“She’s waking up,” Cara’s worried voice boomed inside my head. The slightest movement sends me into a dizzy spell. My head is throbbing. “Giselle, you’re okay. You’re home.”
“Here, drink this,” Darius hands me a glass of red liquid. Blood. It’s probably his blood. I drank the contents of the glass and slowly my headache began to subside. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”
“You were thrown from the car,” Cara began to cry, “we couldn’t find you.”
“We thought you were dead,” April added.
I could vaguely recall seeing the face of someone in the haze of it all, “Asher,” I blurted out in a moment of clarity. Darius whipped his head in my direction.
“Asher had something to do with this?” I nodded. I could only remember bits and pieces, but from what I could gather, Asher played a part in this. “I’m going to kill him.”
Darius pulled out his phone and began pacing the floor. I don’t know why, but something tells me a panicked reaction is exactly what Asher is counting on. I placed my hand over his phone to stop him from doing whatever he’s about to do. He growls at me.
“Growl all you want, but whatever you’re about to do is exactly what Asher is probably counting on.”
“You should be dead right now. How do I know you didn’t cut some deal with my cousin to destroy my family from within?”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” I scowled, offended he would even suggest such a thing.
“Why? Because you care for me?”
Yes…no…damn you…
Truthfully, I do care for Darius but that’s not an omission I am willing to make. Not while his heart still belongs to Aria. That’s an emotional battle I’d rather avoid.
“You’ve made it very clear where your heart lies. I’d be a fool to allow myself to have any feelings for you.”
His lips curl up into a heart-stopping smile. I have to look away, “A loveless marriage it is then. But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I wasn’t aware you actually posed a question.”
“Asher wouldn’t let you go without getting something in return. How did you win your freedom?”
“Really? More accusations? Why do you think so little of me? Or is it that you’re assuming I think so little of you?” I asked, “I assure you that you’re wrong on both accounts.”
“And my patience is wearing thin,” all traces of a smile were removed from his face.
I searched my mind for the answer, but my recollection of my time with Asher is a bit hazy. I sulked and met his gaze, “I. Don’t. Know.”
In a heartbeat he hissed at me and had my back up against the wall. His teeth were at my throat, threatening to spill my blood, but it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t remember.
“Go ahead. Do it. At the very least you’ll know I’m not lying to you.”
I waited for Darius to respond. He did so by piercing my flesh with his teeth like the savage he is. He didn’t even bother being gentle, which I’m sure was his way of proving a point to me. I’m at his mercy. It’s a fact I would never dispute. I’m at his mercy in more ways than I care to be.
Forced to endure his savagery, I braced myself and waited for him to be satisfied when he found nothing. It took longer than I expected. My knees buckled from under me and I had to embrace him just to hold myself up.
Darius finally flinches away from me and examines my eyes, “You’ve been cloaked,” he gasps, biting his wrist and holding it up to my lips.
When I was able to stand on my own, I sat down in the nearest chair and cupped my hand over the puncture wounds on my neck. “Cloaked?”
“Think of it as a memory that’s been encrypted,” Darius explained, wiping his blood over the wounds on my neck. I could feel them healing.
“Like with a password?”
“Yes…sort of,” he nodded.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he did something he doesn’t want me to know about.”
Darius paces the floor, eyeing me like he’s pondering how to get inside my head. He looks down at my chest and stops, “Where’s your necklace?”
I look down. My necklace is no longer around my neck. After checking my entire body I find it tucked away in my pants pocket and quickly put it on. That’s the second time its been plucked off of me without my knowledge.
“Some protection,” Darius huffs, “I’ll have one of the local jewelers send you a pure silver chain so it can never be removed again. Not by our kind anyway.”
“What if Asher has human servants? The same as you? Any one of them could have taken it off of me Darius.”
“Then what good is having protection if it doesn’t actually protect you?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Absolutely,” he chuckles, shaking his head.
Darius had the kitchen staff bring me something to eat while he explained how my accident was covered up. Viktor didn’t want anyone thinking they could get to us so easily. In his words, we need to show impenetrable strength, so my ambush and abduction would be kept secret. No one would ever know what happened that day or how close I came to being killed.
In fact, Viktor is sending Darius and I on a campaign tour. It turns out our union has won us a lot of favor within the human and Night-dweller communities. We’ve been invited into other factions to discuss our agenda to revitalize the human communities. As a precaution our security detail was increased. Then he drops a bomb on me. It turns out Viktor’s brother Lucien is his political partner. As a result, Asher and his siblings would be accompanying Darius and I, along with both William and Jackson, on this tour.
“Why would your father have him as a partner given their history?”
“Because it’s what Vladimir wants. And what Vladimir wants, he gets.”
“Does he know about the feud between the two families?”
“He knows, but we’re not like humans Giselle. We separate business from our personal lives. Although Asher will be on tour with us, I guarantee you he won’t lift a finger to touch you. He can’t. There is a code of conduct we all follow.”
Rolling my eyes and in a sarcastic tone I say, “Well that’s reassuring.”
Darius hooks his arm around my waist and pulls me back into him. “Please don’t worry yourself with the politics of the Draven’s. When all is said and done, I will lay the world at your feet. You’ll be the most envied human girl on the planet by both humans and night-dwellers alike. When I’m done laying the world at your feet, you’ll be a modern day Queen.”
