Paul and Patty. Thankfully, the planet was now thoroughly burnt to a crisp and the Rogues had steered us on a course away from the disturbing sight of the old couple’s fantasy of an entire world being destroyed by poisonous flames.

  I laid on my bed, willing sleep to come, but it wouldn’t.

  Then, for the first time since I set foot on the Rogues’ airship, the small communication device on my wrist dinged with a message. I was surprised it was still working, as far as we were from my home planet and original timeline.

  The tiny screen lit up blue in the darkness and I frowned. Usually, I only got messages from my friends when there was a new party invitation making the rounds, but the name of the person sending it didn’t belong to any of my partners in debauchery.

  It was my sister.

  Lilia. The eighth heir, the fourth sister. Just as unimportant and forgettable as I was, but somehow more loyal to our family than anyone with that status should be. I’d never been particularly fond of her. It had always been difficult for me to stomach the sight of her scrambling for attention and affection from the rest of the family her entire life. It was a shame; because we were so close in age, as well as the last two in line for the throne, we should have gotten along. Though I supposed I didn’t hate her the way I hated my brother Jack or my asshole of an uncle.

  Still, she was on my list of family members to kill in the ruined timeline.

  With a sigh, I read through her message.

  Markus, it read. Where have you gone now?

  I snorted. Questions like that hadn’t been asked of me in over a decade. No one bothered to care where I disappeared to; in fact, it would be even stranger if I stuck around at the family castle for prolonged periods of time. The fact that Lilia was sparing even a second of her time to ask me where I was suggested that something out of the ordinary was happening.

  Usually, I wouldn’t respond to any message from my siblings, but I was alone on an airship barrelling toward a timeline in which I was planning on cutting the throats of those very siblings.

  And I was bored. Though it had only been a handful of days, I’d grown used to Ellen’s company. It was nice to have someone to talk to and bounce my ideas off of.

  I typed out a quick reply back to Lilia. On a trip. Why?

  Lilia’s response came more quickly than I expected. Mother went to find you after dinner and you were already gone. You’re not in the tabloids like you usually are. Thought you fell off the face of the planet or something.

  Though she couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes. Miss me?

  Hardly, she messaged back. Mother asked me to reach out.

  So, suddenly the Queen cared about the whereabouts of her ninth child. My first instinct was to think that something was wrong, or that someone had even died. But, Lilia wouldn’t be the one to reach out to me if that were true, nor would she start off the conversation the way she did.

  For whatever reason, my mother was checking up on me. She hadn’t done it in years, but maybe her maternal instincts were kicking in. Perhaps she could tell that something wasn’t quite right with her sixth son, wherever he was in the universe.

  I wondered idly if she discussed it not only with Lilia, but with my father, too. The King rarely spared me a glance, much like the crown Prince Ry, but the thought that he may have had the fleeting question of where I might be, or even if I was okay, made my stomach squirm uncomfortably.

  I blamed Ellen. I’d admitted to her that she made me want to be a good person, and that was true. I definitely wanted to be a good person. I could see the light inside Ellen, the way it made her glow from the inside and the way she emanated such a beautiful energy to the rest of the world. It was mesmerizing. I knew that, when people looked at me, they saw a dark Prince. Dark eyes, dark soul, dark intentions. They would never glance my way and feel an entire ocean of hope and purity wash over them.

  That was how I felt when I looked at Ellen.

  I rolled onto my side and stared angrily into the darkness.

  One last time, I glanced at the communication device, still glowing faintly in the shadowed room. I’ll be home soon, I sent to Lilia. I didn’t feel like offering any more information than necessary. The truth was, I suddenly wasn’t sure if I was going to stay on this airship for the rest of the week in order to stick around and follow through with my plan to end the lives of my family members in a timeline scheduled for destruction by the Time Agents. Part of me wanted to simply give up on the whole venture entirely and just get on my personal ship and head back home.

  But, the latter option meant that I’d be leaving Ellen. I’d be leaving her to deal with her plan for ending the Rogues by herself. And it wasn’t that I didn’t think she could handle it on her own… Rather that I just really wanted to be around to see the look on Lee’s face when his newest time-lost toy stabbed him in the back and turned him in to the feds. I knew Ellen could do it. She was smart and quick. She was a survivor.

  She was fierce, too. Brilliant. Incredible.

  Though I didn’t think myself capable of the emotion, it almost seemed to me as if I loved her.

  With a huff, I flopped over onto my back again, glaring up through the blackness.

  Love.

  It was a foolish concept. The idea that someone could have such a strong romantic attachment to someone that they would do something as silly as pledge their lives and loyalty to them.

  And, yet… I yearned for Ellen. I was enamored with her, fascinated by her. I could hardly stop thinking about her, and the thoughts were always colored by an undeniable affection that was unlike any emotion I’d felt before, even as a foolish teenage boy. The thought of seeing her hurt made me feel murderous. But, it wasn’t just a basic protectiveness I felt for her. No, that kind of feeling came from something much deeper.

  “Well, fuck,” I muttered to myself.

  Maybe I did love her.

  But, how could you love someone after knowing them for only a handful of days?

