by M. S. Willis
~ ~ ~
Hope sat on the edge of Honor’s bed. Reaching over to a table, she poured a glass of water and brought it to her sister’s lips encouraging her to drink. Honor’s eyes were blank, her mind trapped in nightmares that Hope worried would never let her go.
“There you are little sister. Are you hungry.”
Honor looked back, her face a perfect mirror of Hope’s. She nodded, still not speaking even though it had been a year since she’d been freed of Patrick’s hold. Hope turned to grab a plate of food from the bedside table. Taking Honor’s hand in her own, she assisted her as she ate, encouraged her to continue living despite the events of the past.
Her heart split apart when she looked in Honor’s eyes. Every day she walked in this room hoping to see her sister’s spirit healed, hoping to find that the monsters had released her, finally letting her out of that house and away from the torture and abuse they committed against her.
And every day it was the same disappointment when she walked in to discover that Honor was lost to something she couldn’t fight against. She was trapped by something intangible and cruel, evil that Hope couldn’t destroy, memories gathered like cobwebs in her mind, keeping her buried and tangled inside.
After Honor had eaten, Hope sat with her for several hours, telling her stories of their youth, reminding her of the days before their mother had died. Honor would smile sometimes and Hope’s eyes filled with tears in those moments, relishing the light inside her twin if even for a brief second that she got to see it. There were moments when Hope swore her sister recognized her — moments when the life she’d always seen in her sister’s eyes returned to let her know that Honor still existed within the cage of her body.
Standing up, Hope pulled the blanket up to tuck her sister into bed, to make sure she felt safe. She knew it was pointless, that Honor comprehend what was going on around her. “Okay, baby sister, I’m going to leave you to get some sleep, I’ll be back tomorrow to see you. Maybe tomorrow will be the day you finally come back to me.” A tear slowly traveled down her Hope’s cheek
“Hope?”
Hope’s head swiveled and her eyes locked on her twin. “Honor?” The question was spoken in a whisper, disbelief stealing away the strength of her voice.
Honor blinked a thick fall of mahogany lashes over the metallic gold, and looked around the room. Confusion settled over her brow and she pushed herself up into a sitting position, allowing the blanket that Hope had just used to cover her to bundle at her waist. She went to speak again, but her words caught in her throat, coming out scratched and broken. She cleared her throat.
“Hope, where are we?”
Hope stood dumbfounded and her heart pounded against the walls of her chest. Realization settled in that her sister had just spoken and, quickly, her palms were against Honor’s cheeks and she looked into life behind the eyes that of the woman she’d missed for so long. Tears poured faster from down her cheeks and she pulled her sister into a warm embrace — strong, protective, and relieved. “Oh, baby … we’re at The Estate mansion, we’ve been here for a year.”
Honor’s body tensed and shook with quiet fear. “Oh God! They took you? How … .How did they get you too?! We need to get out of here!” The words flew out of her mouth, her body struggling to be freed from Hope’s grasp. “Hope, we need to get out of here!”
Letting go so she could look in Honor’s eyes, she gripped her sister’s arms and attempted to calm the terror of her sister’s words, “Honor, baby, we’re not being held here. They don’t have us anymore baby girl, I got you out! You’re safe. Please, please calm down, please believe me, Honor, we’re safe — I promise you that no one will hurt you again.”
Honor stop fighting, eventually relaxing her body as she slowly comprehended what Hope was telling her.
When Honor had finally calmed to a point where Hope could look her in the eyes, Hope asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Honor blinked again, her cognition slow to return. Her eyes kept searching the room, her own tears welling in response to Hope’s. “I remember being taken. They …” She cried harder, her body shaking from the force of her sobs. Hope pulled her closer, her tears joining that of her twin. “They … I was walking to my car from an art class, my hands were full and I tried to stop them — I did — but they were too strong. They shoved me in the trunk and when they let me out we were at some house I’d never seen before. I don’t know what happened after that, I …” She cried harder and struggled for breath. Hope shushed her, stroking her hand over her sister’s hair, calming a woman who’d just waken from a nightmare. “I don’t know what happened. All I know is I woke up in this room. I was so scared the first time, I didn’t recognize anything and I panicked and would wake up again.”
Hope closed her eyes against Honor’s words — angry with herself for not staying in the room day and night in case Honor pulled through. But it had been a year, twelve long months where Hope had allowed herself to believe her sister wasn’t coming back. “I’m sorry. I should have stayed in here, I shouldn’t have left you alone to wake up in a strange place. That’s my fault, Honor.” Tears fell harder, her eyes burning from the effort. “I’m so sorry.”
For what felt like hours, Hope hugged her sister, hushed words of encouragement and love spoken between them as Honor slowly regained her place in the world that, for a year, had continued on without her. Even when Honor pulled away, and had been stricken by the details of what had become of her life, Hope wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t stop touching her in desperate need to know that her sister had, in fact, recovered. She knew it would take time, knew that trauma like her sister had endure could not easily be forgotten. The hours ticked by until, finally, Honor had fallen back to sleep tucked safely within Hope’s arms, the promise of a new day breaking with the soft hint of sunlight on the horizon. Hope was surprised the see that she’d spent the entire night holding her twin, but she didn’t feel exhausted from having done so. Her spirit was once again alive, her mind spinning with the pure joy that she felt. She was somehow stronger again, more determined than ever to break down the walls of The Estate, to destroy it for all that it had done.
