Page 10 of Beloved Sacrifice

“Order me,” she said.

“What?”

Rose turned her head, staring at him. She knew it was Weston; there was enough left of the young man she’d known and loved to recognize him, but he was different. Scarred.

Weston Anderson was missing his right eye. It had taken her a minute to realize it, but his right eye didn’t move—it was false. There was scarring all around the eye socket, the brow bone a little misshapen. His hair, a warm honey blond, was long, probably to hide the fact that his right ear was half gone, his earlobe mostly missing and what there was of it fused to his neck. The skin of his ear, back of his jaw, and the right side of his neck looked like wax that had melted and then hardened again.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” He met her gaze unflinchingly.

Rose’s heart lurched and she looked away. “Why don’t you order me to remove it, Sir?”

“Don’t ever call me that, Rose. And we don’t have time for this. We’re in the eye of the storm.”

“I will remove the restraints if that is your wish.” She used her submissive voice.

Weston made a disgusted sound, stood, and sidestepped until he could walk out the door.

“You can walk, just drag the other one along if that’s how you want to play it.”

Rose stood and followed him out of the room. The calm she’d tried to wrap herself in felt fragile, as if it were only a thin layer of ice instead of the glacier-like wall she wanted it to be.

She hadn’t been in an attic closet, but rather in the small room under the stairs. There was a Harry Potter joke in there she was too numb and heartsick to make. They emerged into a small sitting room. A tan couch was positioned across from the fireplace, a worn wingback chair next to it. There was a window above the couch, the warm sunlight that poured in through it reflected in the mirror above the mantel and making the whole room bright. The floor under her feet was hardwood, the walls a cheery robin’s egg blue.

Rose stopped and looked around again.

To her right was the front door and the foot of the stairs. A small coat stand stood beside the door and a pair of tall rubber boots was on the other side of the small foyer space. To her left was a doorway leading into another room, with bookcases and a low-backed comfortable chair.

“I’m going to take you away…I’ll buy us a house. It’ll have to be a little one, out in the country. With a library.”

The ice she’d encased herself in was melting, leaving her vulnerable. In her imagination, the cage that protected her true self warped and melted, the icy, gilded bars becoming sand that slid though her fingers, the whole thing collapsing around her.

“This house,” she whispered. Wes had promised to buy her this house. To take her away from the Andersons.

Heat replaced the cold inside her, and it took her a moment to identify the hot feeling.

Rage.

“Rose?” Weston stood in the middle of the little sitting room, his big body bathed in light. He wore brown pants, and a thin sweater that clung to the muscles of his shoulders and upper arms.

She looked down at herself—rumpled slacks, wrinkled shirt. Her feet were bare and there was a bondage restraint around one ankle. She was dragging the other restraint behind her.

Rose took a breath. She was so hot. It felt like there was a vise around her chest.

“Rose, calm down. You’re going to hyperventilate.”

Rose looked up, and it was as if she were looking at him though a paper towel roll—he seemed far away, yet close at the same time. The edges of her vision were getting dark.

“You’re alive.”

“Yes.”

“But you died. You died and you left me.” Rose stumbled back, nearly falling but she hit the wall.

“Rose!” Weston leapt toward her.

Her body shook from the intensity of her anger. “They murdered you, so we stayed, we obeyed. I obeyed. I mourned you, and then I obeyed.” Rose closed her eyes, sliding to the floor.

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