Destructive Embrace (17 page)

It was then that I noticed the absence
of something very unusual.

"Why aren't you saying 'I told you
so,' Elyssa?"

She blinked. "Why would I make this
any harder on you than it obviously already is?" she questioned,
sounding hurt. I frowned.

"Isn't that what you do best,
darling?" I murmured, smirking at her with a tilt of my head. She
had the decency to flush and avert her gaze downward. "That's what
I thought," I chuckled.

Even moments after I discovered that I
cared for Roxann far more than I'd even led myself to believe, I
was able to feel alright again. But it was wrong of me. It was
wrong of us.

We both knew it, and yet we couldn't
stay away from each other...

"What are we going to do when this is
all over?" Elyssa asked, breaking me free from my thoughts. I
sighed. Of course she knew what I was thinking.

"There isn't really
anything for us
to
do, my dear," I answered honestly. "You don't want anything
to do with me; you've made that quite clear. We will raise this
Lanistter as a family and that will be that."

Of course, we both knew it would never
be that simple. There was too much between us for it to be left
alone without so much as a struggle.

The look she sent my way told me that
she knew it would never be that easy to just let it go, but we both
knew that she would do what was right, not what necessarily felt
better.

"You're a good man, Zeke," she
whispered, standing. I snorted, but she continued. "No. You are.
You just sent away the one woman who doesn't push you away, in
favor of keeping her safe. And you're trying to do right by me in
regards to our situation...

"You are a good man."

She left before I found my ability to
speak again, and I shook my head, chuckling. “You are going to be
stuck in my head for a long time, Elyssa Jane Smith…”

More wandering. Just when it seemed
like the aimless roaming had stopped, I was back at it
again.

But with Elyssa pregnant, she couldn’t
very well continue to learn fighting. Fragile state and all
that.

I supposed that I could always find my
Mate and spend time with her, but after our last encounter, it
wasn’t a very appealing option.

Sure, we’d made up rather nicely during
that time, but the day I’d found out Elyssa was pregnant still
lingered in my head.

The hurt I’d caused my wife…

I entered my room silently,
stunned from the news. Even though I’d been the one to identify all
of Elyssa’s symptoms, it was a shock to me. She was
pregnant…

“Dmitri.” I looked up,
startled. Olivia sat on the edge of our bed, legs crossed at the
knees with her hands perched on top. Her lovely mocha face was
smudged with tears, and her eyes were red and puffy.

“How long have you loved
her?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse and it sounded like speaking
was difficult for her. If it weren’t for the question she asked me,
I would have moved toward her to provide comfort, as a Mate
should.

“What?” I asked dumbly,
releasing the doorknob. The door swung shut with a quiet click, and
I dropped my arm to my side.

In love with her? With
who? Elyssa?
I thought, frantically trying
to figure out what was going on in the mind of my Mate. I
wasn’t
in love
with Elyssa…

Ollie laughed once, shaking
her head. “Really? Don’t play dumb with me, Dmitri,” she said
scornfully, standing up. “You spend all your time with her. You
guys laugh together, have things in common… I’ve seen the way you
look at her.”

I shook my head. “Ollie, I
don’t know why you think all that, but I love you. Elyssa…” I
trailed off, glancing down. “Elyssa’s pregnant.”

The stinging sensation
barely registered to me over the sound of the slap, but after a
moment the pain demanded my attention and I rubbed the cheek she
slapped. “What was that for?” I asked. She slapped me
again.

“For having the nerve to
tell me you love me before telling me your
mistress
is pregnant,” Ollie hissed.
Her very essence screamed anger and I almost backed away from her
in fear. Her words registered to me then, though, and I
froze.

“My mistress?” I asked,
laughing. “Ollie. Elyssa’s pregnant by one of my
brothers.”

Instead of appearing
relieved, Ollie’s stance shifted so that her arms were folded
across her chest. Sadness entered her eyes and the humor in the
situation faded from me. “What is it?” I asked softly, touching her
arm cautiously. Ollie immediately pulled away from me.

“Is that why you looked so
lost coming in here? The woman you love is pregnant by one of your
brothers?” she asked. My body went cold as she continued. “Or is it
because you love a whore?”

I lifted my hand to slap
her but stopped myself quickly; I was no woman beater. She looked
at me warily and I sighed. “I do not love a whore. Not unless
you’re one, Olivia,” I said coldly, leaving the room.

As I withdrew from the memory, I
realized that I was in Zeke’s portion of the castle
again.

It wasn't like I could go
visit Elyssa. I wanted nothing to do with her at that moment in
time. She was someone who had betrayed my brother after he was
dead. Betrayed him with the one person she shouldn't have done
anything with.

How could you do that to
Reid?
I thought, clenching my fists at my
sides. There was nothing she would be able to do to fix my opinion
of her after that. Every time I looked at her, I knew I would see
her in Zeke's embrace, holding onto him as she whispered his
name...

And maybe Olivia was right.
Maybe, just maybe, I was hurt about it. After all, why would she
choose Zeke, when he had done nothing but hurt her since her
arrival?

"Shut up," I whispered to
myself, angrily thrusting my hands into my hair. "She never would
have chosen you, and you shouldn’t be wishing that she had,
either." I was near her room now, and I froze before I passed it
by. I listened for noises behind the wooden door, but nothing came
from the other side, so I cautiously entered.

She wasn't there. The
bathroom door was wide open, and her bed was empty.

"Where have you gone," I
mumbled to myself, looking around her room for the first time since
she'd moved in.

A notebook caught my
attention and I wandered over to it. It sat on the desk, its worn
cover standing out against the new wood of the desk. The cover read
'Reid' and I gasped.