Begrudgingly, she tucked Honor back under the blanket before standing up and walking across the room. Turning back once more to look at the beauty of her twin, she flicked off the lights, closed the door, and left Honor’s room for the first time not feeling defeated as she always had before. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips and she stared at the wall opposite where she stood. She was dazed, but ecstatic — hesitant, but hopeful.
A throat cleared in the distance disturbing her reverie and her head swung to glance down the hall. All she could see was his silhouette, the broad width of his shoulders cutting down to a thin waist. He leaned his shoulder against a wall, staring down at her for a few minutes before pushing up and walking slowly in her direction.
Her feet moved below her without conscious thought, carrying her down the hall to join him. When they approached the light from above caught his face, the beauty of his features coming into view. Her heart felt like it stopped for a brief second and a broad smile spread across her face. For once in her life, she felt balanced. It was the first time that something wasn’t missing, that there wasn’t an empty spot inside her aching to be filled. She didn’t care that she was living inside the network she feared — didn’t care that in the coming years they would still have to fight. As long as she had Xander and her sister beside her, she’d fight forever if it meant that all three would eventually banish the shadow of the evil that had always existed within their lives.
He returned the smile, his face lit with confused elation when he searched her eyes. “You’ve been gone all night.” He wasn’t angry. His words were spoken in concern, but not condemnation. “I’ve been worried about you.” His voice fell over her like satin, love spoken by a man she’d fought so hard not to need in her life. The realization struck her that he’d told the truth that night in the cave — he
’d held on to her as much as he did Aaron — refusing to let them sink into the hatred and rage bred by the evil that surrounded them.
When his arms came around her, she sank into him, melting against the heat of his body when his hands moved over her in comfort. The smile never left her face, when she softly confessed, “She’s come back. Honor … she …” Tears threatened her eyes again — but not ones bred of sorrow or fear. It was relief that poured from her eyes when she spoke. “She’s talking again. I was leaving and then she called for me. I couldn’t leave her alone after just getting her back.”
He tightened his hold on her, his own relief coming out in a shuddered breath that vibrated through his chest. Hope huddled close to him, her arms locked around his body, her cheek pressed against his chest. “She doesn’t remember anything after she was taken.”
She felt Xander’s hand beneath her chin. Lifting gently, he brought her eyes to his, grounding her as he gazed down.
“That’s a good thing. Maybe her mind is just protecting her from the worst of what happened in order to give her time to heal. We’ll take good care of her and she’ll continue to improve.”
“To be trapped here forever?” It was a passing thought, but one she couldn’t keep from escaping her lips on a whisper.
He held her gaze, strength and determination hidden behind the sea blue of his eyes. “It’ll take time, but, one day, this place will burn around us, it will become nothing but a memory. When that finally happens, we can walk away, finally freed of the one thing that has destroyed us all.” His lips brushed against her mouth — the soft kiss sealing the promise he’d just spoken.
She smiled, the belief finally settling within her thoughts that with Xander beside her, she’d be strong enough to conquer anything that threatened to tear her apart.
Hope had entered The Estate a warrior — and despite how much she despised it, she choose to remain behind its walls in order to tear it down from the inside. Taking comfort in Xander’s words, she was reminded that she no longer fought alone. Finally, letting go of all her pain and fear, she looked up and smiled at the kindness she saw in him; once again allowing herself to look into the crystal blue eyes that revealed to her the blinding truth that, even inside the darkest corners of a living hell, there was still the promise of light.
THE END
Coming in Spring 2014
Honor Bound (The Estate, #3)
Synopsis:
She was meant to be his perfect pet.
Innocent, naïve, and easily shattered.
Yet her mind was too fragile for what he’d imagined.
As Honor struggles to regain herself, she becomes the one thing that could tear The Estate apart.
Honor Delacroix was raised in a rival network. Always looked after by her twin sister, Honor was an artist who lived her life in the ever-present shadow of The Estate. The life she’d always known, however, ended on the night she was abducted.
Jason Arrington is an Estate Member who is working his way up the chain of command. Silently, he watches over Honor inside the mansion. Hopeful that she will improve, Jason sets out to help Honor remember the details of her captivity.
After being held by depraved men for four weeks, Honor has to put the pieces back together. Watched over by the members of The Estate, she fights to remember what happened when she was a slave. When Jason offers to help her, will Honor’s demons be too much for him to handle? Or will Jason be the man who can finally help her break free of the nightmare?
Prologue of Honor Bound:
The greatest fabrication of fairy tales and romance novels is the idea that ‘happily ever after’ is a place within the light. A place where love or friendship can disperse the shadows of a difficult past, where a person can rest knowing they can overcome and that they’ll find peace in the end.
But, not every ending finds itself where a person expects.
Raised in a rival network, she chose to see beauty despite living under the ever-present eye of The Estate. She was an artist, her life spent capturing the world through the point of a pen or the brushstroke across canvas. But like anything of innocence or purity, it was only a matter of time before evil finally found her and stole her away from all that she’d ever known.
This is a story where happily ever after sits cushioned within darkness — where everything we think we know about love is challenged. It’s a place where a person becomes trapped inside — a place where they seek out others who are willing to join them in the suffocating hold of their shadowed past.
Her angel. He was a man who’d imprisoned her, who’d terrified her until her mind had shattered around her, sparkling down like crystalline shards of the fantasies and dreams he’d destroyed. And after doing so, he’d picked her up again to rebuild her, to teach her, and reform her into the perfect pet.
He was her tormentor and protector, her enemy and lover, and her darkness and light.
Her name was Honor Delacroix, and she never imagined that when she was taken to The Estate to be enslaved ….
She would choose to never leave again.
M.S. Willis
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Table of Contents
[email protected]
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue