Possess: Protect Book 3

by Ryann, Olivia

9

  Dryas

  I leave the bathroom trembling. Filled with anger and hate, I wrapped my fingers around Rue’s throat.

  I meant to kill. Not that she specifically had done anything, other than running away. But it was just too easy to slip into that routine again, to feel nothing as I slowly drained her life with my bare hands.

  The whiskey numbed me, urged me on.

  But there was a second of reality that comes crashing in on me, just as I grip her throat and leer into her reddened, tear-streaked face.

  A quiet voice that echoes, what are you doing?

  My hand squeezes a little harder, and I think… if you hurt her, if you kill her, you will truly be alone.

  I pause.

  She is the only reason you’re even still alive.

  So, I let go, pushing away from her.

  It’s not her fault.

  She didn’t create the mess that is me.

  I stare at her, a shivering mass of humanity. She peers up at me, her hair dripping, her clear blue eyes beseeching me.

  I don’t know what she wants.

  But I know that I can’t give it to her, not like this. Not with veins made of whiskey and lined with lead.

  Whirling, I storm out of the room. I can’t be in there with her, that much is certain. Not while I feel like a wounded wolf, caged and snarling at anyone who dares to come close.

  I bound down the stairs, nearly running into Ari. He takes one look at me, gasping for air and soaking wet.

  “Is Rue okay?” he asks, his tone gone hard.

  I nod. “I think so.”

  There is an awkward pause. He clears his throat. “I think you need to dry out if you don’t mind me saying.”

  He doesn’t just mean the water dripping from my body. I hang my head.

  “Yes.” The word falls from my lips. I feel that I’m on the verge of tears, but I can’t say why.

  “Come with me,” he says, steering me toward the front door. “You’ll be okay.”

  My spirit is so weak that I let him guide me out of the house and into the waiting car without so much as a whimper of protest.

  10

  Rue

  In the evening, I start feeling pangs of hunger. It’s a good sign as far as my recovery goes; I’m finally well enough to worry about feeding myself. But thinking about how angry Dryas was, feeling the impressions his fingers left on my throat, I am scared to go downstairs.

  I wait until the middle of the night to pad across the stone floors, going slowly so I can be sure to look around each corner for Dryas. He is absent though, probably passed out by now. Doesn’t stop me from shivering at every shadow, jumping halfway out of my skin with every imagined sound I hear.

  How I have the energy for such self-preservation I don’t know, but I have always had a backbone made of steel. I make it down the stairs and into the kitchen without incident by the grace of God.

  It’s dark, which suits me just fine. Light just calls attention to me, lets anyone else see what a bruise-mottled mess I have become. That is the last thing I want, other than waking Dryas up.

  Creeping to the fridge, I spend several minutes just eating and drinking everything I find: yogurt, an avocado, two bottles of water, a banana. The cool yogurt and bottled water feel great to my throat. The avocado is an easy source of fat, and the banana a no-brainer. According to Sister Hazel, who ran the kitchens back at the convent, bananas are considered a power food.

  Plus, the banana and avocado are nice and soft, tasting sweet and savory as I put alternating slices of each in my mouth.

  A second before the overhead lights flick on, the hair on the back of my neck rises. Whirling on my heel, I see a man only a handful of inches taller than me with slicked-back short hair. When he sees me, his eyes widen. He raises his hands.

  “I am not here to harm you,” he says softly. His accent is French, perhaps from somewhere up north. “Dryas left you in my charge. I heard a noise and came to investigate, that’s all.”

  I close the refrigerator, my heart racing. I’m only wearing a simple white nightdress, the same thing as I have had on since my distasteful bath earlier. There was no option for undergarments when I looked in my closet. This was the only thing in there.

  He looks at my bruises, at the indelible marks that Dryas left on my knees and my throat, and he goes pale. My hands go to my throat, covering the bruised flesh as best I can.

  “Master Aétos did that to you?” he says, shaken.

