Chapter Twenty

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THE THUNDERSTORM CEASED ITS downpour just as Drake Sinclair appeared at the top of the beach. Raindrops transformed to a gentle drizzle, clouds switched to grey, and muggy humidity sprang back into existence.

I’d tried to escape, but the guard who was holding me outweighed me and outpowered me ten to one. I struggled again, wriggling and furious, as Drake walked down the beach toward me, flanked by two men in matching black combat uniforms.

For a millisecond, my heart was confused.

The way he moved reminded me of Sully. The svelte prowl, the masculine stride. But that was where the similarities ended. Both had dark, thick hair, but Drake kept his trimmed to his skull while Sully’s was untamed with bronze tips. Drake’s eyes were blue but not ravishing sapphires like Sully’s...more like a murky puddle. Sully’s lips were full and shapely, a sinful mouth that made cursing decadent and kisses depraved, while Drake’s were thin and permanently pursed as if he’d smelled something offensive.

The more I studied him, the more I saw differences instead of family resemblances. Sully had a natural weathering around his eyes, granting him a distinguished sex appeal. His nose was straighter, his cheekbones sharper, and his five o’clock shadow etched his jaw with delicious danger.

Drake, on the other hand, looked...strange.

His forehead didn’t hold laugh or frown lines. His eyes stretched with no wrinkles. The skin around his lips and down his neck shone from cosmetic enhancement.

Sully looked thirty-three. He embraced every bit of his age, and it made him undeniably attractive. Drake had attempted to harness aging and reverse time, and instead, he’d made himself a caricature. An evil villain who played his part far too well.

“Hello, Eleanor Grace. What a pleasure to finally meet you.” Drake bowed and narrowed his eyes at the man holding me. The guy released me, shoving me at Drake.

I stumbled and bared my teeth, recoiling from his body before touching him.

His hand lashed out, catching my wrist, bringing my knuckles to his lips and kissing them as if this was some rehearsed tea party. “I see why my baby brother has fallen madly in love with you.” His gaze travelled over my figure, highly visible thanks to my dress plastering itself to my curves. “Nice tits, nice hips, and I’ve heard you know how to beg for cock.” He chuckled. “A perfect woman.”

God, the urge to scream at him became almost unbearable, but just like the traffickers in Mexico, this man was nothing to me. He was chewing gum under a table, a cigarette butt in the gutter. He was utter trash, and I wouldn’t waste one damn word on him.

His eyebrows flared toward his trimmed hairline as his fingers released me. “Shark got your tongue, Eleanor Grace?”

I bit my tongue for good measure.

“Or do you prefer Jinx?” He licked his lips, reaching out to cup my breast.

I was free.

I had no shackles or binds.

I could shove his touch away and run.

But that would trigger predatory instincts for him to chase. That would end with me pressed against a palm tree and raped. Instead, I chose to stand up to the monster trying to intimidate me with pure, infuriating silence.

Sully was the only one who’d shattered my temper. He was the only one deserving of my voice. He was worthy, unlike this lacklustre imposter—this shameful older brother who thought he could invade and pillage with no consequences.

His hand squeezed my breast painfully. “I don’t like being ignored, girl.”

Inhaling hard, I gritted my teeth with no reply.

“Shy?” He grinned, pinching my nipple, then frowning when I reacted with absolute zero fucks. “That’ll change when I feed you elixir.”

I stiffened.

Did he know where Sully kept the vials?

Did he have some in his possession?

I swallowed hard, terror siphoning through my blood at the thought of being drugged and fucked by him. To violently hate him all while he violently raped me.

No.

Hell no.

“That got a reaction.” Drake’s muddy blue eyes twinkled with violence similar to the violence I’d seen in Sully. Only, Sully wielded his like a sharp-edged sword, hidden in a scabbard and only swung with utmost precision when necessary. Drake, on the other hand, used it like a club, bashing around like an ignoramus.

“Fancy sleeping with the better version of the Sinclair brothers? I promise you, I’m a better lay than Sullivan.” He stepped into me, shoving his thigh between my legs. My sodden dress acted as a chastity belt, refusing to part enough for him to drive his crotch into mine.

I tipped my head, arching my chin.

Sully...

I needed to figure out how to get away from this asshole and find Sully before he made good on his threat.

Dropping his hand from my breast, Drake scowled. “You’re not at all what I expected. Frankly, you’re boring me, and I’m not a nice guy when I’m bored.”

