Page 40 of Gilded Locks

“Hunter.” Stone pounded, but his voice sounded almost... broken. Then the pounding stopped.

She felt the moment Stone abandoned his rescue and left her there to fend for herself. “Please…” she begged, certain he could kill her without even breaking a sweat.

Hunter’s obsidian stare bore into her with untethered hate. “You deserve to know exactly what kind of monster shares your blood. What kind of poison runs through your veins.”

“Please,” Marigold begged, backing into the wall.

“She was a child.”

“I’m not like him!” She closed her eyes, covering her ears.

He snatched her wrist, ripping her hands away and forcing her to listen. Panic spiked as his strength dominated her into submission. He twisted her body, pulling her away from the wall. “First, he drugged her.” The words exploded from Hunter like artillery fire, each syllable designed to destroy.

“I don’t want to hear this!”

“Tough!” He pinned her hands at the base of her spine, forcing her body to bow forward as he spoke directly in her ear. “Our sweet, innocent sister. Eighteen years old, as gentle as summer rain, fresh as morning dew, and he fucking drugged her.”

“No,” she cried, shutting her eyes as if she could somehow escape what was coming.

“Then, he took what he wanted and left her bleeding and broken in a room that was supposed to be her sanctuary.”

The world tilted sideways, reality fracturing like glass under pressure. Marigold was once again drowning. Once again on that cold slab being strapped down, forced to tolerate the unthinkable.

“Big breath in....” Her mother’s voice echoed from a distant corner of her mind, but her heart pounded louder.

“Blow it out small…” Hands. She could feel their cold hands pushing her down.

She pulled her hair as her mouth and eyes squeezed shut, already tasting the rubber as she tried to breath ‘just right’ like her mother had taught her.

She could smell the disinfectant on the floors, taste the sweat on her lips. “Big breath in…” But phantom hands were all she could feel. Pushing. Pulling. Until every breath was shallow, cold, and wrong.

“Get off me!” she screamed, opening her eyes to find red carpet not linoleum.

Hunter’s voice was a blade against her throat, sharp enough to draw blood. “He drugged a girl barely out of school.”

She panted. Her mind breaking under the weight of fear.

“Raped her.”

Reality splintered. Was this real? Or was this a hallucination? There were three. But now there was only one. She gasped, every shallow breath hiking up her anxiety until she was in a full-blown panic attack.

“Not only did he leave her in a mess of his own making, he left her pregnant and traumatized, going back to whatever hell-hole spawned him.”

Pregnant. The word hit her like a physical blow, driving the air from her lungs as the door burst open.

“Hunter, get off of her!”

She was thrown onto the bed, too afraid to do more than cover her head. Russian explicative exploded from each of them as Hunter was thrown into a wall. This was too real to be a hallucination.

She pinched her arm, validating that everything taking place around her was real.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Ash shouted.

Marigold flinched when he placed a gentle hand on her back.

“Are you okay?”

She cowered away from his touch, unsure who she could trust. They were all liars. Like Jordan, the golden son who could do no wrong. The perfect heir to the Calder empire.