by K Loraine
He would kill his own son? “Why would you kill him?”
“I have others. Cashel is replaceable, you are not. Not yet, at least.”
Those words were heavy with a promise that left me feeling oily and violated. He set me on my feet and loosened his grip around my throat. “Come along, pet. You have a heart to break.”
My skin crawled with apprehension. “What do you mean?”
“Cashel sacrificed himself for you, that much is clear from the bullet wound in his chest. He’s a fool, of course. But, you need to show him exactly how foolish he’s been.”
He shifted his grip to the nape of my neck, turning me around with enough pressure to my muscles to make me wince. I was sure I’d be bruised. My throat already hurt from the tightness of his initial hold. Then we walked into the house and the moment the door shut behind us, my stomach clenched tight with sickening fear. That was it. I’d lost my last chance to escape. Why hadn’t I left when I had the chance? Because I was falling in love with Cashel, that was why. I was kidding myself if I thought it was anything else.
“You’re wasting your heart on a vampire who’ll never truly love you,” Elias said, his slick voice making me shudder in revulsion. “He can’t love anyone other than himself. He’s just like me.”
“He is nothing like you, Elias. Cashel isn’t a sick, twisted rapist.”
Sharp nails dug into the skin at the base of my neck. “I never raped you.”
“Forcefully invading my mind. Stealing my blood without permission. Penetrating my body with part of you, fangs or dick, it doesn’t matter. You weren’t welcome. You never will be. That’s rape.”
His claw-like nails retreated and he took a shuddering breath. “You are trying my patience, girl. I think you need that willfulness broken.”
“You can try, but you’ll never own me.”
Both of his hands gripped my shoulders and spun me around to face him. Dark eyes locked onto mine. “You can choose to be insolent, difficult, independent, if you want. But know this, if you don’t break Cashel’s connection to you when we walk into that room, I will take his heart from his chest while you watch, and he will turn to dust.”
Stomach twisting with nausea, I swallowed down the bile threatening to escape. “You’re insane.”
“You have to be a little insane to be King, pet.” He clicked his tongue and dragged a finger across my collarbone. “Cashel’s fate is in your pretty little hands.”
We walked through the silent halls, our footsteps loud on the polished wood floors. Every step weighed heavily on my mind. If I denied him, I’d be killing Cash. Could I do that to the man I’d only just begun to trust and connect with? No. I’d rather break his heart than watch it be literally ripped from his chest.
The door opened to a scene of eerie calm. The three Blackthorne siblings all stood around Cashel, who sat in the very chair I’d been positioned in during my blood donations. Cash’s eyes were closed, his skin holding a waxy pallor as blood was transfused directly to his veins in both arms. His bare chest was drenched in his own blood, but as I watched, the wound began to creep closed. I couldn’t contain my gasp when those beautiful eyes of his snapped open and he stared straight at me.
“Olivia,” he breathed, gaze narrowing in on my throat. “What happened to you?”
“She needed to be taught a lesson,” Elias said. “Didn’t you, my darling dove?”
I stared at Cashel, still obviously weak, fighting to regain his strength after saving me. “Yes, I suppose I did.” I felt sick for agreeing with this sadistic fuck.
“Tell me what happened before I arrived,” he insisted.
No one spoke. Not a single one of them. Elias gripped my arm tight enough that I couldn’t avoid a wince. “No one will speak? So be it.” He spun me in his grasp and locked eyes with me as he broke through my meager barriers and pulled the events of the evening from my mind. My head throbbed and when he released me, he let me fall to the hard stone floor.
“Brenna is dead,” Elias said. “My heir almost lost as well.” He said the words with such an air of absolute grief, I almost believed him. “And yet, our guest still wished to spare the hunters. She knew them. She led them to us.”
“Father,” Cashel said, his voice tight with pain. “She chose to stay.”
