Page 84 of Degradation (The Brethren Lords #3)

Pailtyn

T he breeze is so cool, it’s almost unnerving.

I can hear the faint rustle of the trees, the sound of birds chirping.

I can’t even remember the last time I was outside.

I slipped out the moment I could. I had to feel my way, had to listen to the wind howling beneath the doorways to know which one to pick.

I’m wearing a man’s t-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting cargo pants. They feel military but that could also just be the fabric.

A voice in my head is screaming at me to run. But how the fuck can I? I can barely take a few steps without injuring myself. And besides, I have nowhere to go.

That thought hits me like a freight train, even if I did manage to get away from wherever the fuck I am, I don’t have any money, any friends, anything to help me.

I pick up a pebble, tossing it in what feels more like anger than frustration.

I never imagined I would be free, I never imagined I’d ever get out of Oblivion. I thought that place would be my tomb, and I’d made my peace with that. I’d embraced that.

What the fuck do I do now? Where can I go from here? Is Magnus hunting me, does he plan to return me to my nice little prison cell, or will he simply eliminate me from the board?

I want to ask Devin, I have so many questions, and yet, we’ve never had a normal conversation, one where he treats me like an equal, where he tells me what I actually want to hear.

Will be just mock my fears?

Will he pat me on the head and tell me to leave it alone before he fucks me again?

I shudder, feeling that old familiar pain between my thighs. I didn’t want to fuck him. I didn’t want to do anything with him, and yet, just like always, I don’t have a choice.

He called me his wife-to-be. Like fuck I believe that. I know it’s another form of manipulation. That he must be playing me. And yet, there’s a tiny voice telling me he isn’t, that this is his plan, to marry me, to use my status as a Heseltine and a Founder and… what? What can he get from me?

It feels like an entire freight train slams into me as I realise that. I’m not a prize anymore. I’m not something to covet, to desire. I’m the lowest of the low. It should give me some relief after everything, but it’s hard to deny my feelings of shame, of disgust.

I am nothing now. I am ruined in every conceivable way. And yet, Devin claims to want me? It just doesn’t make sense.

I don’t realise I’m walking, pacing, until something sharp bites into the sole of my foot. I’m not wearing shoes. The skin on my feet has become pretty tough after years of being barefoot, but as I wince, I can feel there’s a tiny thorn sticking out.

“Fucksake.” I mutter, crouching down to assess the damage.

It’s not so bad. I sit down in the dirt and use my nails to try to pry it out.

Just as I toss the offending bit, a crunch of something alerts me to the fact that I’m no longer alone. No doubt Devin’s come to find his little whore, to see where his blind bitch has stumbled off to.

I screw my face up at that name, that insult, even though it’s my own mind that came up with it.

“God, it’s good to see your face.” My mother murmurs, sounding like she’s breathless with joy.

I swear my stomach drops at the sound. A the literal ghost from my past. “What the fuck?”

I don’t know how far I am from the compound. I know it’s behind me, that I need the heat of the sun on my back because it was in my face when I was walking. But there’s no way I can get there if she tries anything.

I’m half tempted to scream, to scream for the guards, for Devin, but what if they’re all in cahoots?

What if that’s what’s really going on here?

She’s somehow gotten them on her side, and they’ve held me until she was able to show up and…

no, that can’t be right. It doesn’t make sense for them to be torturing me if that was the case.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” She asks.

“Like what?”

“Like you missed me?”

She really thinks that would be the first words out of my mouth? It’s been what, five years, she thinks of all the things I want to say, that would be my opening?

“You fucked me over.” I snap. “Antonio told me everything.”

She huffs. “Antonio is lying.”

“Like fuck he is.” I spit.

She sits herself down so delicately beside me and the way she starts positioning her dress makes it feel like she’s sitting on a soft cushion and not the dry, arid dirt. She tries to take my hand, and I quickly jerk it away.

“Paitlyn,” She says. “Hear me out.”

“Why should I?” I snarl. “You knew, you knew what he was, you knew what would happen, you knew exactly what you were setting me up for.”

“It wasn’t meant to go that way. I was assured Gunther was mad, but he wasn’t violent.”

“Assured by who?” I ask.

She sighs like that’s a secret she doesn’t want to reveal and that tells me everything. She’s playing me again, manipulating me again. She didn’t come here to tell me any facts, and she certainly didn’t come here to actually apologise.

“Paitlyn, this whole thing is far bigger than you, far bigger than me too. It goes back generations, it goes back centuries.”

“What?” I screw my face up at her words.

“The Brethren were never meant to be like this, not originally.” She sighs. “We were taking it back, we were going to reset, to restore, to stop all this abuse. We didn’t want our daughters to continue to suffer, we didn’t want them to have to marry men they didn’t want to…”

“And yet, that’s exactly what I was forced to do.” I retort. God, can she hear herself?

“You were supposed to be the final sacrifice.”

I can feel myself trembling, I can feel my body responding, reliving those moments, reliving the horror that she was also responsible for.

“It was meant to end with you.”

I don’t know if she means it to sound the way it does, but it sounds like she expected my death, that that was the plan.

“I know it’s hard to understand, darling, but it was never meant to finish this way. Gunther was meant to be a puppet. You were meant to rule through him…”

“And then what?” I gasp. Did she really think I cared about being in charge? I just wanted a good husband, a family.

She sighs, reaching out to cup my face in what should be a loving gesture, but I know I can’t trust her.

“It wasn’t meant to…you have no idea who you are, who you really are…” She trails off. “They killed my friend. Magnus did. On their wedding day. He murdered her and no one said a thing, no one did a thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Magnus murdered Bethany. She was his wife, and he murdered her. And even her family let it go. She wasn’t the first of course, almost every friend I had, every woman I knew, was forced into an arranged marriage.

