Page 121 of Lilies from Hell

“You really are damn nosy.”

“I am,” I reply with a smile.

The sound of tires in the distance catches our attention, and I turn my head in that direction. When I see him get out of a black Jeep Wrangler, my eyes light up. I don’t wait a second before throwing myself into his arms, not caring that I’m still wet or that everyone is staring. He bends down and press a quick kiss to my forehead, still distant. His tense muscles revealing that something is wrong.

“What’s up?” Jason greets me with a smile, raising a hand that I ignore as I continue to dry Lena’s hair, with her seated between my legs, looking at something on her phone. “Looks like we got up on the wrong side of the coffin today, huh?” He pats my shoulder as he speaks, making my hand to jerk with the towel I was holding. I raise my head, not bothering to hide my irritation. “It’s okay. No need to bare your fangs at me,” he scoffs as he walks away. Bare my fangs? And what the fuck he meant about coffin? I shake my head, focusing my attention back on Lena.

“Are you cold?” I ask, putting down the towel. She shakes her head, pressing closer to my chest. “Are you sure? I have a hoodie in the car.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she says with a smile, causing that tingling sensation to appear in my stomach.

I cover her face with kisses, lingering on her lips, then place my fingers on her cheeks and slip my tongue inside with a guttural moan. I want to deepen the kiss, but I’m interrupted by a piece of raw marshmallow that her brother threw at me.

“You’re going to drown her!” he bellows with a laugh, ignoring the angry look I was giving him.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Lena murmurs, getting up before I can say anything.

I stand up too. I want to know where the hell Sergei had been all this time it took me to get there. I’m not surprised to find him not far from the woods with one hand on Grace’s arse and the other leaning against the tree while he hides his face in her neck. I throw one of my knives without even blinking. It lands in the small space between his fingers, creating a small cut that begins to bleed within seconds. Sergei turns around, hiding the burning sensation in his finger with a forced smile, and Grace walks away with a pale face.

“Uh… I, well. See you later,” Grace says awkwardly before trotting off and disappearing into the trees.

“Do I pay you to stick your dick in Grace’s pussy in the middle of the woods, Sergei?”

“N-no. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“Of course not, because if it happens again, I’ll rip your fucking dick off,” I hiss with a stern look. On the way back to the bonfire, I find him leaning against a tree with a smile.

“In the end, you got what you so badly wanted.”

“Not everything,” I reply, shaking my head. I would never rest until I had that darkness back reflected in her beautiful eyes. The same darkness that seemed to vanish from her the day she left without a trace.

At first, I thought that if she did things she had done before, some of her memories would be triggered and her true self would return to my arms. At least vaguely. It wasn’t my plan to let her end Norman’s life so soon. I feared she wouldn’t be able to cope with the weight of her lost memories, but in the end it was an opportunity I decided not to pass up. Especially because of the urgency in her eyes when she asked me to open that door. In the end, even that wasn’t enough to help her remember. I was becoming increasingly desperate for her to do so.

I wanted my little demon back.

“You’re a fucking son of a bitch,” he spits, wiping that smile off his face.

“That’s right,” I grin. “And you’re an idiot. Only you would think of disobeying my orders, Viktor.” I approach him, suppressing the urge to stab him in the other side. “I should have ripped out your intestines and hanged you with them when I had the chance,” I say more to myself than to him. He clenches his fists at his sides, but he doesn’t even dare to keep looking at me, much less put those fists he only needs to jerk off to some use. “Next time you won’t be so lucky.”

“Why? Are you afraid she’ll find out that you were the one who killed our mother? Or that you kidnapped her when she was just a kid?” His voice echoes unpleasantly behind me as I try to leave. I curl my lips into a short, unfriendly sneer, not denying that he might be right.

3 years ago, I wouldn’t have cared if she knew the secrets I always tried to keep from her, but with the loss of her memories, I didn’t want to risk her leaving me again. I blinked a couple of times, trying to focus my gaze on my brother and chase away the vague memories. It only serves to make the images clearer, Lena’s blindfolded eyes being the first thing I remember about that day three years ago.

She kept writhing, hurling insults and threats as one of my men laid her on the carpet in front of me. Her hands were tied behind her back with a silk ribbon, as were her eyes. I shook my head when he tried to remove her blindfold, signaling him to back off. It took me less than a second to bend down and free her. I hated seeing her so scared because of me, but as soon as her eyes met mine, her frightened face lit up with a smile.

“Alek!” she squealed, reaching out her arms to wrap them around my neck.

I wrapped my arms around her body, pulling her close in an embrace. I stood up with her still clinging to my neck and her legs wrapped around my hips. When she pulled away, her lips were still curved, now into an amused smile.

“Was this the surprise you had for me? You scared me.” She pouted angrily until I gently bit the tip of her nose.

“Would you believe me if I said I was sorry?” I murmured, resting my forehead against hers. My question went beyond the fright she had received and had to do with my intentions in bringing her to my house without anyone else knowing. I didn’t want to let her go. I would not.

“No,” she said without hesitation. “But I don’t care, because I think I would do the same thing.”

The next day, I told her that her parents had to go away for a few days and that her brother had decided to stay with one of his friends. She didn’t think twice about agreeing to stay with me for a few more days, even though she had discovered the real reason behind it. It was fucking awful, but it was worth it to have her by my side. Until that damn day.

I would go back to that damn academy for a thousand years if it meant I could spend one more day living by her side.