A/N: To Femme Feminista, I so watch Inuyasha, I love Lord Sesshoumaru. I even call my bf Miroku sometimes because he's such a lecher! ROTFL! God I love this site it's chuck full of awesome people. To name a few, My awesome Beta's and proofreading champs, Rebecca. t. p. wrecker and Ms. buffi.
To Ericsfae, B-Rock525, ljhjelm49, Baronessajai, Duckbutt, Vlady, rcherry1977, treewitch703, murgatroid-98, Loftin and sluggy's mom; I wanted to give you all a great big bow. Your names have been the most present on my review pages through all my stories, showing love and support since the beginning. Thanks!
Sookie
Chapter Twenty
I was caught. There was no lie I could tell that could get me out of this. So I relied on the truth. "You know I don't love you," I said. I wouldn't apologize because I wasn't sorry. We both knew it.
Eric didn't even look as if he heard the deepest truths I'd told. "This isn't about love," he replied, coolly looking down at his phone. "You violated the terms of our agreement. That cannot go without consequence."
"I never wanted this," I yelled, frustrated. "Let me go, Eric, please let me go."
"No," he said, "You are my wife. Your place is with me."
Those words that shouldn't have affected me made me want to cry. He didn't want me. He wanted someone whose compliance he could force. It shamed me to cry in front of him. It seemed like the cheapest surrender after a well fought war. I hated myself, but I was unable to keep my tears unshed.
"You will never be my husband," I said, trembling with anger and despair. "Not in the way that matters, not ever."
"You have never tried," he replied calmly, "I have been indulgent, patient, and lenient, and you, you with your faithlessness, you have reminded me that pain is a teacher that is second to none."
Instinctively, I took a step back. He was going to kill me or hurt me, but I was okay with that. The only thing left to do was shield Quinn if I could. Nothing Eric could do would make me give him up.
"I have told you. If I haven't killed you by now, I'm not going to," he reminded, sounding ever bored.
We both looked toward the driveway as several vehicles drove up. They were cars, but not the ones Eric used. They filed in one after the other and formed a loose circle on the front lawn. This couldn't be happening! Hoping I wouldn't get his unique mental signature, I fanned out my mental net. There were three cars, seven vampires and…a choked sob escaped. Quinn… He had found Quinn.
"I am man enough to never raise my hand to my wife in anger. Being a vampire I have a craving for violence. It can only be satisfied with the blood of your lover."
I'd been afraid before. I'd been terrified of René trying to rape and kill me. This, what I felt, left me feeling physically sick. I stood shaking with my heart in my stomach. "I'm the one who cheated," I said. "He didn't know. It's my fault. I'm the one you should punish."
"Believe me when I say that I fully intend to," Eric said, reclaiming his seat.
All the cars had left their head lights on. I could see Quinn and I crumpled to the ground in a heap. There was a collar around his neck; it looked like something out of a house of horrors. The thick band had long serrated knives facing inward. It prevented him from shifting. The knives would kill him instantly.
'No, please God don't let this be real', I sent the prayer up, but it was tossed right back in my face.
"Please, don't do this!" I begged. "I'm sorry."
"As am I, for I take no pleasure from your pain," His tone was just as calm as it had been since the beginning of the conversation. "Now, sit down." And like a marionette on strings too taut, I did. My movements were jerky and uncoordinated. I moved blindly with my eyes on Quinn as I stumbled into the nearest chair.
Two vampires emerged with thick long lengths of chains in their hands. I watched, horrified, as they tied them to Quinn's hands, then to the bumper of two opposite cars. Another vampire, a tiny female stood behind Quinn with a barbed whip in her hand and a lit cigarette between her lips. I burst into tears. I knew what was coming.
"He will die." My husband said. "The swiftness of his death, however, I place in your hands."
This just couldn't be happening. Bile rose and I fought to remain conscious. I was trying to catch Quinn's eyes, but his gaze was focused to the right of me where Eric sat. It was like being trapped in a dream so horrible, I honestly felt like I would never wake up. I didn't see the vampire behind Quinn move. I heard the first "thwack" of the whip making contact with flesh. I flinched, and turned to Eric to beg for mercy.