  My gaze drops. I nod, the banana that I’m eating suddenly losing all the appeal that it had earlier.

  The man comes closer, and I look at him again. His gaze is dark and penetrating. Shivering, I cross my arms and stare at the man. He looks familiar, but I don’t know from where. Staying stock still, I try to figure out what he wants.

  He contemplates me. “My name is Ari. Master Aétos employs me. I am going to come closer, d’accord?”

  Master Aétos. It’s funny how in all this time, I had never even thought to ask Dryas his surname. Ari steals closer, eyeing the banana peel in my hand.

  “I make you a sandwich, no?” he says, gently shooing me away from the refrigerator. Backing away, repelled by the thought of another person being so close, I end up on the other side of the kitchen island.

  As I watch, Ari opens the refrigerator and pulls out the ingredients for making a sandwich. I’m suspicious of him, suspicious of the ingredients, suspicious of everything. But Ari smartly divides the sandwich makings intro two piles, making two identical sandwiches.

  I’m growing tired as I stand here, arms wrapped around myself. My bed calls to me, but not quite as loudly as the swiss cheese and turkey breast that Ari piles high. My mouth starts to water, though I know from experience that I’ve already eaten nearly enough. In the past when I was starved, when I ate too much afterward, I got sick.

  I think about that, chewing my lip. The sandwich still looks good. Maybe just a bite or two, then.

  He watches me too as he cuts a tomato and arranges the lettuce in neat stacks. “You seem to be feeling better. I am glad.”

  My eyebrows rise. “You have been here for some time then, I take it?”

  His smile is so quick I might have missed it. “Yes.”

  He turns to get plates from the cabinet behind him, then puts my sandwich on a plate. He slides it across the island to me, and I have to move quickly to catch it before it drops onto the floor.

  I touch the top of the sandwich, feeling how spongy the bread is. My stomach gurgles. I am ready to eat it, but… I need to watch him take a bite of his first.

  He doesn’t keep me waiting long. Grabbing the sandwich with both hands, he takes a huge bite, bits of turkey and tomato falling out onto his plate. After I watch him chew and swallow, I dig to my own sandwich.

  I can only do a few bites before I stop myself. After leaving the mostly full plate on the island, I hesitate. My bed sounds better and better to me, but it doesn’t abate my curiosity.

  “Why are you here?”

  Startled, Ari looks up at me. “Because someone must protect you while Master Aétos is away.”

  Biting my lip, I frown. “Where is he? When did he leave?”

  Ari dodges my question, waving a hand in a way that is very French. “He will return as soon as he can, I am certain.”

  I eye him. “That isn’t what I asked.”

  He just rolls on, as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “He is nearby. Don’t worry. You will be quite safe until he returns. Look.”

  He nods to the verandah. I turn and find a tall, black-suited bodyguard staring off into the distance, watching the waves crash through dark sunglasses. Dryas had bodyguards around before when he took me places, but never in the house itself.

  Turning back to Ari, I purse my lips and spend a minute gathering my thoughts. “What is Dryas doing that’s so important?”

  What I mean is, why would he leave me here with you?

  But then again, Dryas has been so rough with me
lately. He’s scared the daylights out of me and left wicked bruises on my throat and knees. He isn’t exactly more trustworthy than the stranger standing before me. I mean, at least the stranger hasn’t looked me in the eye and choked me.

  Ari just gives me a ghost of a smile. “He has things to attend to. Besides, you’ll be recuperating while he is gone. When he returns, things will be like they were before.”

  My brow hunches. Before what, exactly? Before I took a tumble off a cliff? Before Dryas seduced me?

  I slide into one of the seats at the kitchen island, propping my chin on my elbows. “I believe that Dryas thinks I ran away.”

  Ari sighs. “I don’t know what he thinks, I’m afraid. It’s hard to say.”

  Putting a hand out on the island, I look at him plaintively. “It’s important that someone knows the truth. I fought with Dryas, so I went for a walk to clear my head—”

  He throws his hands up, stopping my words. “Honestly, madame. It is not important what I think. In the grand scheme of things, I am entirely… what is the word in English?” He pauses to think.

