I turned away from the mirror at the sink and glanced over my shoulder, trying to see better. “What the heck is tha—”
Everything came to a screeching halt. Everything except my adrenaline, which shot straight into the stratosphere.
I twisted to get a better look, my eyes growing wide. And when I saw the bandage covering me from my shoulder blades to my low back, memories flooded my mind. Every single memory I hadn’t been able to see let alone bring into focus since coming awake.
“Merda. Merda!” Bile shot up my throat. I gripped the sink and doubled over, fighting to keep from vomiting as the visions fired behind my eyes—being stripped, being chained down, being injected with all those drugs, the circle around me, the chanting, and those kittens—I still wasn’t sure how many—pawing at me with their hands, licking me with their tongues, and the blonde—
“Cazzo.”
I barely made it to the toilet in time. I retched, but there was nothing in my stomach, and all that came up was bile.
Footsteps pounded close. Voices filled the room. Hysterical voices—Marco’s, Fee’s...
“Luc!” Natalie screamed. “Oh my God...”
My stomach pitched again just from the sound of her voice, and I dropped to the floor in front of the toilet, bracing my hands on the bowl. “Get her out of here,” I growled. “Get her... out.”
I heaved again and bent over the bowl.
“Luc!” Panic filled Natalie’s voice.
Some kind of commotion was happening, but I couldn’t turn to look. All I could focus on was the blinding pain—not in my back this time, but in the center of my fucking soul.
“No, stop pushing me,” Natalie cried. “He needs me. Oh God. His bandages. Felicity, he’s bleeding through. He ripped his stitches. Luc!”
I didn’t give a goddamn about my stitches. That ritual, that beta riding me, pushing me toward a release I didn’t want, breaking my vow to Natalie... It all swirled in my head, making me retch until there was nothing left.
“Figlio di puttana, Luc.” Marco dropped to his knees next to me with a towel and pressed it into my hand as I sagged back. “Breathe, fratello.”
I was trying to, but, fuck, everything inside me hurt.
Long minutes passed where all I wanted to do was disappear back into that darkness and never re-emerge. Long minutes where I struggled to breathe, to think.
“Just... tell her... the meds made me sick,” I finally managed, knowing it was cowardly, but unable to come up with anything else. I swiped at my mouth with the towel and eased back against the wall only to jerk forward when my back hit the plaster and another burn shot across my skin.
“Merda.” Marco’s hands closed over my upper arms, helping me forward so I could sit up and not fucking fall. “She’s not gonna buy it.”
“She... will.” I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, shaking with the realization I was just like my father. Just like the degenerate men in my family. And I’d already broken the only vow that meant anything to Natalie. Not even two days after our wedding. “Just... whatever you do... don’t tell her everything. Let her think it was just... the flogging.”
Marco didn’t respond, and in the silence, dread crept in, sending my adrenaline surging all over again.
My eyes shot open, and I looked up at him, fuzzy in front of me, but kneeling on the bathroom floor, holding my arms. “No.” I shook my head. “Please, tell me you didn’t already—”
“I didn’t.” Marco’s lips thinned, and sympathy filled his dark eyes. “I didn’t have to. She was there, Luc. They made her watch. She saw it all.”
Oh shit. Oh fuck...
My lungs seized. I suddenly couldn’t get air. My skin grew so hot I couldn’t think of anything but clawing it off my body. Couldn’t do anything but double forward and gasp as I felt the fucking chains holding me down all over again, as I heard those chants and voices and—
“Cazzo,” Marco muttered as if from a great distance away. Then louder, “Felicity! I need you! Right now!”
“Oh shit.” Footsteps pounded close. Then Felicity gasped. “Bloody hell, Luc.”
Someone screamed. I heard Natalie’s frantic voice.
Hands closed over my body as I struggled, then I heard Felicity say, “Hold him still.”
Something sharp stabbed into my arm. Voices echoed louder around me, but I couldn’t make out the words. Didn’t know who was speaking. All I knew was darkness. A thankful darkness because it was taking away the memories, making me forget the vile things I’d done.
A darkness some part of me realized had been waiting for me all my life.
This time when I came to, the room was dark.
I also knew exactly what I’d done.
Pain echoed through my back as I moved my legs on the mattress where I was once again lying on my stomach, but it was drown out by the disgust swirling inside me.
“Easy, Luc. Don’t push it this time.”
Marco. Marco fucking Romano. Again.
“Is she in here?” I asked, afraid to move my head, my voice low and gravelly.
“No. She’s in the other room with Fee. It’s just you and me. Thought we should talk before you see her.”
I didn’t want to see her.
Nausea swirled inside me again, but I swallowed it back, knowing I deserved to feel like shit. “I-I need to sit up.”
Marco helped me maneuver to the edge of the bed. I ground my teeth against the pain, knowing I deserved that too.
When I was perched with my feet on the floor and my hands gripping the mattress on both sides of my thighs, I glanced toward the dark floor-to-ceiling windows with red and blue checked curtains that ran all the way to the crown molding above. A single glass lamp on the dresser across the room shone in the darkness. “Where are we?”
Marco moved back to his seat. “Gadleigh Castle.”
Felicity’s family home in Scotland. Fuck me.
“Is Charles here?” Felicity’s father was the head of House Merrick and the Archduke of the Isles. He was a big man, very English, and very proper. And while all my interactions with him over the years had been positive, I wasn’t wild about him seeing me in my current condition. Everything in my world revolved around keeping up appearances and not showing weakness—ever.
“No. Charles and Adelaide are at their home in Wales. His staff cleared out for us.”
“Does the Archduke know he’s harboring a fugitive?” No way my father had approved for me to leave Italy after that ritual. And when he found out House Merrick had taken me in—
“Technically, he’s not.”
When I glanced toward Marco, sitting on the fancy French side chair beside my bed with his elbows resting on his knees, he said, “Charles spoke with your father when we were in the air and got the Grand Duke to agree to give you some time.”
Some time...
Time to get my head on right. To pull myself together. To figure out the only way I could survive was to take it up the fucking ass. Just like twelve years ago.
Except, this time I knew they’d never leave me alone as long as they had before. They wouldn’t leave me alone for six damn months. As soon as the wounds on my back were healed, they’d suck me back into House business and screw with my life all over again.