His Broken Princess

Chapter Eleven

She might not speak a word to me but every time I look at her, those eyes tell me a story that knock at my broken heart.

He is a ray of sunshine in this desolate, dark and cold world. ~A.Gupta

Cole

The moment I had stepped out of the mall, my eyes had gone straight to my car. From where I was standing I could only see the back of the car and nothing else. But by the time I was halfway to my car I could feel the sudden tension in my bones. It was like an outside force was affecting me and the moment my eyes fell on the passenger seat I understood why. My eyes went to the backseat, a part of me hoping that I would find her there but I knew it even before I saw the bags there and no sign of Violet.

Fuck.

I didn’t pay any attention to the bags as they slipped from my fingers as my eyes roamed the silent parking lot. Looking. Searching. But not seeing her.

It was like that moment when I was six and had been separated from my parents in a carnival. My heart pounded in my throat and a sense of loss started to spread through me.

Where the f**k did she go?

Did she run away?

Was she waiting for this moment?

I knew that she was finding it difficult to adjust to her new circumstances and often she thought that she didn’t belong with the Carters. It was in the way she always takes a step back when everyone was in the room, like she felt that she was intruding and didn't want to be a part of something that didn't belong to her. I knew it because I felt the same.

But I was starting to believe that she had settled, that she was more comfortable since she started her sign language lessons.

What if I was wrong?

What if she had decided that she couldn’t stay?

What if—

The soft whine had my head snapping to the side. A small brown puppy was standing a few feet away, quivering as he barked at something in the dark. Before I knew my feet took me to him and as I neared I heard the rough words that made my muscles tense and my blood hot.

“Let’s see how loud you can scream for us.”

Without pausing or thinking for a moment I had walked toward that voice, pulled by an invisible chord that vibrated inside my chest. I knew she was there. I knew what I would find would probably make me lose it.

And I did.

I lost it. All the facade, the cool unbothered persona slipped off the moment I saw her pale, still and captured between the two men that woke up with a death wish in the morning.

I didn't think as I charged forward.

I didn't stop as my fingers hurt.

I didn't stop as my knuckles bruised and bloodied.

I didn't stop until I heard that soft whimper that splintered down my chest and stabbed me deep in my soul.

And then when I took her back to the car and my eyes fell on her chest, I couldn't stop until I could make sure that with each breath those men take they would be reminded of what they did to come so close to meeting their maker.

Now as I slipped in the car and looked at her, I tried to control the urge to go back for the third time and revive those bastards just so I could push them over the line where they would be dead for good. She sat there with her head down, fingers clenched together, her hair hiding her face, hiding her from me.

I tried.

I f*****g tried.

But still I shifted, turned, wiped my hand on my jeans and then my fingers reached for her. I slipped those snow white hair behind her ear and captured her chin so I could look at her. There were no tears tracks. Nothing. Just a pale face with a blank expression.

“Look at me.”

Nothing.

“Give me those eyes, Princess.” A beat passed and my voice thickened with impatience. “Now,” I demanded.

It happened slowly.

Her lips parted. Dark lashes fluttered.

And those pale blue eyes appeared for me to read.

My fingers twitched on her chin, tightening on their own accord before I loosened my hold with difficulty. I wanted to pull her closer. Hide her in my arms. Inside me. I said, trying and failing to control my tone, “You don't say a word to me, I don't f*****g care. But you scream my name whenever you need me. Understand?” She stared at me, unblinking. “Tell me, you f*****g understand, princess. Or I swear you won't get to breathe a single breath without me hovering over your shoulder.”

She blinked a few times. And then she nodded, finally coming out of whatever dark place she had slipped in.

My eyes dropped to where now she was clutching her shirt and a curse left me. I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my own shirt and pulled it over my head. I held it out to her but she looked up at me. Those blue eyes gave me permission for something I didn't ask and didn't realize I wanted.

I unbuttoned the shirt and then said, “Come closer.”

For a second I thought I made a mistake but then she shifted toward me and her arms fell to the side. I looked away from her and blindly held out the shirt for her to slide her arms through. And then... I froze.

I froze as those soft and cold fingers wrapped around my wrist. I closed my eyes as those soft fingers intervened with mine and she pulled them to the buttons. I fastened them at her silent command and then with a rough exhale I leaned back in my seat.

But her fingers remained interlocked with mine as she settled her head against the window and closed her eyes.

After a few moments that were filled with the knowledge that something changed irrevocably between us, I started the car and drove us home.

Violet

He turned into the lane for the Carter house and my fingers squeezed his. He looked at me in question and I pointed at his bare chest. The hard muscles, half glinting in the street light, the smooth surface looked warm and inviting. I spent the whole ride looking out the window or with closed eyes, just so I wouldn’t give into this overwhelming desire of shifting closer to him and pressing my face in his chest. And feel that warmth, that addicting safety I had felt in that dark corner of the parking lot.

Without a word he grabbed the notebook he had thrown in the middle console and gave it to me.

‘Everyone will see and question.’ I wrote. I didn’t want the attention and more specifically I didn’t want everyone to be concerned and look at me with sympathy in their eyes.

He read it and then closed the notebook. I watched as without a word to me, he pulled out his phone, did something and then slipped it back in his pocket. And then drove to the house. He pulled the car in the driveway and even before we stepped out of the car, the front door opened and a moment of betrayal caused my chest to constrict before I saw that it was Bree and she made her way straight to the driver seat.