  “Inconsequential?” I supply. He nods, and I sigh.

  “I am merely substituted for him.” Ari seems almost apologetic about it. “I am certain that you can make your arguments to Master Aétos upon his return.”

  My head hangs. What else is there to say? I push myself out of the chair, wobbling a little bit with fatigue. Ari rushes around the island, courteous.

  “Let me assist you,” he says, taking my hand. His cool hand wraps around my waist. “I will help you upstairs where you can take to your bed.”

  I’m too tired to argue, so I just let Ari whisk me upstairs.

  11

  Dryas

  On the long return to the castle, I sit in the back seat of the SUV and look out the window, watching the scenery change. At first, it’s cold and rocky as we drive down out of the Alps. I rest my head against the window and my breath fogs up the glass.

  Hours pass. I doze off for a while, waking up when the driver stops for petrol.

  Gradually as I watch, my surroundings change, everything growing warmer and more Mediterranean as we progress. The driver keeps navigating the car down, down… I suppose that the castle is at sea level, so that seems right.

  Leaning my head back, I can’t help but think of when I drove Rue almost exactly down this route. It was the first day I met her if you can call kidnapping meeting someone. She was in the trunk, passed out in that high-necked wedding dress. She looked so vulnerable and powerless, her red hair fanned out across her freckled face.

  Closing my eyes, it pains me to think of the way she looked when I left her at the house. She was trembling with fright, looking at me with those wide blue eyes. Her expression was partially terrified, partially resigned to the violence I felt.

  That was the worst part, her acceptance of my anger and cruelty. That was the part that forced me to snap out of it, to take a deep breath and a step back. It wasn’t until she gave up fighting that I realized what I was doing.

  I looked at the red marks on her neck, and I confronted what I had just done. Well, as much confrontation as my drunken stupor would allow.

  Then I felt a sense of shame that ran deeper than a river inside me. It always has and always does.

  I took the most beautiful, rare lily and I crushed her, letting her blow away like petals in the wind. I can see the lily petals even now, washing away down my own river of shame and self-doubt.

  At least Rue is here to hear my apology, unlike Aurelia. A flutter runs through me at her name. It’s been far too long since I have even thought her…

  But all the same, I push her (blonde) beauty out of my mind. I need to focus on things I can fix. Things like rebuilding whatever quiet sort of peace that was once between Rue and me. I’m sure it isn’t how it was before, seeing as how I am almost too ashamed of myself to go back to the castle.

  But I will do my best and see if she forgives me.

  In the back seat of the car, I straighten my spine and try to breathe through the black static inside my own head. I spent the last week getting sober, but the downside to not drinking is the unrest deep inside my soul. Maybe it is from my childhood, being abandoned on the streets of Cyprus. Maybe it is from growing up and being inducted into a mafia family at such a tender age.

  Maybe it is simply what I am like, all the rages and drinking and fucking things up that I do. Whatever font it comes from, the wellspring is seemingly endless.

  I will likely spend as much time fighting with my demons as I did drinking, but at least I’ll be in control of myself.

  My fists bunch, even though there is nothing to punch. Please let me be in control of myself.

  At last, we hit the coast. I shift in my seat, gazing at the rocky cliffs that jut into the azure sea. I missed the ocean being nearby, the waves churning constantly. It does not escape me that the black depths inside me are often doing the very same.

  When the driver pulls the SUV into the castle’s gravel drive, at last, I take a deep breath. The castle looks the same as it did the first time, I came to see it.

  The sun glints off the multi-colored roof. The high walls are beige, mottled and mixed and darker bits of stone. I shade my eyes, looking for Rue even though I don’t expect her to appear outside.

  After all, it’s not like I called ahead to let her know I was returning.

  “Monsieur?” the driver says, prompting me.

