The Uprising (GRIT Sector 1 Book 2)

by Rebecca Sherwin

  "Good morning," I said, smiling at him and trying to ignore the confusion in his returning stare.

  "What are you doing?"

  I stood from the dresser and turned to face him, smoothing my skirt down my legs.

  "I'm ready."

  God.

  Trixie Ashford dressed for GRIT would be the image I’d choose if I had the choice of what I saw when I died.

  She looked exquisite. She wore black like a dark queen; every fibre clinging to her body like it was made for her. Her purple eyes burst against the darkness she wore from head to toe, her raven hair cascading over her shoulders in a sexy, dangerous, alluring tangle of hellish angel threads.

  She was ready.

  After two weeks of nursing her feet, allowing me to refuse she got up; allowing me to feed her, care for her, talk her to sleep, sing to her while she dreamed…it had been perfect. In my room, locked away from the rest of the estate, Trixie and I had had the time to get to know each other and fall in love the way we should have done first of all. Sincerely. Slowly. Powerfully. Irreversibly.

  “You’re ready?” I asked, quirking a brow and wondering if she knew what she was ready for.

  “Yes.”

  Her voice was a whispered song of confidence. She’d paralysed me with the use of her voice and had no idea of the effect she had on me.

  I’d come to crave blood. I’d learned to thrive on watching it pour. I’d learned to survive with the coppery stench beneath my nose and a shade of crimson stained and crusted on my hands.

  But this…Trixie and her potent aura, powerful ability to disarm me…this was what I lived for now.

  “What are you ready for exactly, Lady Blackwood?”

  “Uh…” Her confidence began to fail her. She began to doubt if she was ready. But she was strong. She was feisty. I knew she could do this.

  “Do you want to come to the Sector?”

  I’d guide her. I’d lead the way and allow her to step into her new shoes and embrace the authority they gave her. My gaze fell to her feet, enveloped in shiny black leather with a killer heel that brought her eyes almost in line with mine when she took a step towards me.

  “What will we do in the Sector?”

  God. Her purr, the wispy rasp of her desire, caught me off guard. Was she asking for another Eli? Was she asking to be taken to a cell? Maybe the cross? The table? Or one of the many devices she was yet to encounter?

  “Well, while you’ve been in bed, I dealt with the…disposal.” I cleared my throat and avoided looking at her. “So we can go over open cases. We can talk about your training. Or…we can do something else.”

  “Training?”

  I’d hoped she’d pick up on the regime she was soon to be introduced to. I wouldn’t reject my wife; I’d take her anyplace, any way, any time, but not today…I couldn’t trust myself not to explode with the effects seeing her like this had on me.

  I couldn’t be trusted not to be violent.

  I couldn’t be trusted not to picture the story my father had told me and react as if I were living it myself and Trixie was my harlot.

  I just couldn’t be trusted. It was that simple.

  “Yes. But…” I tried to shift subtly, and not draw attention to my hardening cock. “Let’s do this somewhere else.”

  “Why?”

  She knew. God damn it, she knew. When her gaze fell to my trousers and she licked her lips, I almost lost it. I don’t know how I kept my hunger contained. I wanted to pounce, to tear into her and take her so high she landed on another fucking planet.

  “Let’s just go.”

  I couldn’t see her like that for a second longer, knowing we were alone. I had to surround us with people, or do something to not make me want her. I’d been trying for months, knowing the direction we were heading in, but nothing would work. So instead, I wouldn’t look at her.

  I couldn’t.

  Grabbing her hand, I pulled her from the bedroom, and dragged her behind me down the stairs.

  “Elias, slow down.” She grabbed my forearm with her other hand and struggled to keep up. “Please. It hurts.”

  Slow. I had to take it slow. I’d never done slow before. I’d done aggressive, ruthless and merciless. It was what I knew and all the Eli’s who had made me such a monster were tugging me in a hundred different directions.

  I didn’t want Trixie to lead GRIT. I didn’t want her in my Sector. I was selfish and I had a plan.

  But I wanted her beside me, ruling with me, and helping me figure out the logistics.

  I knew this war would end in fire. It was the only part of my plan I’d cemented.

  Fire was the best way to eradicate vermin and bacteria, and give us a clean slate.

  But I didn’t know what I was supposed to do between then and now.

  Was it treason to plan to burn one’s city down?

  Was it a crime punishable by death?

  And what about all the lies I still kept from the woman staring up into my eyes as I looked into hers and wondered what to do?

  I’d never not had a plan.

  I’d never not known—or at least had a feeling of—what would come next.

  I hadn’t expected Trixie to be up and walking, and dressed ready for the throne.

  I hadn’t expected her confidence.

  I hadn’t expected her to be so…gritty.

  She was a constant challenge, always threatening me, pulling me this way and that.

  I both loved her and hated her for it.

  “Elias?” she called, knowing I was slipping.

  I was trying to decide which historical figure should emerge to deal with this.

  “You need training. You cannot be on the streets until you have been trained. You cannot investigate criminals and look into cases until you’ve been taught how to protect your own life.”

