Page 54 of The Queen's Serpent

I can’t let that happen. I can’t have done all of this only to lose her in the end.You knew that was always a possibility, my mind seethes. Yes, I did, but I refuse to believe that my story with Issy ends here. That all the sacrifices I have made for her were for nothing. I can’t let her go, not even now, when I know turning her over could save most of my men.

I know deep down it’s selfish of me to allow all of their possible deaths, so that I can keep my beautiful prize.Fuck,it was selfish and insane of me to kidnap her, and drag her to the jungle in the first place, hoping I could have more than a slim amount of time with her before her grandmother found her. Time to correct her belief that we don’t belong together, that she’s not fucking mine, and I’m not hers, despite what her cunt of a grandmother says.

Now I’m out of time, and I only hope that at the end of this, she will want to stay with me of her own free will, but after everything that has happened, and the way I treated her with Paulo, I know she is going to run from me the first chance she gets. A cold film of sweat and dread coats all my limbs, with the almost certainty that she won’t even look back when she does.She’s already left you, idiot, you just don’t want to believe it.

I broke and rebuilt her into something stronger, or at least that’s what I hope I did. The image of her covered in blood, and hacking at my enemy, enters my mind and forces my breath to leave my lips in a whoosh. She was so beautiful and powerful in that moment, owning all the rage that had festered inside of her over the years. My queen, my little broken doll, put back together. Will she use her newfound strength to leave me?

Are you really so deluded that you don’t already know the answer?The monster inside of me snarks, as a wave of despair tries to overwhelm me, and bring me to my knees. I can’t fucking lose her. My world only makes sense when she is in it.

She says she loves me, but that was when I was traumatizing her. When I gave her the opportunity to say it before at the waterfall, or anytime we lay together in my bed in the weeks after that moment, she never did. Not once did she utter the words that my heart craved to hear. Not once did she reassure me that she would stay with me of her own free will.

If these fuckers get their hands on her, they will tear her away from me. I can’t and will not allow that to happen. Nothing, and no one, is taking myPrincesafrom my grasp. I will fight for her to my very last breath.

I grab a few of the guns and knives off the wall, and strap them to my body, preparing to wage war on those who thought they could come in here, and take what is mine. They will all die, and I will feed their bones as an offering to the jungle beasts, and then I will have Stella Stratford’s head for thinking she could take me on.

Chapter thirty

Issy

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”

Mother Teresa

“Isabella, come here, love, come taste this!” The sound of his excited voice lures me around the corner, and into the small kitchen of the cramped apartment. The rich smells of tomatoes and garlic reach my nose, and have my stomach growling loudly in demand of nourishment. When was the last time I ate anything?

I enter the small room that can barely fit his large frame, and watch him move about easily and gracefully. He stirs a pot on the diminutive stove, the muscles in his back and arms rippling with the movement, pulling his light blue button-up shirt tight across his form. Some of his blond hair covers one of his bright blue eyes that I love, and even from the side, I can tell he’s smirking.

He’s so handsome to look at; he should be on the cover of a magazine somewhere, instead of doing his residency at a tiny not-for-profit public hospital, one that barely pays him enough to live in this run-down apartment that feels like a stifling shoebox.

Whenever I mention it, or even the possibility of getting him a better-paying position, at a private hospital where my family are donors, and have wings named after us, he scoffs and brushes me off. He wants to help those who cannot help themselves. Wealth and power are nothing to him, andhe seems utterly immune to their temptations. I’ve never met anyone like him. I’m not even sure that anyone else exists like him, and because of that, I live in perpetual fear that he’ll realize all the rot that lives inside of me.

I’m a weak fraud, one who cannot go more than a day without living under the influence of the drugs that constantly flow within my veins. Right now, my hands are trembling, and my body aches with a need for more, as I come down from my high.

I try to avoid him when I’m like this, but the problem is that I’ve become more and more dependent on the oblivion that they provide, and yet, despite the need to be high, I also crave him just as much. Even when I try to stay away from him, I find myself in his gravitational pull, returning to where I know I should not linger. I can’t stay away from him, because he has become a soul-deep addiction, just like the cocaine I can’t live without.

I stumble as I make my way over to him, my limbs loose and uncoordinated, and he reaches out to grab my elbow and steady me. “Are you alright?” He questions as he stares deeply into my eyes, and I see when he notices I’m not. Why did I think I could hide it from him? I’m so stupid, so fucking stupid.

“Fuck, Isabella! We talked about this! You promised me that you wouldn’t take any more of that shit,” he roars, dropping the wooden spoon on the counter and splashing tomato sauce everywhere.

I can’t hold his gaze as shame and guilt fill me, and threaten to smother me. Why the fuck did I come here? I knew this would be his reaction, that he would be angry and disappointed in me. Like everyone else in my life, he is no exception to feeling let down by Isabella Stratford, the Manhattan princess who has everything you could ever dream of at her fingertips, but craves oblivion more than life. More than him.

Weak, useless, discarded, empty. Those are the words I use to describe myself, which I’m sure everyone who has to deal with me would agree on. So, why did I come here? Why did I come to the one person I’m certain without a doubt loves me, only to hurt him?

Does he love you for you, or for the version he has in his head that he thinks he can save? Is that what I am? A project, a weak lamb to be rescued from the hungry jaws of a wolf? Does he believe he can save me from myself?

He grabs onto both of my biceps and shakes me with his tight grip, forcing my head to spin and my breath to become trapped in my throat. Fuck, the nausea that was already threatening to rise begins to do just that, and I know I’m mere moments away from spilling the meager contents of my stomach.

What, the fucking booze you drank earlier? You’re such a lost cause, Issy. You would have been better off taking a little more and never waking again, my mind snarks, and despite not wanting to agree, I know it speaks the truth.

“Kaaaiiii… I’m going… to vomit.” I try to get the words out between clenched teeth. He instantly removes his fingers from my skin, as if touching me now disgusts him, and takes a step back to put room between us. The expression of pure disappointment on his face makes my chest clench tightly, adding to the sensation of light-headedness and self-loathing.

“Why, Isabella? Why this constant need to self-destruct? What was it this time? What could only drugs have solved?”

He’s not wrong; I do indulge in nothing but self-destructive endeavors, and it’s a testament to how well he has gotten to know me, that he can predict that something happened to push me back towards the snow that I snorted hours before.

An argument with my grandmother, over my sister being allowed to return to Casbury to seek revenge on those who wronged her, was the catalyst for this particular drug binge.My precious, strong-willed sister, who can never do anything wrong in my grandmother’s eyes, is leaving me here alone at the mercy of my grandmother, and her whims, without a thought of how that would impact me. When I adamantly suggested that I go with Mia to Casbury to stay by her side, my request was immediately denied.

My grandmother’s reasoning? I would only be in the way of Mia completing her tasks, and Mia had enough to worry over. That a period of distance would be good for both of us, so I could learn to stand on my own two feet, and fight my own battles.

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