Page 224 of The Black Trilogy

The pressure on my back eased slightly as Black took some of his weight off me.

“Are you awake now?” he asked me.

“Yes!” I gasped.

He dragged me over to the wall and propped me against it. “Stay there. I need to deal with Nick.”

I watched from the corner, arms wrapped around my knees, as Dan and Black stemmed the bleeding from Nick’s nose then helped him onto the bed. Except it wasn’t me watching. No, I was a stranger. Because this couldn’t be happening, not to Nick, not in my bedroom. What had I done?

“One broken nose, gouges from her nails, a couple of cracked ribs, a bunch of bruises on your calves, and a black eye,” Black assessed. “And you need to get that cheekbone X-rayed.”

“That it?” Nick asked, still sarcastic even though he must have been in agony.

“Count yourself lucky, buddy. When she broke my nose, she got me in the balls too, and I couldn’t walk properly for a week.”

Dan helped Nick to get dressed then fetched a car to take him to the hospital. As he shuffled out of the bedroom, I struggled to my feet and stumbled towards him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Nick.”

He paused and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, baby. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Black wrapped a blanket around me, and I realised I was still naked. Just great. Nick bent to kiss my cheek before trailing Dan out into the hallway. At least he didn’t seem to hate me, although how, I wasn’t sure.

I certainly hated myself.

Their footsteps receded, leaving me alone, and I slid down the wall with my head in my hands. I’d sleepwalked in the past, but this… This was a whole other category of messed up. Usually, I just woke up somewhere else in the house and went back to bed with bruised shins from walking into things. My eyes prickled as I thought of Nick’s mangled face, and I cursed my training. Over the past couple of years, I’d become a machine, taught to react automatically to any sort of threat, and my subconscious had done exactly that.

Black came back and lifted me up, his face impassive as he carried me through to his bathroom and lowered me into his swimming-pool-sized tub. The heat of the water stung, but I didn’t care. I deserved the pain. It was nothing compared to what I’d inflicted on Nick.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No.”

“Physically?”

“I’m fine.”

He washed Nick’s blood off me, the water turning pale pink with the evidence of my crime. Despite my claim to be okay, he checked me over, and when he didn’t find any damage, he bundled me into a robe. I expected him to lead me back to my room, but he picked me up again and tucked me into his bed.

“Sleep, Diamond.” He leaned over and touched his lips to my forehead. “I’m going to check on Nick then I’ll come back and take the couch.”

“You shouldn’t be in a room with me. What if I hurt you too?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring a Taser.” My darling husband, ever the practical one. “I want to keep an eye on you tonight.”

It was all very well him telling me to sleep. As I lay still, watching the full moon hanging in the sky over Black’s balcony, I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep again.

Soft footsteps and the squeak of a spring signalled Black’s return. On any normal day, he’d have told me to suck it up and get on with things, but tonight he somehow knew I needed sweet, and he gave it to me.

See? He wasn’t always a monster.

That was me.

CHAPTER 28

THE NEXT MORNING, Black helped me to switch bedrooms. I’d never lie in my old bed again without feeling the crunch of Nick’s nose under my elbow or look at the wall by the door without seeing his bloodied body slumped against it.

My new room was beside Black’s. Nate installed a motion sensor on the door, and once set, if I tried to open it without punching in a six-digit code first, an alarm would sound. Surely even I couldn’t enter six numbers in my sleep?

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