"If you turn your head, if you so much as bat an eyelash, I will have him healed and we will start all over again."
Time stood still. The mundane sounds of the night around us were drowned out by Quinn screaming, my sobbing, and the vicious lashes of the whip hitting already bloody, tattered flesh. All throughout I was begging and apologizing, but Eric didn't show any signs of hearing. I was in hell and he was the devil.
More than once Quinn was beaten unconscious, but the chains simply kept him tethered where he was. Someone injected him with something, and he would be dragged screaming into a world of hurt. Eric forced me to watch all of this. With every fall of that barbed whip, a part of my soul disappeared as well.
For the first time I understood what it was to really truly hate. The emotion was as toxic and putrid as I'd sensed from the minds of others. I wanted them to experience this hell that I'd been force fed, this torture that they'd been so eager to join as participants. Hate planted a seed in my gut and in that moment, I promised Quinn one thing. I would send Eric to his final death with my own hands.
Quinn was unconscious again. He couldn't take much more. They were going to push him over. He would change and die, or they would kill him. All I could do was keep begging for mercy that I knew would never come. Having nothing else, that was what I did.
"Please Eric," I sobbed. "Please make them stop!"
"You say you are sorry, so then let us test the truth of your words. Absolution for your infidelity can only be attained with his death," my husband said blandly.
"Make them stop!" I said, reaching over and taking hold his hands.
"For the sake of your lover, do keep your eyes forward," his tone didn't change as he began prying my fingers from his cuff linked sleeves, one digit at a time. True to his word, he wasn't forceful. He wouldn't hurt me physically, but he thought nothing of ripping away the heart of me.
Quinn couldn't take much more. Already I saw his hands showing a partial transformation. I fell at my husband's feet. My pride and dignity were nothing. On my knees with my head bowed, I did the only thing left to do. Begging wasn't reaching Eric. Bargaining might.
I heard the low humming whine as Quinn was brought back around. I knew the flogging and the screaming would soon commence. I didn't have to focus on not crying as I continued to implore Eric; I had no tears left.
"I'll do anything you want," I said staring at his designer dress shoes. "I'll never go near him again. I won't talk back or leave the house." I'd reached the point where I would say anything. "I'll share your bed. I'll do anything, anything, just please,…please make them stop…"
"You are my wife," he replied. "So that offer insults me more than you can ever comprehend in one lifetime."
I held on tighter as he began to move away. I wasn't going to let go. He was going to have to break my fingers or listen. "No, please," I looked up at him then so he could see the truth of my words. "I can give you a day walker!"
That finally succeeded in getting a reaction from him. It wasn't exactly the pity that I'd been begging for but he paused. He arched a single brow, other than that his face gave nothing away. I had hope. It was like coming up for air after being submerged underwater.
"Make them stop," I said. "Don't hurt him anymore and I'll give you a day walker."
He waved a hand, and I felt the scene behind me go still. "Thalia, heal him," he said to one of his faceless monsters. "Up the dose of adrenaline. I don't have all night to watch this pussy cat die."
The noise of utter desolation escaped before I had a chance to stuff it back. I'd thought I knew how bad Quinn was suffering because I was witnessing it, but it had been so much worse.
"You have from now until he is healed to make me believe your words," my husband said looking down at me pitilessly.
I swallowed my hate. Expressing it wouldn't save Quinn, and right now that mattered more than anything else. "Fae don't just count blood. They mark their own by the presence of the spark and the number of abilities," I said, recalling the conversation I had with Dermot so long ago. A part of me wanted to edit my words so he wouldn't suffer for this, but the words were coming too fast for me to control.
"And you have two?" he ventured. I knew he was trying to catch me in a lie. I didn't dare.
I shook my head. "Five," I said. "Telepathy, shielding, cloaking, sight beyond sight, and I'm a giver."