I narrowed my gaze until my eyelashes shadowed my vision. I hoped hate dripped from every inch of me. I hoped disgust and repulsion cloaked me, so he knew just how much contempt I held for him, how little cooperation he’d earn, and how quickly I’d kill him if I got the chance.

With my stare so sharp, I noticed things I hadn’t before, and a small sweep of victory tugged up the corner of my mouth.

Drake’s face wasn’t as Botox perfect as I’d assumed.

His nose was swollen and coloured with a shade of purple, black bruises ringed his left eye, and the corner of his mouth was puffy. Come to think of it, he moved stiffly, guarding his side while a bandage on his shoulder peeked out from his black t-shirt.

Sully had hurt him.

Triumph filled my heart. Pride followed.

Whatever this bastard had done to Sully...Sully had fought back.

Fear iced my blood.

Had he fought too hard?

Was he still alive?

Sully...dammit.

My patience reached snapping point. My lips trembled to part with a torrent of profanity, but I bit them back.

Drake’s only purpose was to take me to Sully.

That was all I wanted.

Then he could die, painfully. Very, very painfully.

“Did you appreciate my lift?” Drake smirked.

I glowered.

“Aren’t you going to say thank you? Without me, you wouldn’t have found your way back.”

I glared.

“I bet you’ll speak to me when I shove my dick inside you.”

I bared my teeth.

He chuckled with an edge of frustration. “Don’t want to talk to me? Fine.” He smiled, cold and cruel. “I know someone who would love to talk to you.” Leaning forward, he planted his hands on my hipbones, dragging me flush against him. “I must warn you though...he’s not the man you remember. I gave him a little lesson on sibling insubordination.”

What the fuck did you do?!

I swallowed back my scream, but I couldn’t control my physical reaction.

My hand whistled through the air and sliced across his cheek.

He stumbled backward; his pain tenfold thanks to previous injuries beneath my new one. “Fuck!”

While he nursed the handprint I’d left on his bruised face, I held up a one finger salute.

How dare you!

How fucking dare you hurt him!

My silent curses ricocheted in my ears, and once again, I went too far—just as I’d pushed the limits with the Mexican guard who’d wanted me.

Drake launched himself at me. “You little slut!”

He wrapped his arms with tight captivity around me as his teeth latched around my throat. He bit me. He made me struggle. And his disgusting voice slithered into my ear. “Be as stubborn as you want. Be as stupid as you need. Piss me off, I dare you. Fuck me off, and you’ll be screaming my name while I’m cock deep inside you. Hate me? I don’t fucking care. Thanks to my brother, he’s created a drug that makes you a whore, and according to his doctor, your heart has the risk of being overloaded, your system overwhelmed, and there’s a very high chance you could die while I take you.”

Dragging his tongue up my cheek, he hissed, “I like the thought of that. That I could fuck you to death. That I’d be the last one you saw, heard, touched. That you’d die belonging to me, not him. And the best part...I’ll make him watch. He’ll be there as I fuck you. He’ll watch it all, knowing that you are mine and not his.”

Wrapping his awful arm around my waist, he kissed me.

I bit him.

Hard.

I bit him for disrespecting me and for disrespecting Sully.

I’d bite his cock too if he ever tried to sleep with me.

I’d bite his balls clean off and spit them into the sea.

He lurched back.

His palm connected with my cheek in a five-finger blaze.

His finger went to his lip, smearing the bead of blood that my teeth had punctured.

His eyes met mine.

My cheek smarted.

I balled my hands and kept my spine rigid.

I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.

I’d reached the end of my limit.

Don’t do it, Eleanor.

Don’t give him what he wants.

I’d been able to ignore the traffickers.

But I hadn’t been able to ignore Sully.

And I couldn’t stop myself from defending him.

Looking straight into the eyes of Sully’s cad of a brother, I snarled, “Is that meant to scare me? Am I supposed to tremble and obey?” My nose stabbed the sky with regality. “How can I be afraid of a stupid boy who thinks tearing the wings off butterflies makes him strong? A boy who never grew up; an idiot who thinks Botox will hide his ugliness.”

He froze, dropping his hand and rubbing his blood into his skin. “She speaks.”

“She bites, too.”

“She behaves if she wants to stay alive.” Grinning as if our threats were flirts, he wrapped his fingers around my throat. He squeezed my larynx, activating bruises from Calico’s attempt at murdering me, and the strangest, scariest thing happened.