  “Don’t we protect each other?” she asked, her eyes narrowing at me when what I really needed was more purple. More stars. A deeper insight into the galaxy she held within her soul.

  “Yes. But-” I waved my arms towards…whatever. “Out there, you’re on your own. Well, you’re not, I will protect you, but to do that, I need to know you can handle this world.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because you’re going to show me how.”

  “You’re right.” I had made up my mind. “I am.”

  Elias dragged me back up the stairs, refusing to slow down no matter how much I begged. The walk to my bedroom was short, but there was enough time for several Eli’s to join us, each one sliding in, changing Elias’ pace and then slipping back out to let another take over. It was like his soul was in a dressing room, trying on different armours to see which one would protect him. Which one would make him feel safe. Why did he need to be made to feel safe around me?

  “What are we doing?”

  Opening the door, Elias led me inside and closed it again.

  I hadn’t been here in weeks, yet it was pristine. The only sign I’d been in here at all was the easel in the corner and the ruined wedding dress still lying on the windowsill.

  “We’re…”

  Elias stopped and tilted his head as he looked past me.

  “You did that?”

  I turned with him to see the painting I’d made on our wedding night.

  “I did.”

  “It’s…”

  He left me standing by the bed and crossed the room to look at the painting.

  “Dark, I know.”

  I hadn’t consciously painted. I’d let my hands and mind create while I’d looked out at the estate in the darkness. I’d painted the forest and dense greenery. I’d painted the garden and the meadow behind it. I’d created an opening in the woodland and painted a slither of the maze, from the right side to the centre. I’d painted the barn, the small area of grass where Elias had made me puke. I’d painted the terrace towards the bottom of the page, complete with the glass table. It all sounded pretty
normal…but I hadn’t painted the trees green. I hadn’t painted the night bloomers in an array of colours that came alive at night. I hadn’t painted horses in the stables and the barn itself was no longer a tan brown; it didn’t have the moon reflecting off it and lighting the paddocks in the distance.

  No. My painting was GRIT in the underground.

  The trees were black, leaking with ghostly clouded figures like the souls of the criminals who had died here. The flowers were red; I remembered they’d been pink in my mind, like the first blossom on the trees in spring…but I’d covered them with blood until there was no hint of the powdery blush. The stable had become home to demons with four legs; they weren’t horses or mythical creatures, but something entirely different, like they had taken a part of each of the bodies they’d recovered and morphed into transportation stallions to Hell. The barn was a deep, dark brown, cemented with blood. The patch of grass where Elias had taken me after our workout was now overgrown with thorns and black rose bushes. The maze…in the centre of the maze were two figures. They were husband and wife, the woman in a flowing white dress, the man in a black suit. They were small, barely distinguishable, but they were us…and we were dead.

  We’d killed each other.

  “It’s…”

  “It’s nothing. Come on.” I reached for his hand where he stood frozen in front of the painting. “What have you got planned?”

  “It’s what you think of GRIT.”

  “Please don’t start with the painting philosophy. It isn’t what I think of GRIT.”

  “It is, and you know more than you think.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Shaking his head, Elias turned to me and took my face in his hands.

  “Don’t touch this easel again-”

  “What?” I shrieked. “Why?”

  I was sick of every ‘don’t do this, don’t go there’ rule. Art was my life, the only way I could express myself when adrenaline-rush hobbies and exploring the world were forbidden. He couldn’t take this from me. I’d have nothing left.

  “Don’t interrupt me, Ashford,” he clipped with a slap to my cheek. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t hurt. Elias was still in control. “Don’t touch this easel again…give me some time.”

  “How much time?”

  “Just time, Trixie.” He looked at the painting and then back at me. “We’ll know when it’s time and then I want you to come in here and draw this scene again.

  “Why?”

  “This is the present…I want you to draw the future.”

  Trixie had insight. I hadn’t realised how much she knew without knowing it…or what she saw and deduced because this was the life for her.

  If she could see the past as clearly as if looking into a snow globe with all the time in the world to draw what she could see, she would envision a different world for GRIT when she knew exactly what we did and why we needed change.

  Trixie and her art were the key to the revolution.

  “What are you talking about? I told you, I’m not a psy-” chic. He covered my mouth with his hand and shook his head.

  “No more talking. Don’t think about it anymore.”

  Conversation over, just like that. Because Elias Blackwood had decided he’d had enough.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not dictating, I’m asking you to let go.”

  He was nuts. Absolutely nuts. But if he had a plan, I would trust him.

  Kind of.

  “What do you mean I know more than I think I do?” I asked when he stepped back with his hands on my waist.

  “Six weeks. In six weeks, you’ll know everything.”

  “Promise?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only ever made one promise my entire life.”

  “GRIT.”

  I felt deflated and dropped my gaze to the floor. How could I have thought I had any chance of having a hold over him like he did me, when he’d promised to serve GRIT with his life?

  “No.” He shook his head, drawing my attention back to black eyes sparkling—with amusement, this time. “I’ve sworn my loyalty to them, but I never promised anything. You. I promised you. I promised I’d keep you safe.”

  “You did.”