  I get out of the back of the SUV, unfurling my long legs. There is a kind of tension between me and the front door of the castle, a feeling that something momentous must happen before I can breach it. But I brush the sensation away, striding over to the door and flinging it open with all my might.

  The castle is cool and quiet when I enter, the foyer and living rooms empty. The kitchen is vacant, and the verandah too. I go to the double doors of the verandah, glancing outside onto the sun-drenched patio.

  “Master Aétos.”

  Turning, I find Ari half a dozen steps behind me. A thousand things bubble to mind, things I should ask him about. Only one rises to the top, though.

  “Where is Rue?”

  His expression is one of judgment, although he quickly masks it. He bows his head before answering. “She is in her rooms. I did not warn her of your return, as you instructed.”

  “Anything else to add?”

  Judgment slides across his expression again. “She’s healing well. She doesn’t seem to trust you very much, Master Aétos.”

  My lips twist. I haven’t given her any reason to trust me, though that was not my intention.

  “Thank you, Ari. You can take a few days off, and then I want you to go back to Liechtenstein to check up on what Father Derrik has been doing.”

  Ari’s expression hardens, but after a moment he just bows his head again. “Master.”

  He stalks out of the kitchen, seeming resigned. I turn my face toward the sea, knowing that I need to talk to Rue next.

  To apologize, yes. But also, to let her know that running away from me isn’t ever the answer. We have some things to straighten out between the two of us.

  Climbing the staircase to her floor, I stride purposefully down the hall to her room. When I reach her open doorway, I look inside.

  There she is, on a blanket spread across the floor. She’s laid out horizontally in a sunny spot, wearing an oversized white button-up and a pair of black leggings. Her sketchpad is before her, her long red hair pulled up a lazy knot. A little stub of a colored pencil is clenched in her teeth. She has a look of intense concentration on her face as she looks down at her notebook.

  An ache starts in my bones when I notice that even the tops her bare feet are freckled. I’ve missed her, I realize. More than even I knew. Suddenly I feel desperate to see more of her, to rip the shirt she’s wearing off and drown myself in her milky white, delicately freckled skin.

  Rue glances toward me, starting. Her expression turns from determined to afraid,
her eyebrows drawing down as she scrambles to sit up. It’s only when she rises to her feet that I see her wrist is still splinted.

  She’s a little unsteady on her feet as I approach her. Her eyes are uncertain of me. Not even just watchful, but fully suspicious.

  “You’re back,” she says, clearing her throat.

  My fingers itch to pull her into my arms and kiss her as though nothing bad happened. But the feeling I’m getting from her now says that won’t go as well as I had hoped.

  A flash of guilt runs through me. I really, really hurt her.

  What am I supposed to say that will make everything okay?

  “I missed you.” The words tumble out all in a rush.

  Her eyes narrow on my face. “You disappear for a week and that’s all the explanation I get?”

  I can hear what she doesn’t put into words, as clearly as if she had spoken them out loud. Do you think you can just do these unspeakable things to me and then leave? Come back and pick up the pieces when you feel ready?

  Her expression says every damn hurtful thing that she can’t say, doesn’t feel safe enough with me to say. I see it. I know it.

  I move toward her and she shrinks back. It hurts, that automatic reaction of hers. Not that it isn’t well deserved, but fuck.

  Placing my hand over my heart, I try to apologize. “I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

  She releases a low laugh. “Okay.”

  “I went away for a week to get sober.”

  Her brows shoot up. “You did?”

  I nod. “They wanted me to stay for a month, but I didn’t feel like I could leave you here for that long.”

  Her mouth turns down. “Am I supposed to thank you?”

  I scowl. “No.”

  We are both silent for several seconds before I turn my gaze to her wrist. “How’s your wrist healing?”

  She touches the splint. Her voice sounds tight. “It’s fine.”

  Sighing deeply, I cross my arms. She’s so defensive here. Maybe we need to be in a communal space in order to talk things out. “I’m going downstairs to make some coffee. Will you join me?”