Was forced to endure rape, and abuse, and God knows what else.

But I knew that day that I couldn’t let it continue.

I didn’t want to. So, when the opportunity presented itself, when I realised we really could change things, I had to take it, I had to. ”

“So, you sold me off.” I state.

She sniffs. “I never…”

“You did. You knew what he would do. You saw it, in the cathedral and that first night, you even held me down.” I half-cry, remembering that awful moment. How he’d abused me with her witnessing it, her helping him.

“I didn’t know what to do.” She admits. “I just, I knew things were in place, that it would be only a few weeks, a month at best, and then he would be dealt with.”

“It was months.” I reply. “It was months and months of abuse, and torture and…” I cover my face, forcing the tears back down because I don’t want her to see them, I don’t want her to think that she can use this weakness against me.

“He took my eyes, he took my sight.” I scream the last bit, and then realising I’m on my feet, though I don’t remember standing.

All this anger is suddenly exploding in me. I’m shaking with the amount of adrenaline flooding my body.

She hasn’t even acknowledged it.

She hasn’t even admitted she knows that part of the story.

And I realise then, that it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t my husband wielding the blade, because she is the reason I was there, she put me in that position.

“I’m so sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They promised me.” She says so fucking silkily.

“Who?” I snarl cutting across her.

She sighs again, and I decide that I don’t want to hear another word. She’s not here because she cares, she’s not here for me, she’s doing this to ease her own guilt and nothing more.

“Paitlyn, please, please wait.” She pleads.

“I have nothing else to say to you.” I mutter, trying to go back up that stoney path, trying to navigate my way like I have a clue where the bunker is.

She grabs my arm, pulling me back and the movement makes my head spin. “Wait, don’t you see, don’t you get it? You can be free now, you can be whoever you want to be. Come with me, I can look after you, I can keep you safe.”

“Safe from who?” I reply. As far as I can tell she’s put me in more danger than anyone else has.

“Safe from them, from him, from the Blakes.”

I pull myself free, only, she grabs at me again, this time more forcibly and I realise then what I’d not paid attention to. What I’d ignored the whole time we were talking.

Footsteps.

Too many footsteps.

Someone is approaching us; someone is so close to being beside us.

Instinct takes over, some reflex tells me that I can’t go with her, with them. Whoever the fuck they are. My mother is not safe, my mother is not going to protect me. She never has.

I scream, I lash out, I pull myself free as best I can, but I lose my footing almost immediately and end up slamming into a rock.

Gunshots ring out almost immediately. They’re far off and yet I hear the whistle of them as the bullets race past me.

I don’t know where to hide, I don’t know where is safe or how exposed I am.

In truth, I don’t think I’ve felt more vulnerable, more in danger because of my blindness, than this moment here.

I can’t crawl away when I could very well end up crawling right into the hands of the enemy.

So I curl up, I make myself so small against the boulder, and I try not to make a sound as it feels like an entire battle explodes above my head.

I can hear my mother yelling, I can hear her calling for me, begging for me to go with her.

But I can hear other voices; strangers, and also the guards.

They’re getting closer, they must be barely a few feet away from me.

I don’t know if it’s relief or disappointment to know that fact.

To know that none of my options right now are good ones.

“She’s here.” Someone says. A voice I don’t know.

A hand wraps around my arm, and I’m yanked forcibly away from the rock.

I scream out, unsure who the fuck it is.

Within seconds a shot goes off that sounds far deeper, far bigger than all the ones before.

The hand holding me lets go, a strange man’s cry rings out before I hear the loud thud of something heavy hitting the ground.

More footsteps approach but they’re followed by more of that same awful gunshot, and I realise I’m slowly being surrounded by a pile of the dead and the dying.

It’s only when the chaos turns to silence, it’s only when that distinctive smell of gunpowder eases, that I realise it’s over.

I don’t dare to move. I don’t dare to breathe.

Footsteps approach, too many to count but I recognise the voice barking orders, I’d recognise his voice anywhere.

When the steps get closer, I know it’s him, I recognise the way he walks, the pressure of his soles, that familiar stride too. He scoops me up, picks me up like I’m a damsel in distress and he pauses, checking me over, checking for any wounds, any damage.

I don’t know if it’s relief I feel to know he has me. No, it can’t be, but it’s not abject fear either. My adrenaline is pumping so fast though my veins, and some part of me feels almost turned on by it.

I gulp as I realise my pussy throbs, My breathing feels so intense. I swear if Devin checked my panties right now, they’d be dripping.

“I’m unhurt.” I murmur, trying to keep my voice as calm as I can.

I don’t want him to know, I don’t want him to realise.

What if he decides to fuck me here, what if he decides to rip off my clothes and pin me down amongst the dead and fuck me until I’m a weeping, horrible, dirty fucking mess for him?

He lets out a low huff before his fingers find a graze along my arm.

“Not exactly.” He replies, as if I’d care for such an insignificant cut as that. As if he himself hasn’t done far worse to me.

“Are they gone?” I ask. I don’t know what I want him to say, on some level I’ll admit I am regretting my choice, regretting my decision.

My mother may have sold me, may have used me as a means to garner power, but realistically, what choice did she have in the matter?

Gunther was Chapter Lord, he had enough means to ensure he got what he wanted.

It would be madness to expect her to refuse him.

And besides, Devin is hardly a fucking saint, is he?

I shudder as it hits me again that I am still, after all these years, just a pawn, a thing for all these people to fight over and abuse.