  Perhaps that was how it worked sometimes. I was hardly an expert, after all.

  All I knew was that I wanted her.

  Without thinking too much about it, I yanked off my communication device and tossed it onto the rumpled sheets. If any more of my family members felt the need to act completely out of character and attempt to contact me, they could wait.

  I stood up, shuffling through the shadowed room for my boots and the nearest clothes I could reach.

  When I opened the door to my room and stepped out into the hallway, I thought briefly of when Ellen mentioned the security cameras that were installed throughout the Rogues’ airship. The fact that Lee had been watching us in the common room, sharing that moment that had felt so private, made me want to punch him in the face. Actually, it made me want to punch him in the face several times.

  In the dimly-lit hallway, I glanced around, unable to locate any cameras, but feeling hyper-aware of the fact that I was probably being watched. I was sure Lee would be entertained to see where I was heading.

  I swallowed hard and forced Lee out of my head. What I was about to do was either going to be the best or worst decision I’d ever make. I needed to focus.

  Her room was on the opposite side of the ship.

  The halls were deserted. The rest of the dark tourists had, at this point, retired to their rooms to relish in the successful adventures they’d had in their own timelines, probably even recording it in order to reminisce on the moments in the future. At least, that’s what I imagined the others were doing. Other than Rosa, of course, who was busy with mothering a newborn. And Zik, who was, presumably, still busy torturing the nine humans who were kidnapped alongside Ellen from her original timeline.

  The Rogues were either all in the command center or sleeping in
their private quarters.

  I didn’t run into anyone on my way across the ship.

  When I finally reached Ellen’s closed door, I paused.

  She was probably sleeping. She’d been through so much in the last week, it was a wonder she hadn’t dropped from the pressure; she deserved every minute of sleep she could manage. Recognizing that clued me in further to the fact that I cared for her deeply.

  But, could I tell her that? Could I, Prince Markus, demonic dragon bad boy from the formidable Alin bloodline, actually utter the word love aloud?

  Even if I could, there was no way Ellen felt the same way. She was too good to care for someone like me. She had admitted to liking the kiss we shared, and she seemed determined to convince me not to be a killer for the sake of my own mental health, but someone like her could hardly ever love someone like me.

  I was an idiot.

  I groaned quietly and leaned against the wall outside her room, and then sank down onto the cold, metal floor. Resting my elbows on my knees, I dropped my head into my hands.

  If Lee was watching from the security cameras, he’d probably be cackling to himself. Poor Princeling, he’d think, reduced to a pathetic sack of bones outside a pretty human girl’s bedroom because he didn’t have the balls to knock on the door and tell her how he felt.

  He’d be right.

  Silently, I lifted my head and leaned it back against the cool metal. Closing my eyes, I imagined Ellen on the other side of the wall. Asleep, peaceful. Maybe even dreaming. I wondered idly if her eyelashes fluttered in her sleep when she dreamt. I wondered what she dreamt about.

  I stayed there, sitting outside her bedroom in the dark and quiet. I was frozen there, unable to bring myself to leave her, but just as equally incapable of standing up and knocking on her door to tell her what I desperately knew I should.

  With a jolt, I realized that nearly everything I’d ever wanted in life came to me easily. It was one of the many privileges of growing up a royal. All I really ever had to do was snap my fingers and whatever I wanted would be handed to me on a silver platter, even as the ninth heir. But it wasn’t like that with Ellen. She wasn’t the kind of thing I could have so easily, with no effort at all. Every girl I’d bedded had been so easy to seduce; a blink of my eyes and any woman I’d wanted would fall apart in my hands.

  Ellen felt more important than that. She felt like someone that I wanted to work for. Someone that I wanted to earn.

  And yet, I still could not bring myself to stand up. I was a coward.

  Chapter 14

  Pathways

  Ellen

  Part of me knew that I was dreaming.

  Still, it all felt so real.

  I was a child again, the world around me large and surprising. My limbs were small and skinny, clumsy with the newness of a child bursting out of their toddler stage and into something fresh and full of wonder. I looked down at my feet, at the little pink sneakers on them, and noticed that I was pedaling a small bicycle. I recognized it immediately. It was a little yellow tricycle that my father had taken the wheels off of after I’d thrown a fit, insisting that I was ready for just two wheels.

  Around me, the world was green. I was in Central Park, surrounded by lush trees and beautiful bursts of color from all the flora blooming in the magic of mid-spring. Far off, I could hear other children laughing loudly and screaming with delight. I glanced around for my parents, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  I looked up at the sky, taken aback by just how blue it was. The sky hadn’t looked that way in a very long time.

  If I was just a young child, then it must have been before the horrible AI war that destroyed everything, including life as we all knew it. Before technology gained sentience, autonomy and a thirst for power. Before nearly everyone I knew died.

  I knew that if I was tall enough, I could probably see the concrete, steepled sky of the city. I’d always loved the tall buildings. I loved that they were stronger than the hands that built them, and almost as resilient. My father worked in a building not far from the park, and I loved the days when I would get to visit him in his office with my mother, riding the elevator up all the way to the very top floor. I would sit on his lap as he reclined back in his leather chair and stare out at the beautiful, gleaming city. I loved that the little people on the sidewalks looked like ants. I loved that I could see a million different lives through the windows of the buildings nearby.

