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“No.”
That’s good at least. I wasn’t exactly imagining hunting down some random guy and smashing his skull in on my wedding day when I got up this morning.
“But that’s just the thing,” Deirdre continues. “What am I supposed to do when the tyrant and the one I love are one and the same? You even look a bit like Naoise, her lover in the story. He was supposed to be beautiful. With raven-black hair.”
Well, I have the black hair going for me, I guess. I don’t bother addressing the “beautiful” part because there’s only one beautiful thing in this room and it sure as shit isn’t my scarred ass.
“What happened to Deirdre?” I ask instead. “In the story.”
“She threw herself out of a chariot and killed herself.”
The room tilts sickeningly to the side. I feel like I won’t be able to remain standing upright if I don’t do something and do it right fucking now. It’s the same way I felt back when I smashed the doors right off their hinges at home that very first night.
But there are no more doors left in here to rip down. No more men to kill, at least for now. She’s got the ring, got the dress.
There’s nothing left to do but make her mine in all ways, before my uncle and this city and the eyes of fucking God if He can even stand to look at me.
So I don’t do anything. I just stand there with my hands balled into useless, aching fists and say tightly, “Then I suppose it’s a good fucking thing we took a bullet-proof limo to the venue instead of a chariot, isn’t it?”
She gives a lifeless laugh.
“I already told you, Elio. I don’t plan on dying just to get away from you.”
“But do you still plan on getting away from me?” I demand, seizing her chin and forcing her to look at me. “After everything, do you honestly still think you can escape?”
After everything, do you really want to leave?
To leave me?
“No, Elio,” she says. “Don’t you see? You don’t need debt to bind me now. You don’t need to hold threats about my father over my head. You got me to love you.” She raises a trembling hand, stroking her fingers over the scarred part of my jaw. It takes everything I fucking have not to lean into that hand like a touch-starved animal.
“I love you,” she whispers. “And that’s more powerful than any other cage you could have constructed.” Her hand falls down, pressing flat against my chest, right above the place my heart beats.
“I love you,” she repeats one final time, and I’m suddenly terrified that I’ll never hear her say it again. “And now I can never leave.”
Chapter 38
Deirdre
I don’t have much time to process what just happened with Elio, because as soon as he leaves the room Valentina and the other bridesmaids storm back in like a cloud of anxious bees.
“Jesus, look at the mess!” Valentina says, stopping short when she sees all the hair and makeup stuff that Elio knocked to the ground.
“Sorry,” I say softly, seeing that many of the various jars and bottles are now broken.
“Oh, God, don’t be! Elio paid for all this shit,” Valentina says. “And I can pretty much guarantee you weren’t the one throwing it all down on the floor.”
Well, that is true, I suppose. But I was still complicit. He swept it all off the table to get me up on there. So he could fuck me. Because we both needed it so badly. Sticky wetness pools in my panties as I look down at the items in disarray on the expensive floor.
Elio did it. He broke these things.
But he did it with me. For me.
Just like what he did to Brian.
I haven’t seen him on campus lately. I assumed it was just because Elio had hit him that other time and told him to stay away from me.
I shot his fucking dick off.