Elias dragged a palm through his hair before straightening the cuffs of his shirt. “That much is true. But, son, you put us all in danger by keeping her escape secret. Your mind is clouded by the spell she has cast over you.” He knelt at Cashel’s feet, taking his son by the hand. “I saw it in her mind, Cashel. She only wants her freedom. She doesn’t love you. She’s trying to trick you into blood bonding with her so she can be free of us. She’s in love with the hunter.”
My heart nearly stopped at those last words. Everything in me screamed to deny that statement. “I—” I began, but stopped before I ended up killing Cashel then and there.
“In love with him?” Cashel’s words held such disbelief, I couldn’t bear it. Tears stung my eyes, threatening to fall.
Elias got to his feet and stood to the side of the two of us. “Go on, pet. Tell him the truth. Your lies nearly got us all killed. You’re lucky I don’t drain you here and now for this betrayal.”
They all looked at me, these vampires who were depending on me for so much. “I’m…” I had to swallow back the tears in my voice. “It’s true.”
“Say it,” Elias demanded. “Say the words.”
Taking a slow breath to steady myself, I look Cashel in the eyes and lie through my teeth so I can save him. “I am in love with Logan. I was lying to you, Cashel. I could never love a vampire. You’re monsters.”
Absolute agony filled Cash’s eyes. All the things he’d said to me, the things he hated about who he was, and things he’d feared. I’d just flayed him open and poured salt in the wounds. “Get out of my sight,” he bit out.
Elias let out a sigh and gripped my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Finally. The truth. Now,” he said, his gaze pulling me into compulsion. “Sleep.”
17
Olivia
Everything around me was dark, cold, and slightly damp. My head throbbed, the pulse of pain behind my eyes a reminder of Elias’s assault on my brain. The mental blocks I’d thrown up not enough to keep me protected. He forced his way inside my head as Cashel watched, restrained and furious.
Freezing stone floor made everything in me ache. The heavy weight of exhaustion pressed on my shoulders, but it wasn’t a tangible thing. It was the weight of what I knew was coming. Elias had said they were going to breed me, use me to make more of my blood so he could get rid of me. Because after what happened, I could not be trusted.
I stretched my arms above my head, searching through the darkness for some sort of boundaries in this room. Cashel thought I betrayed him with Logan. And in a way, I may have. The rest of the Blackthornes were never truly my allies. They would just as soon have drained me and stored my blood if they could have. But, Cashel had faith that I would be able to cure the sun sickness. He had warned me. Warned me that if I misbehaved his father would throw me into a cell without a second thought. Just like he’d done to Eliana.
All I could hope for at this point was some small possibility of mercy.
I sat in this dank dark cave, until faint light spilled through a small window. Everything around me changed from pitch black to soft gray. Almost as if it were there to tease me, the window showed me everything. Situated high at the top of the cell, it was no bigger than a bread box, but it showed me just how out of reach freedom was. The cell was nothing more than a tall cylinder with no opening that I could see. It stretched far taller than me and seemed to go on forever brick by brick, with the exception of a faint circular ring at the top that glowed like there was light behind it.
And then, with horrible clarity, I realized exactly where I was. A well. Elias had thrown me down a well and sealed the top. The window I thought I saw was nothing more than the drainage gra
te at the top of the cover. I was going to die in here.
Nausea clutched at my stomach, mixed with anxiety and sheer terror, it built until all I could do was let out a soul weary scream. Tears spilled down my cheeks without care for the strength I had worked so hard to maintain. I would die here, because the Blackthorne vampires deemed that to be. I stood and dug my feet into the small spaces between the bricks reaching up and breaking off my fingernails as I tried to pull myself up up up until I made my way to freedom. But for every foot I climbed, I fell in equal measure. Never making it more than a few small feet up. I screamed and screamed, and screamed, until my throat was raw and aching. The absolute desperation turned to a full-blown panic attack. My ears rang with my pulse, my throat begged for silence, but most of all, my heart broke for everything I would lose.