If that was a shock to him he didn't show it. "The shielding is what helps you control the telepathy?" he asked casually.
"Yes, and it's what makes me immune to glamour and all other mind tricks." I replied.
"Explain the rest," he said.
"The cloaking hides everything else I am, even from the Sky Prince. If he knew I was this gifted he would have never given me to you."
Eric didn't even look the least bit convinced. His eyes were honed in over my right shoulder as if I hadn't spoken. He didn't seem to be listening to what I was saying, not really. I knew I was running out of time.
"There are approximately seventy-two seconds remaining," he said, when his eyes returned to mine. "What is sight beyond sight?"
"I don't know," I told him honestly. "It just supposed to let you see but I don't really notice it because I'm already a telepath."
My husband fixed his pitiless eyes on me and I knew he didn't believe me. "I would tell you more if I knew," I implored. "I would but I don't know."
I waited for him to say something but he didn't, so I continued, "Fairies are not as fertile as they should be and their species is declining." I risked a quick glance over my shoulder at Quinn but I couldn't see him. "Some of their females are givers. It means they are always fertile and are able to give life at any time they choose. I have the trait. I can give you what no other woman in world can; I can give you a child."
"You lie," he said, showing something that was mildly akin to anger—but he only managed to make it appear more disbelieving than anything else. I ignored it. He was showing some emotion, but it was something I so rarely saw. In the straits I was in it was a good sign. It had to be because I had nothing else.
"I'm not lying to you," I said. "I'm not old enough yet but in two years I will be. I'm telling the truth."
A part of me had felt like he had given me this chance so I could fail, and Quinn could suffer all over again. This might have just been him dangling hope in front of me to further my torment. It would have served its purpose well. This small bit of hope I'd banked everything on made the hell that waited even more unforgiving.
"I swear…" I begged. I was ready to swear on a stack of bibles and my mother's grave, but he wouldn't believe me. "I swear on Quinn's life. I'm not lying to you."
Tears still blurred my vision and my eyes were swollen, but I kept my eyes on Eric's as best as I could. I saw as he deliberated a moment longer and I prayed to any and every God I thought would listen. I needed him to want this because I had nothing left.
"A life for a life," he said, extending his hand out to me.
With trembling fingers and only half of my heart, I placed my hands in his. He helped me to my feet and led me back into the house. I looked out across the lawn one last time. The chains being used to hold Quinn were removed and more blood was forced into him. It was probably the last time I was ever going to see him.
I would never get to tell Quinn how sorry I was or how much I loved him. It was a macabre picture painted in so much blood, pain, and sorrow; I thought I would never wash the traces from me. I felt like I would never be free of this sin, this crime that had damned the man I loved.
No matter what I'd fooled myself into thinking, we weren't going to get a happily ever after. Life—my life, had truly begun with John Quinn; he had woken me up and made me feel. Deep down, the core of the woman I was knew I would never be whole without him. The best I could hope for was a meager half-life. For his sake, I embraced my fate without a single tear. I was all cried out. I was numb. It was a relief. Numbness was good. It was what was best for all that I had just signed up for.
Everyone else was willing to sacrifice me for their gain without hesitation or regard. I was done with all of it. No matter what I had to do, no matter what I had to give, I was going to end Eric with my own hands. Between him and Niall, they had taken one thing too many. It wasn't just about revenge for what Quinn had suffered. It was about me being free.
Eric escorted me back to my room. I'd expected him to force me to his bed, for him to claim what he had bargained for but he left. I waited and waited, but even with my sixth sense fanned out there were no minds to hear outside of the guards who surrounded my cage. It wasn't until well past sunrise, when I was sure Eric wouldn't come, that exhaustion finally set in. When I slept I had nightmares.
I picked up my phone a thousand times wanting to call Quinn to make sure he was all right, but I knew I could never risk it, not while Eric was still alive. Instead I focused my telepathy on sifting through the minds in the house. For the sake of my sanity, I'd always kept my shields up. Now I didn't.