Cole inched the window down halfway and took something from her then without a word she walked away. When I looked back at him I found him pulling on a t-shirt and then he said, “It’s alright. No one is going to say a word. Relax, okay?” I swallowed and nodded. “Let’s go.”

He stepped out of the car and came around to open my door. Such a gentleman he was, until his eyes darkened and the switch flipped that is. He helped me out and then opened the backseat door to take out the bags.

In silence we walked inside the house. And no one said anything as we passed the living room, kitchen area and started to ascend the stairs. Because no one was there. I could hear Dominic talking to someone, probably on the phone. And I could hear Bree’s soft whispers but no one saw us and no one said a word to me as he walked me to my bedroom door.

I watched as he put the bags near my bed and then without a word, without looking at me, he walked out. I opened my mouth, the words heavy in my throat but didn’t materialize not until he shut the door behind him. “Thankyou, Cole.” The whispered words floated around me, engulfing me in a warm hug.

Dinner was a plate delivered to my room by Bree, despite the fact that Mrs Carter has a rule that everyone in the house should eat at the table together. And I knew it was her way of giving me time to feel comfortable after what happened tonight. I knew that everyone must know by now but like I had asked they would all keep it to themselves just the way I wanted. But the problem was the attack hadn't shaken me up, it was the man in the next room that had sent me reeling. It was those dark brown eyes with golden rings in them that had brought me from the cold, dark place into warm sunlight. It was this sudden need to have his warm skin touching mine, making me feel protected. It was that soft scent of musk and wood that had my mind in a chaos.

After taking a forty minutes long hot shower and wearing one of the long sleeved jumpsuits that Kiara had bought me, I decided to step out of my room because I had been waiting. Waiting for him to come to my room like every other night but tonight he hadn’t. Feeling bereft, I picked up my notebook and with the two words written on it, I made my way to the door.

Before my fingers touched the doorknob it opened from the other side. Startled, the notebook slipped from my fingers and I stepped back. Then my eyes found him as he stood at the threshold in a fresh white t-shirt and gray pajamas. His brown eyes flickered in surprise to see me standing there and he hesitated. I licked my lips and we stood there staring at each other for long minutes, until I heard a door shut in the hallway. I clutched his t-shirt in my fingers and pulled him inside and then shut the door.

 It wasn’t until I turned around that I realized what I just did. I felt my face heating up under his regard but I forgot all about it as my eyes fell on his inflamed knuckles. I stepped toward him. My heart beating loudly in my ears and my skin prickling, aware of his eyes on me. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and tugged him toward the bathroom.

The silence between us was loud with unsaid words as he followed my silent command and walked behind me, letting me lead him inside the bathroom. I ignored him, feeling my fingers shaking around his wrist and tense nerves in my stomach as I looked in the cabinet for a first aid kid.

“You would have better luck with both hands for whatever you are searching for.”

It wasn’t until those words in his deep voice floated around me that I realized that my fingers were still holding on to him. I released his hand as if burned and hid my face behind my hair as I bent down to search the cabinet under the washbasin.

I could feel his eyes on me like a warm blanket as I straightened and put the white box on the counter and then looked through it for what I needed. After what he did, how he made me feel, I wanted to do something for him. Return the favor, I guess.

When I had picked out the cotton and disinfectant, I turned to him and finally looked at him. For a moment I froze as I met those eyes. They were warm and half lidded as he watched me. I swallowed, my skin felt stretched taut as I picked up the cotton and doused it in the disinfectant. I took his hand in mine and turned it around. My eyes stung as I took on the swollen knuckles with blood still crusted near the nails.

I didn’t know how long it took but I stopped only when his fingers softly touched the back of my hand and he said in a soft voice, “Stop. It’s done.”

I blinked and saw that his skin had pinked from all the cleaning I was doing, it seemed I had aggravated it more. I looked up at him, stricken that unknowingly I had hurt him. The corner of his lips twitched. “You didn’t hurt me,” He said, plucking the unsaid words from my mind. He took the cotton from my fingers and threw it in the dustbin.

I held out the band aids. With one glance at them, he said, “No.” I frowned and still pushed them in his direction. “I don’t care how you blink those eyes at me, princess, I’m not going to put that butterfly s**t on my fingers.”

I rolled my lips in and looked down. “Princess...” There was a hint of warning in that single word, but I ignored it as I took that word and locked it inside my chest. To treasure it when I would need it the most. He had called me princess for only a handful of times and yet it felt like he had been calling me that since the world began, just like the pull I felt toward him since I laid my eyes on him.

I pressed my palm to my chest and signed for him. ‘Please.’

He let out a low sound, more like a growl and then snatched the band aids from me. I turned away from him to put the first aid kit away but like he knew it already, he said, “Don’t gloat, princess.”

I bit down on my lip, my heart felt like it was out on a jog in a sunny morning. After what happened today I shouldn’t feel this way and yet I felt light in the way I hadn’t ever before. I started to walk away but he grabbed my arm and stopped me. I felt his heat at my back as he stepped closer and then, his words coasted along my ear as he asked, “Do I get to return the favor?”

My whole body trembled.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

I shook my head in frustration but he took it for an answer.

And without prolonging it for another second, he said, “Go. I’ll be out in a minute.” And then I felt the cold as he stepped back.

With a heavy thud my heart stilled and my shoulders dropped as I walked out. If I thought that I was starting to have a normal life I was so wrong, but then nothing has seemed easy when I came here. Maybe I just had to try harder to get my normal even if it makes my skin crawl and my stomach nauseous with the thought of having to bare myself for that normal.

Please do comments your thoughts. I love reading your comments. 

A.Gupta