We Promised

Chapter 3

It comes back in clips. Someone pulling me from the water, and me coughing the ocean out of my lungs. My hands reaching to touch the back of my head only to find blood. My brother on a lifeboat with a few of our guards. His green eyes searching for mine. Me being too weak to hold his gaze. Guns pointed at the five of them, tempting them to make a move. Me calling for Blayne and Blayne calling for me. The sound of bullets sliding into their chambers. That's it. That is all my consciousness allows me to see, permits me to remember.

The light is blinding as I shift awake even though the yellow bulb is dull. Towels are rolled up neatly to my right, along with hundreds of bottles and syringes of medicine crowding the shelf underneath. The baseboards of the room are cracked and dusty. Rusty gray pipes run up the wall and into the ceiling. This is not a hospital. "Blay-" My voice breaks from its disuse, from the strain of what it's been put through. My wrists are weighed down by cuffs and I tug at them weakly, trying to get out of my binds. "Stop." Two gunmen have rifles strapped across their chests and in their hands, ready to use them if necessary. The man on the right is bulky, the size of a tree trunk. On the other hand, the one on the left is short and stubby, an obvious beer belly fighting against the strap attached to the gun in his hand. Their faces are masked in silver cloths, concealing their features except for their eyes. Even though they could shoot me if I tried to escape, and they have me strapped to a cot, I cannot ignore the warmth behind their eyes. These men are not killers. I know what a killer looks like, for I am a killer. "Look who's finally awake." My eyes narrow, trying to adjust to the dark figure sitting in the corner of the room. He stands, his chair scraping against the marble floor as he does. His face is covered just like the guards, a silver mask hiding his features. I sink into my pillows, uncomfortable by the sudden realization that I'm strapped to a bed, in a room, with three men I don't know. I shut my eyes to stop the world from spinning, spinning, spinning. My heart races against time, making the wound at the back of my head throb. "Where am I?"

He leans against a fridge full of blood bags, the bright white light something I hadn't noticed before. It hums in the silence, whirring against the quiet. My eyes dart between him and the armed men, predicting what is going to happen to me in the next few minutes. My mind travels to dark places, the evil things that my mother told me men did. She told me they raped, they killed, they stole. She ingrained the words into my mind up until her death but I can't help but have hope. My brothers are an example of that hope. They are not all the same.

He removes his mask slowly, and it takes me a moment to realize I've been holding my breath. His eyes are so dark, yet so blue. His hair is mud brown, like the color of the marble floors. He has on a black shirt, tight against his body to reveal a muscular bodice, muscles bulging against the cuffs. He glares at me, before grinning, basking in my reaction. My eyes are wide as I'm still in shock, but my surprise slowly dissolves into fury. "Let me go, Black." Tattoos run down his arms and I memorize the one that catches my attention. The symbols of male and female, intertwined together, wrapping around his wrist in black ink. Black like his shirt, black like his boots, black like his soul. "I was waiting for you to realize... your majesty." He adds my title to mock me, to remind me that I am at his mercy. His words vibrate through the air and into my stomach. He towers over me, glaring into my eyes, burning me like acid. "I've been looking for you a long time, Jaxon Black. You should be afraid." His laugh freezes my blood, and I shiver at the sound. "I should be afraid? I'm not afraid of anything, little royal, especially not the likes of a spoiled princess," he spits. I meet him with a glare of my own, my anger blinding me from everything else in the room but him. I fight against my restraints, but they don't budge. "You tried that, remember?" I move my face close to his, inches apart, so he can heed my words. "Go to hell, rat." He clenches his jaw, balling his fists so hard his veins look like they're about to burst through his skin.