I knew every mundane thought Abby had. I could count and locate all the guards in the house by their mental signature alone. I needed to know where Eric rested during the day. It wasn't something I'd ever paid attention to before, but before he rose for the night, I found out his resting place was somewhere in the Northeast wing of the house. It was a small victory. That didn't show as I presented myself at dinner as I was expected.
I'd never noticed it before, but Eric made more noise when I was around. He scrapped his chair legs across the floor. It was my cue to look up at him and I did, briefly. Then I looked down at my plate and that was where I kept my eyes. Abby came and went with his blood, but I didn't divert my attention.
The silence continued and I didn't break it. I ate my dinner, very conscious of Eric's eyes on me. A normal person might look up but I was playing docile. I wouldn't speak unless I was spoken to, and I wouldn't look at him unless he cued.
"Are we never to speak again?" he finally asked.
I looked up then to find him spinning his drink on the table. The movement was precise and the bottle didn't waver by a hair, but his eyes were on me. Unlike the first time I'd seen those piercing blue orbs in print, they left me cold. It was because I'd seen the tiniest glimpse into what they hid, barbarism, cruelty, and malice. It was impossible to fathom that everyone else bought it. Never in my life would I ever forget what he was capable of.
"I don't know what you want me to say," I replied honestly.
My fairy kin had taught me that much. All I had to do was tell half-truths. My interpretation differed from his, but it wouldn't matter. As long as he drew an implied interpretation he wouldn't think I was lying.
"Why him?" he asked looking at me calmly. "Of all the men in all the worlds, why did you choose him?"
"I don't know," I replied, and that was the truth. I hadn't chosen Quinn; it happened and once it had, I didn't want to let it go. "It wasn't something I'd planned."
The tension in the air descended like a wet blanket and I stilled, not sure what to do. I didn't know the right thing to say in this situation. Whatever the right thing was it couldn't be the truth! There was no way he wanted to hear the truth!
"That is not an answer," he replied coolly. "I want to know why you risked all that you did for the likes of him. Were you lonely, bored, or angry? What drove the action?"
"All of it," I said. "He didn't know who I was and we had things in common. It was easy to be myself, and that was something I hadn't had since I left home. I do wish I hadn't done what I did. I wished none of this had ever happened."
I looked down as pain clawed its blood-soaked path back into the front of my mind. I felt it knocking at the door but I shut it out. I wouldn't let it in until Eric was nothing but a staked memory.
"Mostly I felt like you wouldn't find out and if you did, you wouldn't really care as long as it wasn't made public," I concluded.
"Why would you think that when it was expressly forbidden in the documents?" he asked.
I thought back to Chicago and the night of the marriage. I'd been afraid of having sex, but he didn't want me. He didn't seem remotely attracted. I didn't want him to want me, but I also didn't want to feel utterly undesirable. He had come into the bedroom with the paperwork in hand. He had made me feel not at all up to snuff. That pattern continued every day of our marriage. It's hard to believe that I'd been tied to him for over a year now.
"You never looked at me like that," I didn't have to say, 'like he did.' It was assumed. If the slight narrowing of his eyes was any indication, he assumed correctly. I hurried to explain myself, "It was clear to me that you weren't attracted to me."
I was scared I might have told too much truth. I waited for anger. He didn't feel anything for anyone or anything.
"I will forgive you this indiscretion," he said, confirming my assumption. "I will forget it and so will you."
I nodded. "Thank you," I said meekly.
I might want to forget all this, but forgiveness was between him and his God. The only thing between us was revenge.
***0o0o0o***
I know that was hard but believe me when I say it will get better. There is a happily ever after, yes under all this pain and anger and betrayal. I promise, in the words of Acheron, "Sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right."
***0o0o0o***
Last and definitely the bottom most least of all on the announcement board goes to the spineless guest that said, "This story is disgusting!" I want you to know that this early update was for you because I love them haters too (Someone has to because they're so full of hate they can't love themselves). Plus "Living well is the best revenge." Biatach, you can kicks rocks and suck salt!