  There was so much life here.

  In the back of my mind, I knew that the scene in my dream was no longer a reality. I knew that the once towering, imposing buildings of the city I loved were all but wreckage, a mess of shattered steel and broken wires. I knew that broken glass would crunch under my boots and decades-old dust would clog my airways if I tried to walk the same path that I once had as a child. The honking cars, blaring televisions and whirring metro tracks would be silent. The colors of a new season would be muted, always and forever. The smells of the city, once varying and enticing, would become something harsher, tainted with a certain metallic taste in the air.

  Still, to see the city again as it once was, in its former glory, was as close to a miracle as I’d ever expected; I didn’t even mind that it was just a dream.

  My child-sized legs pedaled the bicycle through the park. I hummed an old nursery rhyme to myself, smiling at the sight of a small, fluffy dog nearby. A fat, buzzing bee floated past me, off to hover around a nearby bush of hydrangeas.

  The path was wide. All around me, people walked and jogged and biked. Scooters and skateboards whizzed past. Lovers holding hands and school friends giggling to each other wandered on by. I continued on the bike, no longer sure if this was a dream, or merely a perfectly preserved memory, blessedly unearthed from the very depths of my subconscious.

  That is, until the people around me began to disappear. Little by little, the brilliant green pathway that had once been teeming with city slickers grew quiet and empty.

  I hesitated, though I continued forward nonetheless. The pathway narrowed slightly, but the colors remained just as bright and captivating as ever as I wove my way deeper into the park. In a matter of minutes, I suddenly found myself alone on the pathway, not a soul to be seen in either direction. If it were reality, the child version of Ellen would have immediately turned around to search for her parents. She’d apologize for wandering off and not paying attention to how far she’d gone.

  But, in the dream, I carried on.

  The park fell silent. Barking dogs and splashing fountains were muted. The whisper of wind through the leaves was inaudible, as if it turned off with a switch. The quiet wasn’t entirely disturbing, but it still caused my young heart to beat a little bit out of tune with uneasiness.

  It wasn’t until I came to a fork in the path that my feet finally stopped pedaling, two small feet coming to rest on the warm pavement. My hands clenched on the bicycle handles as I took in the sight of the three diverging paths before me.

  To my left was Zik. Even toddler Ellen knew who he was. He stared at me with cold, gray eyes, but he didn’t come toward me. Instead, he held out a single finger and beckoned me forward with a cruel smile. I knew what awaited me down his path. Pain, torture, eventual death. No, thank you.

  I turned my head to focus on the middle path. Before it stood Lee, flanked by Loretta and a number of other Rogues.

  “Hello, Ellen,” said Lee, his trademark smirk fixed perfectly to his pale face. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it? Why don’t you come join us over here?”

  My stomach lurched with queasiness. The Rogues didn’t look inherently evil, at least not the way that Zik did, but they still maintained an aura of wrongness that went with a level of rule-breaking that bordered on reckless behavior. Their eyes were colored with a greediness, as if they were hungry for money and power and were willing to do whatever it took to achieve those things.

  And yet, I could see parts of myself in them. Intelligence and curiosity mirrored in Loretta’s stern ga
ze. Pure defiance in another’s. Disrespect for authority and a desire to succeed in Lee’s chilling look. I wasn’t entirely different from the Rogues, if I was being honest with myself. There was a darkness within me that could be nourished and grow in a magnificent beast with their guidance. I could be good at helping with the kind of horrors they orchestrated.

  But something about the way Lee was staring at me, as if he would happily throw me down Zik’s path if I chose not to walk his, caused me to hesitate.

  I glanced down at my feet, surprised to see regular, adult-sized shoes below me. The bicycle was gone, and I suddenly stood much taller than I had just a second before. I was no longer a child, but the current, most up-to-date version of Ellen Moore.

  Slightly confused, I looked at the path to my right. I expected to see my parents, or even a childhood friend. Some kind of representation of my deepest longing; after all, I would have given anything to be back home, a child once more, alive and flourishing in a thriving city made of unbreakable stone.

  Of course, all things were breakable.

  To my right, Markus stood at the head of the third pathway. His hands were clasped behind his back, his posture straight. He looked impossibly regal, dressed in a stunning black velvet suit. A delicate crown, a simple twist of iron, sat atop his auburn curls like an afterthought.

  The dragon Prince. Markus Aurelius Alin III.

  The dream version of him smiled at me, his mouth slightly crooked. He shot me a wink and then swept into a low bow, holding out his hand palm-up as if to invite me forward.

  He was so beautiful. Though I could see the darkness in his eyes, a heaviness that swam around him like persistent shadows, there was something golden about him. He was a good person, despite what he thought, and despite all the violent cravings and urges that came to him.

  Markus only needed to be shown the way to lightness.

  Timidly, I took a step toward him.

  Next to us, Lee tutted his tongue like a disappointed father. “Choose carefully, Ellen.”