"No!" he shouted, slapping my hand away before it could make contact and then shoving me away from him hard enough to land me on my ass from the kneeling position I'd been in. "No," he repeated, finally raising his head enough to meet my eyes. What I saw there chilled me to my soul, and my heart cracked in two. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Get the fuck out of here,Rose." He sneered my middle name at me, and I knew.
Uriel had taken a personal hand in Jordan's hospitality.
I shook my head, refusing to accept that answer from him. "Jordy, I know you've been through some shit, but—"
"No, you don'tknow," he spat back at me, the cold venom in his voice burning me as surely as any acid. "Get the fuck out of here. I'm not going anywhere with you. Ever. You're dead to me."
Despite my careful mastery of my emotions and my meticulous compartmentalization while I had searched the jail block, my control slipped and his words cut me to the core. I stifled a short gasp, shaking my head in disbelief.
There was no way,no way, Uriel could have turned Jordan against me in just a few weeks. Was there?
Fuck. My heart ached for whatever my prince had been through.
Voices echoed from along the corridor, and I flicked a panicked glance at the open door. In a matter of moments we would be discovered and punished. It was now or never.
"Jordy, we can discuss this later, but right now is ouronlychance to get you out of here. Now pull yourself together and get on your fucking feet. We need togo!"
But he didn't budge. He didn't even try to get up. Instead, he just stared blankly at me.
"He knew you'd try this, you know? You just played right into his hands like the predictable little puppet you were raised to be." His whole tone was filled with disgust and disappointment. It sliced through me like razor blades. "In here!" he called out, alerting the Society guards to my whereabouts and dooming us both.
I kicked and screamed as four burly men seized me, but the shocking jolt of a Taser rendered me useless before I could free myself. Seconds later, I slumped in their grip, my body hanging as tears rolling down my face.
Jordan didn't utter another word as they dragged me from his cell, but I forced myself to hold his gaze as long as I could. Until my head flopped forward and my captors hauled me into the corridor and slammed the cell door shut once more.
Fear of what was to come for me didn't even factor into my concerns. All I could focus on was the fact that I'd failed him. I'd failed Jordan, and Uriel had poisoned my caring, gentle prince against me.
I'd fuckingfailed.
Chapter 8
Blinking my eyes awake into the light of a new dawn, I found my mind riddled with confusion. I was back in my bed. How had I gotten back into my bed? And why wasn't I strapped to a chair in a punishment room for my pathetic jailbreak attempt the night before?
I tried to rub my eyes, but my wrist tugged against a restraint, and I groaned. Of course I wasn't just back in my bed like nothing had happened. My wrists were both restrained, and when I shifted my face to look around the room—
"Good morning, my lovely flower," Uriel purred, stroking a finger down the side of my face. He was lying on the bed beside me, the sheets casually tossed over his lower half while his upper body was totally bare.
A spike of fear hit me, and I quickly scanned my eyes down my own body—as much as I could see, anyway. Thank fuck, I wasn't naked. I was, however, in a delicate white lace nightgown. Certainlynotwhat I'd been wearing when Uriel's guards had Tasered me, then "accidentally" punched me hard enough to knock me out when I'd started struggling again.
"You've been a naughty girl, Rose," Uriel murmured, ignoring the way I'd stiffened up all over and continuing to stroke my face like I was his pet. "Here I was thinking you'd come back to me. That you understood the vitally important role you hold for us all. For thepeople."
Bile rose in my throat, and I flinched away from his hand. "Save the bullshit, Uriel," I sneered. "This isn't for thepeople. This is your own god complex at play. You won't be happy until you eclipse the monarchies in both powerandcorruption."
Uriel didn't answer, but I felt the shift in his mood seconds before his open palm met my cheek in a stinging slap. It was hard enough to make my ears ring and stars dance before my eyes. I didn't make a sound. I'd learned the hard way that would only make things worse.
"Apparently you've forgotten more of your training than I realized," my sensei spat. He tossed the sheets aside and straddled my hips, his fingers circling my restrained wrists and biting deep into my flesh. Thank fuck he wasn't naked, though. He wore light gray sweatpants, but they did little to cover how interested he was in my current predicament.
Fucker had always loved seeing me helpless. Took me too long to figure that out, but it’d been clear the night we slept together.
"Maybe I was wrong to leave you that night," he mused, tracking his golden eyes over my thin sleepwear as though he could see through it. "Maybe I should have taken you with me to continue your training."
I swallowed heavily. I'd done so freaking much to pushthat nightfrom my mind, and now it was all for nothing. I'd separated my sensei from Uriel in my memories, made them into two separate entities. But now that he was here in the flesh, the lines were all blurred again. I needed to remind myself. My sensei had taught me to fight, made me resilient, trained me to survive. Uriel had tried to brainwash and control me. He'd lured a young, naive girl into his web... then taken her virginity and cast her aside as "not ready" for his grand plans.
At the time, it'd broken my heart. But it hadn't taken much time and distance to make me see clearly. Uriel was a predator. An abuser. He was totally deluded, and now all the pieces were dropping into place. His hatred of the monarchies had only been the tip of the iceberg. Thisradicalresistance faction? This was the belly of the beast.
He’d done me a favor that night. Hindsight allowed me that much clarity. By leaving me behind when he’d relocated to Europe, he'd inadvertently freed me from his oppressive influence. Instead of pining for my lost "love," I'd stepped back and seen his behavior for exactly what it was. Grooming. Not just in a sexual way, either, if this resistance plot had really been in place since my birth.
Fucking hell. What a mess.
