Page 12 of Dubious (Darkly Ever After)
I tilt my chin. “It looks like I’m crap at listening to you, so I think it’s time you told me what’s going on.”
ChapterSix
Alaric
Fuck. She’s so damn beautiful. It’s not just an external beauty; it’s what’s in her heart. Ella sees past the bullshit exteriors people use to cloak themselves from the world. She’s aware of what exists deep down. She has the tenacity to look past the outer layer, peeling it back until the center is revealed. A virtue both noble and inspiring but also her Achilles heel, allowing others the power to fucking ruin her.
The heat of her body close to mine undoes me in ways I never believed possible. What I feel for her consumes every part of me. I think about this woman more than I have any right to. As much as I wish our circumstances were different, they’re not. I want to drive off into the sunset and have the four of us live a life we deserve, away from all the bullshit we’ve put up with for years. But fairytales are only found in storybooks. This is real life.
That night doesn’t feel like a mistake. It opened something buried deep within all of us, and now there seems to be no way to shut those emotions away.
I loved hide and seek when I was a kid. My dad had played with me for hours. I’d hidden, and he’d pretended he couldn’t find me while I’d giggled like a maniac. My dad had been a good man, an honest man. He’d worked sixteen-hour days but still found energy within his broken and bruised body to play with his son. Mother had never done that. She’d thrown me in front of the television while she had her gentleman friend over. I could never go into the room when she had company. She hadn’t even the decency to spring for a soundproof headset to hide the slam of the headboard against the wall or the slaps of a hand on flesh.
I’d never dared say a word about it to my father. I’d wanted to, but Celeste had told me that if he knew, he’d leave me, and I’d never see him again. But it didn’t matter because he'd fallen to his knees, gripping his chest while searching for me during our favorite game.
The mind was a fascinating and complicated organ. I was the perfect example of how the brain became jumbled in chaotic and disastrous ways. Brain damage caused by an overload of emotion and trauma. A fond childhood memory was twisted into the single most impressionable moment of my young life and was now a twisted kink that fueled me like nothing else.
That’s why now, as River and Asher caught Ella as she jumped from the tree, disappointment rushed through me like an uncontrollable wave from a ferocious ocean.
Chasing Ella was the most erotic and exciting game I’d ever partaken in. She wasn’t the first person I’d played this game with. There had been other girls, but none energized my soul like Ella. My connection to her was primal, a need I couldn’t contemplate or ignore.
I sat on the thick branch and witnessed how she reacted to River. Pride bloomed within me as Ella kicked him, her nails scraping against his arms to free herself. I wished it was my flesh she scored with her sharp nails.
River howled as he let Ella loose. She’d bitten him. She rushed further into the forest. I watched her long hair bounce in the moonlight for a moment before I climbed down from the tree and chased her.
She was fast. Much faster than I’d expected. But then again, the harder the chase, the sweeter the spoils. I quickened my speed, and it took no time for my long legs to catch up with her, taking one stride for every two of hers.
“You can run, but you can’t hide, Princess,” I taunted.
“Then I better hope I can outrun you,” she panted, out of breath.
“Princess, I’ve been doing this my whole life. Something tells me that a spoiled little girl like you isn’t used to roughing it in the woods.”
Two quick steps, and I was in lock with her. I reached out and hoisted her against my chest.I brushed my nose against her nape, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. Lilac and honey. She always smelled like damn honey.
“Now you’ve caught me, whatever will you do?” Ella asked breathlessly.
“I’m going to nibble on every fucking part of you.”
It’s hard to concentrate when she’s in front of me, smelling like honey. I want to push her against the wall, strip her bare, and feast on her flesh. Kiss every inch of her until she’s panting and begging for release like that night on the forest floor. But the hardest lesson I’ve ever learned is that I rarely get what I want.
“What’s going on, Alaric?” Ella asks softly, pushing me into giving her answers I am not ready to unleash.
Ella constantly pushes me, demanding more. It isn’t her insistence that upsets me; it’s my impotence at not being able to give it to her. I wish I were a better man so I could throw the world at her feet. But I’m not. I’m a piece of shit who got lucky once and tasted heaven.
I grip her arms and turn her, pushing her against the wall. Stepping into her, I crowd her body and hold her still. We both know she can’t escape. Maybe if she’s terrified of me, her self-preservation will kick in. “You don’t get to make demands of me, Ella. I’m not some pathetic boy who will fall to his knees so you’ll look at him.”
Ella’s chest rises and falls. Her bottom lip quivers. She blinks multiple times to keep whatever emotion is about to fly out of her in check.
I have an unrelenting need to pull her close and tell her everything will be all right. But what I want to do and what I want to say are opposing forces.
I’m not in a position to be anyone’s knight in shining armor. I wasn’t born with hopes and aspirations. My only purpose in life was to play a role that guaranteed a deplorable monster would continuously receive what she desired. Sometimes, I find small pockets of peace in the hellish nightmare of my life, stolen moments hidden in the shadows.
The night with the four of us, I truly hoped my life could be better. I deluded myself into believing Celeste could finally be happy. Content in a marriage with a man who appeared to love her beyond all reason. Perhaps he could thaw her frigid heart and compel her to release me from the prison I’ve been in since my conception. A foolish notion permanently wiped away the night Celeste poisoned him. His death was ice water in my face.
Celeste isn’t capable of happiness or love.
“Please, Alaric,” Elle pleads, grabbing my suit jacket lapels and bunching the fabric.