“All these promises of material riches, but you’ve yet to promise me anything of real substance.” Confused Darius cocks his head at me. “I don’t care about having the world at my feet Darius. I’d much rather have a happy marriage.”
His eyes meet mine and my heart skips a beat. “Meaning what?” He asks. He knows exactly what I mean. “What more could you possibly want?”
“A real marriage. One where we’re not just pretending. A marriage that is real. A marriage where I’m your equal, not your prize…not your puppet.”
An awkward silence filled the room. Several minutes passed before Darius finally spoke. “We’ll be gone for three months with our first day scheduled for the day after our wedding.”
“What about our honeymoon?” I ask, “Or is that another human invention you and your kind find ridiculous?”
Darius’ answering smirk was all the answer I needed. There would be no honeymoon for us. “God…you people suck the fun out of everything,” I sigh. Instantly I realized the insensitivity of my words, “No pun intended of course.”
Laughing, he says, “We’ll be on the road for three months but you’ll be begging me to bring you back home after two weeks.”
“If I back out of this marriage, what will happen to my father?”
Darius gave me his full attention. “Are you thinking of backing out of our arrangement?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Well…if he can’t pay back the debts he owes me then I’ll have no choice but to take his life. All debts are paid monetarily or with a life. There are no exceptions.”
Suddenly, a thought popped into my head, “My inheritance should be more than enough to cover what he owes you. Just take it and we’ll call it even,” I offer.
“It would have been if he hadn’t asked for a loan to further his political agenda and secure his position of power within the human populace. Your stepmother convinced him to allow her to make some…changes to the old house. He now owes me two billion dollars.”
Two billion dollars? Thankfully the edge of his bed was there to catch me. Elizabeth is running our family into the ground financially with her expensive habits. I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Once we marry you’ll be one of the wealthiest women in the world. Instead of turning to me for loans, your father will turn to you. You have to be willing to tell him no…even at the risk of losing favor with him.”
“I’ll make sure you get every scent of what he’s borrowed back. In the meantime, maybe we can postpone the wedding and make some sort of arrangement.”
His brows pursed together and he said, “Why would I do that?”
Why not? Why is he doing this to me? Why not just let me go?
“Well why not?” I ask, “You’ll be free to be with Aria.”
“I’m not worried about that. We’ve reached an understanding.”
“What kind of understanding?” He didn’t answer. “You know what, it doesn’t even matter anymore. I just want out. Name your price…I don’t want to go through with this wedding.”
“Even if it means you’ll be damning your father to death. There’s no way out of this Giselle.”
“There has to be!” I shout at him.
“Why do you want out all of a sudden?” He asks frustrated.
“Because I’m the one who ends up getting screwed in this arrangement.”
“I would never hurt you.”
“You and I don’t exactly operate under the same moral code so forgive me if your words provide me little to no comfort.”
Darius tries to hug me but I push him away, “Don’t. All it does is confuse me when you’re nice to me. We both know where you’d rather be and with whom,” I sulk, “I don’t need your pity hugs and attention. If you meant what you said about not hurting me then stop being nice to me, and stop pretending there’s more between us then there actually is. You don’t want to be with me…I don’t want to be with you…and our marriage is just one big lie. Let’s stick to the truths and I’ll be fine,” I shrug him off.
Using his index finger he gently turns my chin towards him so he could look me in the eyes. My body went still, paralyzed by his allure. All out war broke out inside my head. “I never said I didn’t want to be with you. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I told you I was willing to pay more than asked to acquire you,” Darius smirks. Part of me wanted to kiss him and the other part of me wanted to punch his face in. Then his lips touched mine and nuked any and all thoughts inside my head. He slipped his tongue into my mouth and parts of me that had been dormant for eighteen years suddenly sparked to life. I quickly pulled away and placed my hand against his chest to stop him from advancing.
“Do you fight all of your feelings as well as you do your feelings for me?”
“I don’t want to get hurt.”
“We’ve been over this already,” he sighs, frustrated, “All of your needs will be met. All of them.”
“And Aria’s?”
“My relationship with Aria is no concern of yours.”
In other words, his relationship with Aria is none of my business, which is exactly what I’m afraid of. Shaking my head, I shove Darius away from me, and storm into my room where I slam the door shut.
Darius wouldn’t dare step foot in my room, but that didn’t stop him from sending Cara in to check on me. She walked over to where I sat on the bed and sat down next to me. “Lord Draven asked me to check on you and see if you needed anything.”
“If you were me, what would you do Cara? Would you marry Darius to save your father’s life, knowing he’s in love with someone else?” I sulk, “he told me he could never love me because I’m human. I don’t want to be tied to someone for the rest of my life who doesn’t love me?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask sweetheart. My father is the one who sold me to the Draven’s to better his life. I’d gladly say no just to watch him die,” she chuckles, “besides, you could always just ask him to turn you. Then you’d no longer be human and your problems would be solved. Well…part of them anyway.”
Cara left me alone with my thoughts. I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my head on my knees. With my wedding to Darius drawing closer, I was starting panic. There had to be some way out of this. If I can’t stop this wedding to Darius I’ll be stuck in a marriage I’m almost positive will end in heartache. I need to talk to my father, but Darius has banned me from seeing anyone outside of his family.
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