I didn’t have flashbacks or triggers, but I had moments of pure rage. No doctor could fix me. Even if they could, I wouldn’t want to be normal.
My anger was a weapon.
Aiden stuffed his hands into his pockets, surveying me with suspicion. He was right not to trust me. Salvatores did anything to achieve their goals, by any means necessary.
Aiden was a necessary evil.
Marrying Alex was another.
Aiden shifted his weight from one foot to the other, biting the inside of his cheek. “How is Alex handling our separation?”
“Not well,” Marcello admitted. “She wakes up screaming your name in the middle of the night.”
Aiden scrubbed a hand across his face and sighed. “Six more months,” he groaned. “She won’t last until then. You don’t understand what losing me will do to her. My sister needs me.”
He was right. All the men standing at my sides knew this to be true. But we had rules we couldn’t break—not even for our future queen.
“We’re at war,” I told him. “The Volkovs tried to grab Alex. So far, they have been unsuccessful. But they’re ramping up their efforts, finding new friends among our allies.”
He rubbed his tired eyes. “How can I help?”
“Sonny and Drake will explain on your way to New York. Try not to get yourself killed.”
He lowered his head, keeping his opinions to himself. When we kidnapped him from Brooklyn, he made a lot of smart ass comments and stupid rebuttals. Now that he understood the structure of our organization, the role his sister would play, he was more compliant.
Aiden had orders to follow.
After Aiden left the room with the rest of the Knights, I looked at Bastian and Damian and then Marcello. “Go get Alex. It’s time to prepare our queen.”
Marcello gave me a weary look. “How far are you going to take this?”
With our enemies getting closer, we had little time. The Knights needed a queen. I needed Alex to marry me, so I could become the Grand Master.
I’d been patient for too long.
“As far as we need to go.”
Rough fingers slid down my thighs as I drifted in and out of consciousness. A man lifted me in his arms, cradled me against his hard chest with his hand on the back of my head. I couldn’t find the strength to move as he carried me down a flight of stairs.
The man laid me on a soft bench. Leather mixed with the saltiness of the sea filled my nostrils. Someone sat beside me and brushed my hair off my face.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
We moved forward, and the man placed his hand on my back. He made slow circles to put me at ease, his feather-light touch sending a shiver down my arm. I rested my head on his thigh as he tried to coax me back to sleep.
What felt like a few minutes passed before the car stopped. A door opened, and I heard water splashing from a distance. He carried me in his muscular arms, headed toward the water. Fear rocked through my body, sending a ripple of nervous energy down my arms.
Several pairs of shoes tapped the cement behind us. Instead of heading toward the dock, we took a set of stairs that tunneled underground. We stopped at the bottom of the encasement.
“Where are you taking me?”
No answer.
The sound of heavy footsteps filled the silence that hung in the air between us like smoke. We halted in front of a brick wall. A man wearing a black cloak with the hood pulled over his head removed a brick from the center of the wall, revealing a hidden lock. He slipped his hand into his pocket, produced a skeleton key dangling from a silky red string, and slid it into the lock.
“Where am I?” I attempted to roll onto my back to look up at the man cradling me, but as I moved, he tightened his grip, smashing my face against his hard chest. “This is some Skull and Bones meets Harry Potter shit,” I muttered. “Are the Death Eaters on the other side of this wall?”
A man laughed behind me.