A few times on Sully’s islands, I’d had moments of premonition: bathwater puddles revealing that Sully would forever change me. A parrot chirp hinting at a man behind the monster. A kiss without sensors or masks delivering my destiny.

And now, a brother who gave up the secrets of their joint childhood.

Sully was a control freak because he’d had all control taken away when he was a boy—by this man. He had no faith and broken trust because his brother had physically punished him every time he’d tried.

My heart spasmed as things fell into place—Sully’s many long-ago scars. His torment at falling for me. His denial of our closeness.

The last person he’d been close to had been his family, and they’d done unspeakable things.

“You hurt him,” I hissed. “You scarred him.”

His eyebrows tugged down—or as much as they could with chemicals preventing facial movement. “I’ve hurt him all my life.” He jerked me closer, his fingers twitching around my neck. “But I haven’t been able to hurt him nearly as much as you have.”

He laughed softly, sounding like a psychotic boy with a box of kittens, lighter fluid, and matches. “You’ve been able to create a pain deeper than I ever managed. You’ll be the one to kill him, Eleanor Grace...not me, and I can’t wait to watch you do it.”

* * * * *

Blood.

Bright vicious crimson.

It was all I could see.

All I could smell.

Blood.

Sully...God, Sully.

I tripped as Drake dragged me over the threshold of the villa and dry-heaved as he carted me to stand beside Sully’s cage.

The same cage I’d spent a night in.

A cage that’d been flipped on its side to give enough horizontal room for the tall man within it.

“Eleanor?” Sully spasmed the moment he heard my footsteps. His gorgeous, powerful body jerked to get free. The metal ring of handcuffs clanged as he struggled, slowly at first as if he had no strength left, then faster, crazier. “Eleanor?”

His eyes.

God...what’s wrong with his eyes?!

Drake snickered beside me, staying silent while his brother danced on the border of life and death by his feet.

I’d never seen anything so spiteful, so tyrannical, so inhumane.

A sob caught in my throat as I fell to my knees.

Sully’s beautiful blue gaze was a morbid black, staring at nothingness.

Drake let me go, his snicker morphing into a self-congratulatory chuckle as I crawled over the floor, shoved my hand through the bars, and linked my fingers with Sully’s.

The second I touched him, he broke.

His face twisted, his head tipped back, and his lips parted in the most heart-stopping, belly-stabbing howl. “FUUUCK!”

The chemistry between us. The connection. The bond.

It hurt.

It hissed from his skin to mine. It electrified, it condemned, it hummed along its conduit with a lick of lust and love—a link that shared our pain, our promises, and every other pitiful thing we’d become.

“Eleanor...Jesus Christ.”

I clung to his hand, bowing to kiss the dried blood flaking from each finger, frantically pulling out the nails that’d been driven into his pads.

Blood.

So, so much blood.

I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t breathe.

All my fight.

All my bickering, feuding challenge died a miserable, despairing death as I drowned beneath crippling grief. “Sully...”

He shook his head, shaking the cage around him. “This isn’t real. You can’t be here. You. Can’t. Fucking. Be. Here.”

I pulled out the last nail of his left hand. He didn’t even flinch, as if his threshold for pain had been crossed hours ago.

“I’m so, so sorry.” I kissed him. I kissed his knuckles, his palm, his fingers. My lips stained red from his blood as my tears splashed onto his feverish skin. My gaze stuttered over his body, unwilling to look, violently sick at what Drake had done to him.

His chest oozed with plasma and blood. His wrists lacerated from the handcuffs, his ankles bleeding from the ropes. A large bandage hugged his thigh. It might’ve been white, once upon a time, but now it’d soaked into a rusty carmine.

“What were you thinking coming back?” His voice cracked with misery; his eyes unseeing. “How can I survive now that you’re back?”

I reached through the cage, straining to touch his face.

I couldn’t reach.

It killed me that I couldn’t reach.

I have to touch him.

Have to kiss him.

Have to help!

A sob crawled up my throat and broke free. A sob born from seeing the worst thing of my life happen to the most important person in my world.

I couldn’t do it.

I literally couldn’t cope.

I couldn’t live in a world where men like Drake could kill hundreds of animals with a single bomb, then torture his own flesh and blood for days.

I...I can’t.

My mind fractured.

I lost all links to my girlhood, to goodness, to grace.

I became feral.

Single-minded.

One purpose.

Him.

Help him.

Now!

I screamed as I scrambled at the cage, desperate and frenzied to get to him.

My ears rang from my sobs.

