Page 35 of Scarred Queen

Ignacio and his doctor had assured her the trauma was too great and that she would probably never remember. A sob escaped her lips. She opened her hand and smacked herself in the side of the head. Something was trying to surface. Another memory, something powerful was rising up. Dark and swirling, images flashing like a movie in fast forward. Glimpses of something she couldn’t hold onto.

“Leave.”

Casey barely registered his voice as Reyes ordered everyone out of the room. She wanted him to go too. Wanted him to leave her alone while she floundered in the murky blackness of her own brain. But she knew he wouldn’t. He would relentlessly watch over her. Whether she wanted it ornot.

She felt the heat of Alejandro leave her side. Felt the coolness down her side and registered the closing of the door as they were left alone together. Deciding her ass had been numb for long enough she tried pushing herself off the chair, but her body had other ideas and she slid to the floor instead, landing with a thump on her knees on the cheap linoleum. Reyes tried reaching for her, but Casey snarled and slashed her hand athim.

“Don’t touch me!” she yelled, her voice echoing in theroom.

She felt the instant tension snap through his body, knew he wouldn’t allow this kind of insult pass from anyone else, no matter what kind of day they were having. She waited for retaliation, waited for him to haul her to her feet and force her compliance. She was weakening before his eyes. She wasn’t the woman he’d been spending weeks loving and building up, preparing for a position at his side. She was the pathetic creature he’d found inMiami.

He didn’t say a word though. He just stared down at her as she continued to sink into the pit of swirling dizziness capturing her mind and sweeping her along on a tidal wave of madness.Shot in the head. She’d been shot in the head. She should be dead… but she wasn’t. Her family was though. She lifted accusing eyes to the man that could give her theanswers.

Her voice was hoarse but strong when she spoke. “They were shot too, weren’t they?” she demanded. “There was never any car wreck. All of them were shot. My mom, my dad, my brother and sisters. Allmurdered.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

She screamed, the sound tearing from her throat as rage and sorrow crashed through her chest and erupted out of her mouth. It echoed through the room. She rocked back on her heels and screamed until she couldn’t anymore, until her voice died away into soft cries. Reyes didn’t try to touch her this time though. She saw him flinch for just a second and something like anguish cross his features before he reverted to his impassive expression. He felt her pain as it rippled through her body. As denial fell away and reality settled on her shoulders like a bleak, shadowy cloak. She pictured the horrific way in which her family had died. Had they died one at a time, execution-style or had they been slaughtered like animals as they’d tried torun?

“But I survived,” she said, drawing herself up on her knees. Awe, terror and despair mixed in her voice as she processed the magnitude of her new truth. “I survived getting shot in the fuckinghead.”

He nodded, his eyes meeting hers. He allowed her to see his vulnerability, the sheer relief he felt that she’d survived. He wasn’t even going to pretend that he was detached about the possibility of her having died. They’d gone past that point in their relationship. Too much had happened tothem.

Casey struggled to her feet. Reyes reached out to help her but she slapped his arm away and then gave him a hard shove for good measure. She could feel the tightening of his body, the need for him to grab her, to take what he wanted regardless of her feelings. She saw the powerful ripple of muscle down his arms and the tendons in his neck stand out as he gritted his teeth and glared ather.

She stood her ground though, fists clenched and hissed at him, “You knew and you brought mehere!”

He nodded in confirmation, but said, “Choose your words carefully,nena. I know you’re hurting, but I am still your master, yourking.”

She bared her teeth at him. “What are you going to do, Reyes, finish the job?” she snarled, pointing a finger at hischest.

He grabbed her wrist so swiftly she barely had a chance to back up before he was slamming her into the wall behind them. “Is that what you want, Casey?” he growled into her face, reaching for her other wrist and dragging her arms over her head. “You want me to finish the job? Because I won’t allow this.Mi reinawill stand strong or she will die. Youdecide.”

She thrust her chin out at him, growling back in defiance, tempted to tell him that he was welcome to finish the job, but then something pushed at the edge of her consciousness; a memory that was waking up slowly, stalking forward. She gasped, her vision flooding with something. A horrible, terrible colour. Red maybe… yes it must be red, this terrible thing that washed over everything. Then the memory flooded in as though it had been waiting for this moment, whispering in the wings of her subconscious, fluttering until she was either strong enough to handle it or weak enough that she could no longer denyit.

She saw them all. Lined up on their knees, begging for their lives. Her parents begging for the lives of their children as they were shot one at a time execution-style by a group of men. Then she saw… she saw… Ignacio… standing over her, a look of almost longing or maybe loss on his face as he turned away and pulled the trigger. Then she fell. But she was still conscious as she lay on the floor, blood seeping from her head, across her face, dripping from her chin as she watched her family die. She blinked. Mother down. Blink. Sister down. Blink. Alldown.

Red. Is that what this colour is? This shadowy thing spreading out across the floor from her face as Ignacio and his men walked away fromher.

Blink. Inky, coldblackness.

“Casey?” Reyes’ voice pulled her back, his hands tightened on her wrists reminding her that she had always been hispawn.

“You brought me here, to the clinic, to find out for sure. Didn’t you?” shewhispered.

He didn’t lie to her. That was one thing she admired about Reyes, even while he gripped something inside of her and crushed it. “Yes,nena, I needed to know if Ignacio was confessing the truth. Not all men are honest under torture,” he told her brutally. “But I also wanted to know if they could help you here. Give you something to ease yourheadaches.”

She stared up at him with something approaching hatred. “Take your hands off me! Leave me alone!” shesnarled.

“Never!” he thundered back at her, finally snapping under the pressure of seeing his woman take constant hits and being unable to do anything about it. “I will never leave you alone, CaseyReyes.”

“Reyes is not my name,” she said scathingly, fury vibrating through every word. “I amnotyour wife. The name I carry is tainted with the blood of myfamily.”

“You will marry me,nena, and you will take my name,” he snarled, lowering his mouth to hers and pressing it gently against the curve of her trembling lips despite the violence swirling around them. “Nothing less is acceptable. You have belonged to me from the moment I set eyes on you. From your fucked-up eyes, the grey world you live in, the pain in your head to the mark on your hand. It all belongs to me. It’s mine, Casey, youunderstand?”

Her heart pounded at the intensity of his words while tears seeped from her eyes as visions of her dead family continued to flash through her brain, tormenting her in a vivid re-play like it had happened only yesterday instead of a decade ago. He continued to brush his lips against hers, soothingly,possessively.

“You want to marry me, Reyes?” she whispered, her breath shuddering against him as his tongue dipped out to taste the edge of her mouth. “You want to keep me forever? Willing and heartwhole?”

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