Page 42 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
“Don’t. Don’t pretend like I did you any fucking favors. What you went through before I got there… That’s been harder to live with than anything that came before.”
It’s more than feeling safe. I finally feel warm when he’s around, my very own heat source. And it wasn’t my body that came out of that pool. It was something reptilian. Cold blooded. I can’t keep myself warm; I need him to do it for me.
“Stay with me,” I ask, my voice breaking. “Like that first night. When you were with me, I didn’t have the nightmares. You keep them away.”
You keep him away.
“It’s during nights that he comes out of hiding,” Damon says, his voice tortured. “That’s when I need to look for him. It’s my only chance to find him.”
“I need you more,” I whisper.
He makes a low growling sound. “Don’t fight me on this. I almost lost you.”
“You’re losing me now.”
His jaw clenches, a muscle moving beneath three days’ growth. “Once I’m done I’ll stay with you. I’ll protect you. But I need to do this first. I need to kill him.”
He can’t let it go. His anger has dug a hollow through him, as surely as little feet beneath the swing. “More than kill him, I’m guessing.”
It’s a merciless smile he gives me. “More than that.”
This is his addiction. No needles or cards. Hating his father. Hunting him.
And he was choosing it over me.
“No,” I say, almost desperate. “If you do this you’ll become him. That’s what he wants. That’s what he’s always wanted.”
“Maybe I could have escaped it,” Damon says, almost melancholy. “Except he touched you. And there’s no way I can let that stand. No way I can let him live.”
Which is exactly why Jonathan Scott had taken me.
Somehow, he had known that.
Damon stands, almost pushing back against the sunlight, as if the rays hurt him. And I realize with horror that they might. How much sunlight did he get as a child? “I hope one day I’m the man you deserve.”
“And until then?” I ask, the knot in my throat so thick and so rough.
“Until then I’ll make this right the only way I know how.”
Chapter Seventeen
Gabriel Miller’s house is a sprawling modern mansion, designed with so many twists and turns they must be intentional. He wants people to be lost, to be intimidated, and it works.
I have a path of breadcrumbs using the abstract art decorating the cherry wood walls—splashes of red against swaths of black. Pops of yellow. I can make it to the kitchen on my own, not that I go there often.
And I can find Avery’s room when I need her, although I never do at night.
Gabriel keeps her well occupied in the evenings when he returns from searching for Jonathan Scott. Whether I have nightmares or restless insomnia, I don’t follow the hushed words and the moans down the hallway.
Those times are the hardest, when I feel so alone my chest aches.
This is what I always feared. Mama leaving me. Daddy, too. He chose his addiction over my safety. I can’t decide whether that makes him weak or just human.
My only solace comes from a stack of books on the side table.
The only books remotely mathematical in nature are about stock charts and economics. They’re even more dry and obtuse than the automotive books, but I revel in them like they’re sun after a long rain.
There are a few books I remember were on the syllabus in English class this year. Grapes of Wrath doesn’t hold my interest, but I keep it there anyway. It serves the same purpose as my self-enforced bedtime in that trailer—pretending like there’s a grownup to guide me.
I wander down to the library after lunch, carrying the stack of books.
A fire crackles beneath the large marble mantel. Someone must be here. I take a step backward, prepared to leave. Avery peers around the wide leather wing of an armchair. “Hey, you. Don’t go.”
Hesitant, I hover beneath the arched doorway.
Avery’s been incredibly kind to me, even nurturing, but it only makes me conflicted. I wanted that kind of nurturing from Mama. And occasionally I’d even get it, when she was between boyfriends. But I learned not to trust in it. It would be snatched away when I needed it most.
“What do you have there?” she asks, looking at my books with interest.
The urge to share with her is too strong, to show her what I like and find out what she does. I approach the rug with slow steps, feeling almost shy.
The library is massive, two stories connected by a carved spiral staircase. And on the second floor, the shelves go so high you have to use a ladder to reach the very top. Small leather benches set off the different bookcases, which is where I would usually sit.