By the time the sun set, hunger gnawed my belly, and my entire body hurt. I couldn't help but let that tricky bitch hope work her way into my mind. Fantasies of Cashel appearing, of him throwing aside the cover of the well, jumping down into the cell with me and saving me assaulted me. It couldn’t have all been a lie. Not after everything we discussed, everything we shared. He wasn’t heartless. Or was he? Was he the worst of them all? It was possible. He was the one who wanted to study me, the one who insisted he be the only one to touch me. Because he was trying to get me on his side. So he could have what? The glory of knowing he was the one who’d gotten them the blood of the sun and convinced her to stay? Maybe that was how it had started, but there was more between us. Elias wouldn’t have made me break Cash the way he had if it was all a lie.
“Cash, I’m sorry. If you can hear me, I don’t love Logan. I never did. I lied,” I whisper.
I knew he couldn’t hear me, but it didn’t stop me from screaming for him to save me until I finally let my despair silence my voice.
I was a fool. I should have gone with Logan after he hurt Cash. I should’ve left with the hunters and done everything in my power to get away from this place. Instead, I let my heart keep me here with the vampire I thought was the better man.
I slept pressed against the cold, slimy stone. But my dreams were fitful, terrifying, and painful. Because all I saw was Cashel.
The sun rose again, the soft glow waking me from another terrible dream. But this time, in the center of the floor, I was greeted with a bucket filled with water. And next to that, a bowl of cold oatmeal. I drank the cool water in long, grateful gulps. I drink until my belly aches and waves of sickness hit me. Then, without the benefit of a spoon, I used my fingers and scooped up mouthfuls of cold, flavorless oatmeal. I didn’t care. I hadn’t eaten in nearly two days, and the fact that they were feeding me meant this might only be temporary. Maybe the Blackthornes still wanted to keep me alive.
This went on for seven days straight. They never brought food or drink while I was awake, no matter how hard I tried to keep my eyes open. At this point, I had taken to relieving myself in the empty water bucket like a prisoner. But I had nowhere else to use the bathroom. Nowhere other than the floor of the well, and I did not want to spend my days surrounded by my own filth. If they had a problem with it, they never said. Because no one spoke to me.
My heart lurched of the sounds of stones scraping on stone echoed through the well. They were here again. Long, greasy tendrils of my hair hung in my face, my skin covered in a sticky sheen of sweat and water from the damp air, any worry I had about looking good for Cashel had long since left me at this point. I expected a rope or something to lower down more food and another bucket, another offering to keep me alive. Instead, a large figure fell into the hole with me.
“God, you stink,” Lucas said. “Come on. You’ve served your sentence. It’s time for another donation, and for you to play the part of pretty pet.” I couldn’t stand. My legs were numb from cold. Lucas sighed and pulled me into his arms. “Honestly, this is not how my night was supposed to go. Now I’ll have to change clothes.”
“At least you don’t want to eat me,” I managed through a raspy throat.
“Your scent is actually stronger now. You’re lucky I just fed.” He gripped me tightly and whispered, “Close your eyes. This will be disorienting.”
I did as he said, holding on as tight as I could and tensing as my stomach flipped from the sudden rush of flying up to the top of the well. As soon as we landed, I opened my eyes. “Thank you.” My words were weak but genuine. “Is Cash okay?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “He’s back to his old self, that much is for sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“A woman in his bed every night, a body in the incinerator by sunrise.”
Horror grips my stomach. “What?”
“Okay, not the body part, but the women part is true. He’s crazed. Feeding on any woman who’ll volunteer her blood.” He strides through the trees with me in his arms and I wait for more information. “Cashel hasn’t killed a donor in over a hundred years. It’s not his style.”
I hate knowing he’s been with other women, but what did I expect? He thought I lied all this time. “Did he…sleep with them?”
“What do you care?”
I don’t answer.
“He doesn’t fuck them. He feeds.”
A small bit of relief coursed through me at that knowledge. “Did he know where I was?”
