Page 96 of Hellebore

“You were placed in the kitchen?” I interrupt, a small amused sound escaping me.

“Yeah. Well, I am a big guy and they thought the kitchen was a safer place for everyone,” he jokes, winking at me. I give him a real smile in return.

We eat in comfortable silence after that, the only sound the steady rain drumming against the windows. The scene feels strangely homey—the warm light, the food he prepared for me, his quiet presence across the table. It settles over me like something soft and dangerous I did not ask for, and something inside my chest twists with how right it feels. How wrong it feels to let it feel right.

“Drystan,” I say when I finish my plate. Our eyes meet across the table. “I need to know. Where were you the last two days?”

“You do not want to know.” His voice drops, darker, and his gaze slides away from mine. A chill traces down my spine.

“I need to know. I want to trust you, but I need to know.” My voice cracks, pleading.

He exhales slowly and leans forward, elbows resting on the table. “You know that even if you come to hate me, I will never let you leave, right?” His arms appear relaxed, but his eyes burn with feral possession. “You are the air I breathe, the only light I have ever known in this rotting world. If you try to run, I will hunt you down. If you try to end your life, I will follow you into death itself and drag your soul back to mine. There is no universe where you exist without me, Briar. Not anymore.”

His words wrap around my throat like velvet chains, terrifying and intoxicating all at once. I shake my head, fear clawing higher. “Please tell me.”

He holds my gaze for a long moment before speaking. “I found out how those two men gained access to you. Who provided everything.”

“Provided? Gained access?” Confusion knots my brows. I have no idea what he means.

“Your father.” The words land blunt and heavy between us.

My heart drops like a stone into an endless well. “What?” Tears burn instantly behind my eyes. “No. You are insane.” I push back from the table so fast the chair scrapes loudly against the floor. Drystan rises too, his massive body blocking my exit, but he does not reach for me.

“You said you needed to know, so now you will know all of it.” His voice remains calm, too calm, while my entire world fractures. “Your father owed a fortune to dangerous men over gambling debts. They were coming for him, for the house, for everything he had left. Then someone called with an offer: a way out in exchange for you.”

Tears spill hot down my cheeks. “No! You heard wrong, Drystan!” I slam my fists against his bare chest, but he does not flinch. “He is my father!” The scream rips out of me, raw and desperate, my voice breaking apart on the words as sobs begin to tear through my body.

“He is a piece of shit. He sold you. The man on the phone demanded you be easier to access, so your father took you out of the dorm and moved you into that apartment with no cameras nearby.” He places one hand gently on my lower back. The touch undoes what little control I have left. I collapse forward into his chest, fingers clutching desperately at his skin as ugly, heaving cries wrench out of me.

“No. No. He is my dad. He protected me. He⁠—”

“He confessed, Briar. And I—” He pauses. I look up at him through the blur of tears, my whole body shaking uncontrollably. “I killed him.”

I keep crying, shoulders heaving with deep, broken sobs, but beneath the shock and grief, something twisted and awful blooms inside my chest—a horrible, fragile sense of safety.

He won’t hurt me again.

“Briar—” His arms tightening around me.

Chapter Thirty

DRYSTAN

She is lying on my lap, having cried for hours before falling into a heavy silence for the past thirty minutes. Her breathing has finally settled into something steady and exhausted against my thigh. I was expecting her to be furious, to try to kill me or run again, but she did not. She believed me.

“Briar—” I whisper. She looks up, her face swollen from all the crying, her blue eyes red and raw, tears still clinging to her lashes like tiny shards of glass. “I had to—” I start, needing her to understand.

“I know.” She reaches for my face and pulls me into a kiss. “But he’s my father, it hurts Drystan.”

“I know my love. I know.” I do not know what else to tell her.

“He was never perfect. He was cold and not a nice husband to my mother, and for most of my childhood I barely remember him being there—that night, after it happened when I called him… The way he ignored me, the way he didn’t even come to see me for years, it was one phone call on my birthday. Deep down I knew something had happened but…” Her voice breaks.

“You couldn’t have known—he was a monster.” I choke out.

More tears fall, sliding down her cheeks. “He sold me—” A small sob leaves her throat and she covers her lips to keep it low.

I grab her hand and place it over the scar of her name on my chest. “Don’t hide from me. Cry. Scream. Break. I can take it.” Her body shakes a little against mine as she sobs louder and presses her face to my chest.