Chapter Thirteen: Escape and Captivity
The silence after the vow was the loudest sound I'd ever heard. It pulsed in the back of the limousine, a living thing between us, thick with the scent of his cologne and the phantom coppery tang of the cathedral.
He sat opposite me, a king on a shadowed throne, watching as I stared numbly at the brown jade strangling my finger. The city lights bled across his sharp features, painting him in streaks of gold and gloom.
"I will make you pay," I said. The words were quiet, but they crackled in the enclosed space, dry tinder to the fury smoldering in my chest. "I swear it. For my parents. For the life you stole. I will make you pay for everything."
His face, which had been an unreadable mask of satisfaction, shifted. The amused glint in his eyes hardened, cooled, crystallized into something razor-sharp and approving. He released my wrist, which he'd been holding loosely, as if to remind me of the tether.
"Finally," he breathed, the word a low, venomous sigh that seemed to stroke the air. A slow, deliberate smile spread across his lips, devoid of warmth. He began to clap. The sound was soft, mocking, each clap a punctuation mark to my shattered world. "That's the first intelligent thing to come out of your mouth since '$6.50 for a latte?'"
Rage, white-hot and purifying, burned through the numbness. "You want revenge? Then do it!" I launched myself at him, nails aimed for his eyes, his smug, beautiful face. "Come on, kill me! Finish it!"
He didn't flinch. He simply caught my wrists mid-air, his grip like iron manacles. With a cruel, effortless grace, he pushed me back into the plush leather and spread his arms wide, a dark angel offering his breast. "I won't stop you. Let's see what you have in you, little firecracker. Show me the rage they tried to breed out of you."
I trembled, the fight draining into a helpless, shaking fury. "You are a monster."
"I know." His admission was casual, absolute. He leaned forward, invading every inch of my space until I could see the faint scar near his temple, the endless depth of his obsidian eyes. "But I'm your monster now. Your husband. The one man whose life is tied to yours… not by pretty lies or convenient alliances, but by hatred. By blood. By a fate you can't outrun."
His thumb rose, brushing away a traitorous tear I hadn't felt fall. The touch was startling in its gentleness, a grotesque parody of comfort. It lingered, a brand on my skin.
I jerked back as if scalded. My heart was a frantic bird beating against my ribs. Run.
The thought was pure instinct, a survival impulse that overrode exhaustion, shock, even reason. When the limousine slowed for a turn, I didn't think. I fumbled for the door handle, tumbling out onto the cold, unforgiving asphalt of a dimly lit suburban road.
The world spun. I heard his shout—not of anger, but of dark, thrilling amusement—cut off as the door swung shut. And then I ran.
My torn wedding dress, a grotesque parody of finery, tangled around my legs. The delicate lace caught on branches, the hem ripped further as I stumbled through a manicured hedge, fleeing the neat, orderly homes for the deeper darkness of a nearby wooded park. My bare feet, once pampered for satin heels, sliced on gravel, rocks, broken glass. A sharp, hot pain lanced up my leg—I'd cut my foot open. I didn't stop. Each step left a faint, damp print on the cold ground. Blood. My blood, marking my pathetic trail.
My lungs were fire. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. The silence of the park was oppressive, broken only by my ragged gasps and the distant hum of the city. I was a ghost in a white gown, haunting a world that had no place for me.
I didn't know how long I ran. Time blurred into pain and panic. When I finally staggered into a small clearing, my body gave out. I collapsed against the rough bark of an oak tree, sliding to the damp earth, clutching my throbbing foot. The adrenaline was gone, leaving only a hollow, shaking cold.
"My poor little wildfire… you burn so brightly, even when you're lost."
His voice came from the shadows beside the very tree I leaned against. He'd been there. Waiting. He stepped into a sliver of moonlight, his black suit making him part of the night itself. His eyes were not angry. They were… captivated. They roamed over me—the torn, mud-stained lace, the wild tangle of my hair, the blood painting my foot and ankle—with a possessiveness that stole the last of my breath.
"Stay away from me!" The words were a hoarse rasp, all I could manage.
He ignored them, of course. He moved with a predator's silent grace, closing the distance. "Come here, little wife."
When he reached for me, a final, desperate surge of defiance shot through my veins. I slapped at his hands, a weak, pathetic gesture. Then I lashed out with my good leg, a clumsy kick aimed at the heart of his arrogance. "Don't you touch me! I'll ruin you! I swear, I'll kick so hard you'll never be able to have children! I'll end your future!"
He caught my ankle effortlessly, his large hand enveloping it, stopping the kick cold. A strange look crossed his face—not anger, but a fierce, dark protectiveness. He didn't shove my leg away. He pulled it closer, pressing my bleeding foot flat against the crisp white linen of his shirt, over his heart. The warmth of his body seeped into my icy skin.
"A woman who bites back," he murmured, his voice a low vibration I felt through my sole. His gaze held mine, mesmerized. "It's why I chose you. Taming a spirit like yours… it's the only conquest that matters."
Then, he did the unthinkable. He bowed his head and pressed his lips to the arch of my filthy, bleeding foot. The kiss was shockingly intimate, a lord paying homage to a wound. It was reverence and domination in one terrifying act.
"What are you doing?" I whispered, shock momentarily overriding my fury.
He looked up, a dark chuckle in his throat. "Checking to see if you really did any damage. Seeing if my fierce little wife has already kicked my future children away." His free hand drifted, almost thoughtfully, toward my lower stomach.
The casual, possessive implication shattered my momentary stupor. My expression must have shifted, because his own smile vanished. He saw the raw, murderous terror there—the complete, unvarnished truth that I would rather see his line end than ever be part of it.
He hesitated. The confidence flickered, replaced by a sliver of something else. Unease. "Did you mean that?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. "Could you… would one kick from these tiny, furious feet truly take that from me?" The question hung in the cold air, laced with a vulnerability so alien to him it was more frightening than any threat.
"You're insane!" I spat, finding my voice again. "I don't understand anything about you!"
My words broke the strange spell. His expression solidified back into impenetrable control. Before I could try to wrench away, he moved. In one swift motion, he swept me up into his arms, cradling me against his chest as if I were a fractious bride being carried over a threshold.
"Put me down, you beast!" I screamed, fists pounding uselessly against the solid wall of his chest. "I'd rather crawl through hell than be carried by you!"
"Too bad," he growled, his voice tight with a potent mix of anger and intensity as he strode purposefully back toward the road where a sleek black car now idled, "because I understand you perfectly now. I see a phoenix who had everything burned away—family, name, freedom. And now she's my wife, and her only purpose is to hate me, to try to kill me, to threaten the very future I…" He cut himself off, jaw clenching. "You are magnificent in your ruin."
"That's right!" I hissed, my struggles growing weaker as exhaustion reclaimed me. "And one day, I'll succeed!"
He reached the car and yanked the door open. "We'll see. For now, let's go. The babies are waiting to welcome their mama."
I froze. All fight left me, replaced by a cold, sinking dread that reached deeper than any fear of death. "What babies?" My voice was a cracked whisper. "You have children? You were married?"
The world, already unstable, tilted on its axis. Shock, grief, exhaustion—it was a tsunami that finally broke the last of my defenses. My vision swam, the edges bleeding into black.
His face, blurred and distant, was the last thing I saw. My final words were barely a breath, a promise to the darkness: "You're a nightmare… I'll never be 'mama' to anything of yours…"
Then, the void swallowed me whole, his arms the last cage I knew before oblivion.