“I don’t know. Father told me, so I brought you food and water.”
“That was you?”
“Sorcha would have let you starve. Be glad he told me and not her.”
“Thank you.”
“Stop that.” His chiseled jaw was set, focus directed in front of us.
“I’m so sorry about everything that happened.”
“We thought you were different, you know. That you’d save our brother.”
“Cash told me about Callum. I’ve done all I can, haven’t I? Giving you my blood?”
“Not that brother.”
His words sat like a stone on my chest. How could I save Cash? I’d done exactly that, but none of them knew. We broke through a clearing in the trees and the estate appeared like a gothic giant threatening to imprison me once more. But there was nothing worse than that horrible well.
“All right, darling. Let’s get your scent cloaked before the hungry masses descend, shall we?”
My veins hummed with tension and a wash of grief hits me right along with the now constant fear. Brenna is dead; reduced to a pile of ashes because of me.
“You’ll have to do a better job of blocking your mind if you’re going to survive. You certainly have very few friends in this house as of late.” He opened my bedroom door and ushered me inside. Before he shut the door in my face, he said, “Do yourself a favor. Take a long shower before you soak in the bath. You reek.”
After I cleaned up, I fell into my soft bed wrapped only in my towel. I slept like the dead for the entire next day. By the time I woke, my stomach felt like it was gnawing on itself from hunger and the sun had dipped below the horizon beyond my window. I’d have to face them tonight, of that much I was certain. The thought of seeing these vampires, these creatures who’d let me be locked in a fucking well for a week, made my skin crawl. Even Lucas who’d made sure I hadn’t starved had contributed to leaving me there.
The lock clicked as someone turned a key outside my door, making panic race through me. I sat up and pulled the blankets high enough to cover my bare breasts. Hinges creaked when the door pushed open and Sorcha appeared, her perfect face schooled into an expression of pure disinterest as she assessed me.
“You’re going to want to get dressed,” she said.
“Am I? I don’t think so.”
She rolled her eyes as she breezed into the room. “Unless you’d like to give your donation naked, you’d do well to dress.”
“I don’t think I’m going to donate anymore.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Your father put me down a well. A goddamn well, Sorcha. And no one stopped him. None of you did a single thing to get me out. I’m not doing a
nything to help you people.”
A sigh fell from her. “Are you quite finished having hysterics?”
“Where is Cash?” I demanded, wishing she’d give me some privacy. I stood, dragging the sheet with me and wrapping the fabric around my naked body.
She laughed, bitter and angry. “Why do you care?”
“He’s…he’s important to me.”
“Is he? So important that you fucked him over and lied about your affection? My brother won’t be fooled by you again, Olivia. Don’t even entertain that idea.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You brought a hunter to us. You killed Brenna. Nearly killed Cashel. Now, get some clothes on. Unless you’d rather make your donation here, with me.”
I fought the urge to scream at her, to rage and kick, because in one short moment, I’d lost every bit of progress I’d made.
“Your mental blocks are stronger than they should be. What has my brother taught you?” Sorcha frowned and stepped closer to me. On instinct, I took a step back. She smiled, a dark glint in her eyes. “Oh, our little pet is afraid. It’s not me you need to fear. I promise you that.”
I didn’t understand what she meant, but I was sure she would explain. “I thought I was supposed to be afraid of everyone here. You’re all monsters, aren’t you?”
“When you arrived here, you were afraid. But now that you have shown where your real alliance was, you should be terrified. Until our father says so, until he gets you under his thrall, you will not leave this room unless I am with you. You will not speak to anyone unless I know about it. You will barely breathe without my permission. Do you understand?”
I bit back a sharp retort, knowing that this was not going to be the way to respond to her. “Why bother to bring me back from the well at all then?”
She released an acidic chuckle, then glanced down at her finely manicured nails. “Father likes to keep his playthings close. And I see he hasn’t quite broken you yet. Maybe I should tell him you could do with another week in the well.”