We stared at one another helplessly as the flames engulfed us. I really thought it was the end.
That is, until I heart the faint sizzle and burn of a fire being put out. Until out of nowhere, there was water spurting all over us, drenching us in cold liquid, soaking my clothes through and through and making me gasp through the stream.
“What’s-what’s going on?” I managed to get out, but I needn’t have asked.
Thorn was already racing through the small bit of extinguished flames, leaving ash rising in our wake. He dragged me out of there until we came to the next obstacle, a burning branch blocking our way next to a cherry tree engulfed in flames. He looked down into my face and set me on my feet.
“Can you walk?” he asked, and I found myself nodding. “I’ll put the fire out, and you fucking run. You got that, Rose?”
I nodded again.
He started ripping at his clothes, tearing them off his body. Shirtless, with his body wet from the water and sweat, he looked like a fucking God. I could have watched, entranced, for hours, but instead I stepped aside and waited for my Master to tackle the flames.
He covered the branch with our soaked clothes, and there was more sizzling and smoke as I made my way past the obstacle, holding my hand out so he could join me. But before he could, another branch fell from a burning cherry tree, enclosing him in the burning garden.
I screamed, and he shouted for me, but there was nothing to do. He was cut off from me, and even more so as the cherry tree came tumbling down like something out of a nightmare, a thing of terror and horrible fire engulfing Thorn in the flames.
I had never screamed louder.
And suddenly, he appeared from within the ruined garden, screaming as he ran through the fire, engulfed by the flames for mere seconds before he made his way out of the nightmarish rose garden, collapsing on his knees as I joined him, crying and screaming for him not to leave me. Oh, how quickly the tables had turned…
Seventeen
Carina
I was done.
I’d finally accomplished what I’d been working so hard for. Gotten rid of the obstacles. And now my man would finally realize I was the only woman for him. The only one who deserved Rueben Thorn…
A small smile was stuck to my face as I watched the chaos, watched the world burn. Maids and girls and guards ran outside to help, carrying buckets of water, calling for help. And I was the only one that knew it didn’t matter at all, because sweet little Harlow Granger was captured right in the middle of the burning chaos… And she wasn’t getting the fuck out. Not under my watch.
I felt triumphant. Victorious. I couldn’t help the proud expression on my face as I rounded the corner and snuck back inside the house.
“What are you doing?”
The voice was a surprise, and I turned around with my hands behind my back, my eyes meeting Pia’s.
“I heard something outside,” I said innocently. “I wanted to see what’s going on.”
She seemed suspicious as she drew nearer, her eyes trying to find something out of place on me. I stared right back, waiting for her to challenge me on my story. I knew it was fucking coming. But so be it.
Pia was my last obstacle on my path to happiness. The only one left standing between mine and Thorn’s happy future. And since I now knew I was capable of removing such obstacles, I was more confident than ever.
“But you just came in,” she finally said. “You weren’t leaving the house, you were coming inside.”
I didn’t say a word. Just kept a pretty smile plastered on my face as she circled me like a wild dog.
“I liked you at first,” I spoke up. “But I don’t think I like you very much now.”
“What the fuck?” she asked, her face twisting into a grotesque mask that didn’t suit her.
And then I was swinging at her, trying to attack.
Pia screamed when my fist connected with her beautiful face. I’d hit her left eye, and a victorious sense of self-accomplishment filled me as I imagined a bruise blooming there, marring her perfect bone structure. The need to hurt, to destroy and to ruin overtook me, and I took another swing at her, but this time, she was ready. She dodged me and screamed in anger just as I did, and we regarded one another, finally admitting to ourselves what we truly meant to each other, what we’d been all along without wanting to admit it out loud.
Enemies.
There was only one prize at the end of this brawl, and we both wanted it. Now, with Harlow out of the picture, Pia was the only thing remaining before I got what I so desperately wanted.