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My hand flew up by my side. “Or maybe you’re only waiting until you can get Venny back here, because then you know I wouldn’t dare break—wouldn’t dare let whatever destruction is in me out. And then the torture can just go on and on and on and on, forever.”
His lip snarled. “You don’t know the first thing of what I have planned for you.”
The words so frigid, ice cut through my veins.
My eyes closed for a long second as I tried to quell the pounding starting in my skull.
Nothing to do now but fight back—that would at least help release the energy.
“What you have planned for me?” My eyes opened, slicing into him as I scoffed out a forced laugh. “I’m glad I can provide such entertainment for you. Tell me, will you visit me in the dungeon once Cletus gets here? Visit me when he has a drill up in my skull, making my body twitch under his command? Watch him stick whatever sick blades he can anywhere in me?”
“Wait.” He stilled, his eyes going wide as his stare cut through me, his words panicked. “You never—never—did Cletus wreck your womb?”
I fell silent, my eyes dropping.
Fuck. Too much. Too many fucking words flying from my mouth.
He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. “Did my brother violate you?”
My head flinging back and forth, I sputtered out words. “I don’t know. I wasn’t conscious half the time. Most of the time.”
“Did he violate you?” he roared, shaking me harder.
The books spilling from my arm, I wedged my hands up and shoved at the wall of his chest, screaming back at him. “He knows more about what he did to me than I do. Why don’t you ask your fucking brother yourself?”
His hands ripped from my arms and he charged at the wall next to the door, sending his fist flying into the plaster. Again. Again. Blood flying from his knuckles. Again. Harder. Again.
I bent over, scooping up my books, my voice still screeching. “No. You don’t get to be outraged on my behalf. Your blood did this—did whatever in the hell he did to me. The very same blood that you let walk into this castle. The very same blood that tortured your own daughter for years.Youlet Cletus in.You.”
I stepped away from him, moving toward the door, my eyesight going in and out of focus, dizziness setting in fast with the pain.
My movements slowing, I found the doorframe with my fingertips, using it to guide me toward escape.
My eyes closing tight, I strained to get words out, my voice petering down to a whisper. “Let me know when Cletus gets here. I want to walk down into the bowels of Netherstone on my own accord. I don’t want you to have to lie to Venny about how you forced me under his blade. For she’s going to need to not hate you.”
Chapter10
{ Damen }
Isaw how Ada stumbled out of the library. Off balance. The rabid energy sparking off her so hot and vicious I could almost see it in the air. How it was dragging her under.
As much as I hated her for what she took from me, this, I had to give her.
I found Ada in her room, squirrelled away in the room adjoining hers that had been turned into a wardrobe to beat all wardrobes, the walls lined with gowns and accessories, and even a stack of her favorite yoga pants and shirts and sweaters.
When I had given the order to have everything Venetia had ever ordered online rebought to put in her room when the castle was rebuilt, I didn’t realize her orders had included so much clothing she’d thrown in her cart for Ada. I had merely wanted Venetia to be surrounded by the familiar when she would eventually return home. Instead, those deliveries had just turned into another haunting of Ada’s shadow that I didn’t see coming.
I’d almost had all the casual clothing tossed out when the maid asked me about it, since it wasn’t in Venetia’s size. But then I’d found myself standing in here late at night, in the silence, folding each piece of clothing and placing it on the shelves.
Fucking obsessed.
Fucking weak.
Ada was upright in the middle of the wardrobe, leaning forward, her hands clasped onto the edge of a shelf with her upper arms tight against her ears. She was running in place like a mountain climber, but attempting to keep her head as still as possible. Trying desperately to release the angry energy storming in her skull.
Leaning against the doorframe of the room with my arms crossed, I watched her in silence for a long minute before I cleared my throat. “Cletus.”
Her legs stopped, her body stilling, going rigid. Maintaining the deep lean against the shelving, she dropped her right arm slightly to turn her head and look at me. The pounding in her brain increased the second I mentioned my brother’s name—I could feel it palpitating in the air between us.