"What?" I tried to remember
the first time I had seen Elyssa after Reid's death. She had been
carrying a worn book... "Was this what she was coming to see me
about?" I asked no one in particular, brushing my fingertips over
the surface of the book.

My eyes stung a little as
my tear ducts struggled to not produce tears as I lifted the
journal from the desk with one hand. It was lightweight, something
that would be easy to carry around without it getting in the way. I
tucked it into my pocket and chuckled.

"Leave it to Reid to have a
notebook that can easily roll up to be put somewhere private." I
paused and nearly fell as I realized what the rolled-up journal
would look like to anyone else. "Reid, you damn
pervert."

I removed the journal with
a shudder and plopped down on Elyssa's bed, reclining. Slowly I
opened the worn little book and began to flip through the entries.
A few pages here and there were marked by the corner of the page
being turned down, so I read a few of those passages, trying to
figure out why they had been bookmarked.

Soon I realized that these
entries weren't made by Reid...

"Damned bastard," I
growled, fighting the temptation to crumple the small book in my
hands. Instead I loosened my grip one finger at a time until I held
the book by only my forefingers and thumbs. I was certain that if
anyone walked in, they would think I was weird, but that was the
only way I could guarantee that I wouldn't hurt the only known,
truly personal possession of my dead brother.

I scanned through the rest
of the pages that weren't marked and came across the final
entry.

That entry pissed me off
more than all of Tywin’s combined, and brought my thoughts back to
the woman who seemed to capture the hearts of nearly all of the
Lanistter brothers.

"How could she sleep with
Zeke when she had just promised Reid that she would marry him?" I
snarled, closing the book angrily and setting it back on the
desk.

I tore from the room and
began the short walk to Zeke's dungeons. I opened the door a crack,
just enough for me to listen in on anything that was going on down
there without being affected by the heavy presence of silver that
was in Zeke’s dungeon. I was startled to hear the screaming of a
woman.

"I thought he was done with
all that," I muttered, frowning. I stood at the door, unable to
move into the dungeon area to find out what was going on, but also
frozen to the spot where I could hear the woman's pleading, her
frightened cries.

The cracking sound of a
whip also met my ears and I clenched my jaw, my mind returning to
the time when Zeke had beaten
me
.

I hurried into the attic
with Mother. The only sound I could hear aside from her frantic
whispers telling me to be quiet were our shuffling footsteps. She
stowed me away in a dark, dusty corner.

"Please stay here, baby,"
she whispered to me, pushing my hair from my face with both hands.
"Mommy loves you, so don't come out for a while, okay?" I
nodded.

"Okay, mother. I love
you," I told her quietly, wrapping my arms around her in a quick
hug.

I was old enough to know
what we were hiding from, but I couldn't figure out why she was
hiding me instead of having me help her.

As soon as she turned away
from me in search of a weapon, Tywin burst into the attic, the door
hitting the wall with a loud bang. I bit down on my tongue to keep
from revealing myself – whatever reason my mother had was good
enough for me, even if she wasn't telling me what it
was.

"Tywin," Rose Lanistter
said with a smile. Her voice shook and I wondered what was going
through her mind as she faced my father.

"Bitch," Tywin replied
with a nod of his head. "What are you doing up here at this time of
night?" the way he spoke was casual enough, but I could see through
that to the anger boiling just beneath the surface of his calm
facade.

Mother laughed airily and
shrugged one shoulder. She motioned around her with one hand and I
imagined a smile rising to her lips. "I couldn't sleep, dear. I was
just heading up here so I could inventory what we had for when I
begin to clean up tomorrow." Her voice was steadier than before,
but I knew that Tywin would see right through it, and my blood ran
cold in my veins.

"Don’t lie to me, woman,"
he barked, adjusting his stance so that his feet were
shoulder-width apart, and so his arms were crossed over his chest.
It didn't get past me that he was blocking the only way out and
that my mother was no match for him even if she tried to force her
way past him. Suddenly I was fearful for my mother's
life.

"Why ever would I lie to
you, darling husband?" she asked sweetly. From my hiding spot
behind her, I could see her adjust herself so that one arm was
folded across her torso while the other was propped up on top of
it, her hand tucked under her chin.

Tywin chuckled. "I know
you're trying to leave with my children, Rose," he said, shaking
his head. "Maybe I would have let you stay here without a problem
if you had at least had the nerve to tell me the truth."

I wondered how he'd found
out; Mother had always made sure we knew not to tell anyone what
her plans were. We weren't stupid boys, after all. She knew she
could trust us. Which could only mean one thing: somehow Tywin had
been listening in to every conversation we'd had about her taking
us away.

My bad feeling multiplied
tenfold.

"Well then you also know
that your two eldest boys have agreed to it without a problem,"
Rose said. "And that as their mother, I can take Dmitri and Reid
with me if I think they are in danger here," she finished,
stammering as she spoke about us being in danger.

I couldn't understand how
we were in danger at the castle with them, but I trusted my
mother...

"And you also know that
without me, you're just the wife of a Lanistter. That your maiden
name means nothing in our world," he retorted, expression smug as
he stared down at my mother. His dark eyes – almost black in color
altogether – were cold as they peered at her, like she wasn't the
woman he'd married and Mated, the woman who had carried his four
children. "Which means that you also know that if I were to say
anything, the outside world would believe
me
over
you
, right?" At this, he took a few
steps toward my mother, smirking. "This means, if you vanish with
my boys, and I tell the world... Oh, I don't know, that you're a
whore and you're taking my children off to live with whatever
bastard slept with my wife. That the world would think you're a
lump of flesh that's good for nothing more than sucking
cock."