The Castle

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I come awake with blinding suddenness, the lamp on the nightstand abnormally bright, my heart pounding as if I have been running instead of lying down. I must have fallen asleep.

My phone screen comes alight. Midnight.

The last part sounded so real, it feels like someone else is in the room with me. It’s not the first time I’ve heard a voice in the walls, but it’s the first time it sounded like Gabriel. Little Avery James, all grown up.

Then again, he said that to me. Maybe it was just a memory.

Maybe it was just a dream.

That’s what I decide. A dream.

I can’t be going crazy, can’t deal with the doubt that my mother faced. Can’t surrender to the dark waters that lap at my mind, ones that threaten to drown me.

The room looks like it did before, bathed in soft light, my laptop screen dark. The bedcovers are barely rumpled from where I slept on them. Empty. Gabriel isn’t here. I’m tempted to text him, but something draws me back to the window.

And there he is, standing on the marble veranda. He’s taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves. Wind moves softly through his hair, hiding the angles of his face.

I’m halfway down the stairs before I realize I’m not dressed for the outdoors. The pale pink nightgown barely reaches my thighs, the lace dipping low between my breasts. The magnetic pull of him compels me to the balcony. I’m desperate enough for any company right now, after all day alone, but there’s something about Gabriel. Something about the set of his shoulders, the solitary silhouette of him, that tells me he needs me.

He doesn’t turn when I step outside, but I know he hears me. It’s strange, the way his senses are finely honed. Something you would expect from a hunter in the woods or a soldier on the battlefield. It was a kind of war, the way he grew up in a brothel, forced to fight far too young. The streets of Tanglewood have seen blood spilled. Is that what happened tonight? Is that why he vibrates with dark tension?

I slide my hands across his back, smoothing away the invisible ripples. He’s pure muscle beneath my touch, strung as tight as I was after my nightmare. Except that had been a dream.

“What happened?” I ask softly, resting my cheek against his back.

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

A sigh catches in my throat. He tries to protect me, but at what cost? “I won’t break, you know. If you let me in. If you tell me what’s happening. I might even be able to sleep better.”

He turns suddenly, capturing my arms with his large hands. “You had another one?”

A nightmare.

Sometimes I wake him up with my thrashing, with my cries. He looks haunted when he finally shakes me awake, his voice hoarse as if he had been afraid, too. They make me feel weak, those dreams, as if I’m really a fragile princess. That’s how he treats me. I’m terrified he might be right.

I shrug, taking his place at the balcony, the curved stone cool against my palms. I would rather pretend it was a nightmare than a hallucination. That’s what drove my mother to her death.

His chest shields my back, warming me despite the chill in the air.

He presses his face into my hair, breathing deep before he speaks. “It’s always been a fight.”

I don’t think he’s talking about his friend. “You seem different, though. More tense.”

“Because you’re here now,” he says, voice low.

“I don’t understand why Jonathan Scott even cares about me.”

“He doesn’t need a reason. Every once in a while a man like him climbs out of his hole to snatch someone pure, someone rich, just to prove he can. And then with your history…”

A shiver runs through me. “My mother.”

I read the end of the diary, the part where my mother recognized that Jonathan was playing mind games. She went to confront him that night, not to run away with him like my father assumed.

“Maybe he really did care about her,” Gabriel says, his voice distant. “A man like him, he’ll always destroy what he cares about most. A man like me.”

My breath hitches. “Not like you. You’re protecting me.”

His hands tighten on my arms. “Is it protection to keep a flower in the dark, away from water and light? To watch it wilt in front of your eyes? No one else can see it.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“No one can ever take it away.”

I try to turn, to face him, but he holds me in place. I can see only the perfectly manicured hedges holding up an inky night sky. “I’m not wilting.”

“You’re not happy, little virgin. Locked up in your tower.”

“Then let me out,” I beg softly. “Let me come with you, at least. I’ll be safe with you.”

His hesitation gives me hope. “Jonathan Scott isn’t the only danger. He has dark connections. Foreign ones. His power diminished over the years, and for a while he seemed content to operate in the shadows.”

A shiver runs through me. “And now?”

“He wants to rule the city again.”

My throat tightens, and I face him. “Justin turned away from his father. He told me he’s working with someone who wants to beat him, someone with deep pockets.”

Gabriel’s expression darkens. “Selling secrets?”

“He did it for me,” I say softly. “So that he could buy us a new life. I should warn him.”

Danger sharpens the air around us. “No, little virgin. Whatever he got into, that’s on his head. He either understood what they were doing or he’s too stupid to help.”

I turn away, looking out over the darkness. There’s no point in arguing. Anything I say will only convince him that I still love Justin…and I do, in an innocent way. I may not want to marry him anymore, but I still care what happens to him.

Gabriel captures my chin, lifting my face. “You miss Justin?”

“I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” He already took my mother. My mother’s house. And it feels like the fire still rages, burning everything in its path.

Only a matter of time until it reaches me.

“A lot of people will get hurt,” Gabriel says gently. “That’s the nature of war.”

Fear must show on my face, because he brushes his thumb over my cheek. “The important thing is that we win. Then you’ll be able to leave here.”

Will that ever happen? Wars like this never really end.

A fist clenches my heart.

I know there’s something a little dark about the way Gabriel locks me away, a little foreboding, but I’m too glad to have someone who cares enough to do it. Too afraid that I need the protection my mother didn’t get. She left that night to confront Jonathan Scott, even though she must have known what he was capable of. Wasn’t she scared?

Did she think he wouldn’t hurt her?

It’s a blind trust that can only come from love. It makes me wonder if I have the same fatal flaw. Except it isn’t Jonathan Scott who could hurt me. It’s the man keeping me here.

“Tell me, Gabriel. What would happen if I walked out the front door?”

“Try it,” he says softly, but it doesn’t sound like an invitation. It sounds like a warning.

“Am I your prisoner?”

“If you want something, only ask. If you dream of something, I’ll find it for you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t bring you.”

That means yes, which is disturbing.

And strangely comforting. To have every wish granted as long as I don’t leave. What woman would leave that paradise? What woman would stay?

Maybe that’s the curse my mother and I share—to bat our wings against the cage, relentless in the pursuit of freedom. Only, the true danger lies when we find a way out.