My gaze stung from my tears.

And I snapped.

I can’t touch.

I can’t help.

His eyes.

His body.

Fuck!

I swooped to my feet, and I threw myself at Drake.

His smug smile tumbled as we plummeted to the ground. I slapped and scratched; I hit and punched.

I couldn’t see to strike.

I didn’t plant strategic fists.

I just couldn’t contain the violence.

The hunger.

The rage.

I vaguely heard someone screaming.

Felt someone tugging.

I went weightless as I was hauled off Drake.

Commotion bellowed around the villa.

Sully’s shout, Drake’s curse, men’s panic.

As quickly as I’d entered the black stupor of mania, I slammed back into my body.

I hissed with a fire that lived in every artery and vein.

I trembled with hate that screamed to hit, maim, and kill.

“Eleanor!” Sully’s gaze couldn’t find me. His face twisted in my direction; his sea-glass blue eyes utterly destroyed.

My legs gave out again as I stared into the black pupils and red soreness of Sully’s blind stare. Sweat drenched him as he fought his imprisonment. More blood poured, diluted by his sweat, rolling in thick droplets off his body.

And the opposite happened.

My fire turned to ice.

To snow and sleet and blizzard.

Balling my hands, I shoved off the two men holding me and strode to Drake where he nursed four deep scratches on his cheek.

He snarled as I approached, but I didn’t fucking care anymore.

I wasn’t afraid of this bastard.

“Get him a doctor. Right now.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Commands now? A breakdown followed by demands?” He snapped his fingers at the men lurking around me as if I’d decimate them all. “Tie her up.”

A redheaded man headed toward the perimeter of the villa, returning with a length of rope.

I didn’t flinch as he jerked my hands behind my back and began tying. Ignoring him, I hissed at Drake, “He’s dying.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?” He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

“Eleanor. Shut up. You’re going to get yourself fucking killed!” Sully continued fighting in his cage, costing himself valuable energy he didn’t have.

It pissed me off.

It angered me that he was so reckless with his life when he’d burned through so much of it without me. “Stop moving, Sullivan!”

I used his full name.

I injected venom into my voice.

He paused, his throat worked, his blind stare seeking mine again.

My stomach spasmed. Tears clogged my throat, and sobs begged to release.

He’s blind?

Don’t focus on that.

I couldn’t focus on that.

Not yet.

Not yet!

“Get him a goddamn doctor!” I stepped toward Drake, forcing the guard still tying my hands to trip with me.

Drake crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes. “Never thought I’d see the day.” He looked me up and down with loathing. “You are in love with him. Thought that was just a joke.”

“Of course, I’m in fucking love with him, you bastard!” I squirmed against the rope.

Too tight.

Too restrictive.

“Eleanor. For fuck’s sake, just be quiet,” Sully growled. “Don’t give him any reason to—”

“If you love him, prove it,” Drake snapped.

I froze. “Prove it how?”

Sully snarled, “Shut up, Jinx—”

“You want him to have a doctor...and I want...” His lips spread in an apocalyptic smile. “And I want what he’s had.” Grabbing a handful of my semi-dried hair, he murmured, “Show me how Euphoria works, Goddess Jinx. Take the elixir. Beg me to fuck you like a whore. And I’ll agree to bring in Dr Campbell to keep my baby brother alive for another day.”

“No. No fucking way.” Sully thrashed harder, the handcuffs ringing so loud. “Leave her the fuck out of this, Drake! Use another girl. Any other girl. I don’t care. Just—”

“I’ll gag you if you keep talking, you little cocksucker,” Drake muttered. “Be quiet, the adults are talking.” His washed-out blue gaze landed on mine again. “Do we have a deal, Eleanor Grace? Your body for his. I break you while the doctor fixes him. I’ll even be generous and give you two the day to recover.” He laughed softly. “After all, you’ve had a long journey, and Sully...well, he hasn’t had much sleep lately.”

I looked at Sully as he arched his neck and bared his teeth like a demon trapped in hell.

Bile washed up my throat.

Drake had blinded him, tortured him, broken him.

I wouldn’t allow him to hurt Sully again.

This was why I’d come.

I’d come to help.

To shield him.

To hope upon a wishing star that love would triumph over evil.

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Deal.”

Drake grinned.

Sully howled.

And I was marched to his cage and tied to the bars.

So close.

Not close enough.

A clock began ticking loudly over our heads.

A countdown where Sully would get treated, and I would get molested, and our sorry little love story was over.