  He’d never promised anything to GRIT because we would change it.

  “Now…”

  Elias backed me up to the wall, until I hit it with a thud and moaned when I saw the intensity in his eyes. I felt nothing but the ache in my chore, the heaviness of my breasts and the hammering rhythm of my heart.

  Elias took another step towards me and extended his arms to grab two fistfuls of silk. I looked down to where his hands touched my clothes. He hadn’t touched my body, but the skin beneath my blouse tingled with anticipation.

  I threw my head back, desire crashing through me when Elias ripped my blouse open with one tug. Buttons flew, silk fanned out and sighed with the struggle, sending a cloud of my perfume and Elias’ pheromone-enhanced scent to smother us. He hadn’t touched me, simply stung me with the force of the seams clinging to my skin, but I was out of breath. My stomach tensed as my clit throbbed. My lungs tried their best to keep up with my laboured breathing and soft pants, but my head grew light.

  “No ruling today,” Elias said. “If I take you to the Sector, there’ll be trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Let’s say my control is slipping.”

  “Good…”

  “Not good.”

  “Why?”

  “Shh…”

  He fell to his knees in front of me, looking up into my eyes as he ran his hands up my legs, bunching my skirt in two tight fists. When he reached the waistband, he ripped, tearing through the skirt with ease, his strength tugging me forward as I wobbled in my stilettos.

  “Stockings?” he hummed, dipping lower to scrape his stubbly jaw up the gossamer. “Intentional?”

  “What?”

  “Making sure there are no more barriers between us than necessary?”

  What was he talking about? I couldn’t think about it as he nipped the inside of my thigh and his hands slid behind me to ping the waistband of my thong.

  “I…” I stuttered as he pinged again and the gentle sting tickled my hips. “I don’t know.”

  “You wanted to make sure I was close to your pussy. That I could…” He slung my leg over his shoulder, slipped my underwear to the side and plunged a finger through my wetness, knuckle-deep and blissfully strong in an instant. “Do this. Whenever I wanted.”

  The heel of my shoe dug into his back and he growled, twisting his hand and making my hips buck.

  “No!”

  He pulled out of me and set my leg back on the floor. Bastard. Gloriously sexy bastard.

  “But you won't need these.”

  Grabbing the elastic at the top of the stockings, he pulled them down with one tug, tangling them in my shoes and making me grip his shoulder for support.

  “Step,” he instructed, taking hold of the back of one shoe and easing it off, and then the other after ordering, “Again.”

  I was standing in nothing but my thong and bra. He’d stripped me oh so slowly and yet, it was over before I’d realised his intentions. Elias shuffled closer.

  “You know,” he said, stroking his hands up and down my bare calves. “I’d spend my life on my knees at your feet if you asked me to.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “But I’d do it. You deserve to be worshipped, Trixie, and I’m sorry I haven’t done it until now.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t. You’ve given me other things; I don’t need you kneeling before me.”

  “You know you’ve ruined my life, don’t you?”

  “What?” I felt my eyes widen and the heavy ache of emotional whiplash made my chest tight.

  “Before you, I had a plan. I would have executed the plan perfectly and died a happy man.”

  “Wow.” That had backtracked quickly, but still his hands caressed and I didn’t have the
will to push him away after he’d scarred me. Again. “Thanks for that. Will you get off the floor now?”

  Elias tutted and shook his head. “You never listen to the full speech before your smart mouth goes off. It’s like premature ejaculation of confrontation.”

  I cocked a brow. Was I supposed to just stay quiet and let him insult me? I shoved at his shoulders. He didn’t move, but I quickly withdrew my hand when I saw the danger in his glare.

  “You’re horrible.”

  “Hush, my darling wife.” He nipped my hip, scraping his teeth over bone. It made my blood boil, but not with lust. I wanted to smack him. “I’d rather die drowning in this intensity with you, than go back to a life with no challenges or surprises. You surprise me every day. Every. Bloody. Day. Why would anyone choose to die happy when they can leave this earth on a fucking rocket ship of passionate collision?”

  “You don’t want to be happy?”

  “Sure…but was following someone else’s path happiness?” He shook his head. “No, it was ignorance. Sometimes I hate you, you know, and I know you hate me. I want to defend my life against you and hand it all over to you. I have no idea if I’m up or down when you’re around. It’s a weird feeling, like I'm blindfolded, spinning out of control and waiting to find out where I’ll stop.” He laughed. “Do I have a point?” Exactly what I was thinking, although I was lightheaded and thrumming with desire again. “Yes. I want you to do this your way. I will nudge you in the right direction and take great pleasure in punishing you for pushing my boundaries. But I want you to push them…if we hate each other, so be it. As long as we climb into the same bed every night and take each other to a world created just for us, we can be arch enemies in the Sector, running it together by fighting all the way. That’s how we’ll find a way to do this. Push me, I’ll push you. Hate me, I’ll hate you. But love me…fucking love me and I’ll love you more than any man in history has ever loved his soulmate.”

  “It’s wrong.”

  “Says who?”

  “I hate you.”

  “You should.”

  “But I love you.”

  “I know.”