Page 69 of Trapped to Tame
She bit the Bull’s neck where it met his shoulder. He grabbed her hair, trying to pull her head away, but she held on, ripping his flesh, blood coating her. She spat out a piece of him, grinning at him, and was gratified by his terrified eyes, loving every moment of her revenge.
But she wanted Talik too. Suddenly in a hurry, she took the sides of his head in her hands and squeezed as hard as she could, his body bucking under her, until she heard his skull crack and he fell to the floor, twitching for a moment.
Eve stood over him until he went still, and she was sure he was truly dead.
She spat on his corpse.
‘Fuck you,’ she whispered and then she looked up to see the three Brother watching with a mixture of approval and pride.
Without a word, she turned and tiptoed up the stairs, going after Talik, but he was already gone.
Huffing, she walked out onto the street, ignoring the looks from passers-by, realizing belatedly that she was covered in the Bull’s blood.
The Brothers, who she was half-surprised to discover were following her, covered her with a cloak. They took the lead, guiding her away from the broken-down hovel. Eve wasn't sure what else to do, feeling a numbness settling over her now, so she went with them willingly as they followed the river back up to their fine house.
They went inside and one of them picked her up, taking her to her room and putting her on the bed. She heard them clattering about downstairs.
A bit later, they returned. As she stared listlessly at the ceiling, what was left of her clothes were taken off. She didn't fight as she was gently lowered into a tub of steaming water, hissing at the pain of it on the raw skin of her wrists.
Fie bathed the blood from her while Drax and Priest looked on, their faces blank, their eyes moving over her bruises as more and more were uncovered. It looked like the Bull had beaten her while she’d been unconscious after the fight as well.
When Fie was finished, he lifted her out of the bath and into a waiting blanket in Drax’s arms. She was carried back to bed where she stared at the ceiling again, listening to them muttering to each other in soft tones, as if she couldn't hear them.
‘What's wrong with her?’ Fie asked. ‘What does she need?’
It was Priest who answered him. ‘Time.’
The men left her alone, closing the door with a soft click.
The numbness was being replaced, she realized, with an overwhelming sadness that she didn't quite understand. She had no one to turn to, nowhere to go, which meant she had to stay here until their guilts were assuaged and they discarded her again. She meant nothing, not to anyone.
* * *
Fie
Fie closed the door quietly.Drax thought it best, but he didn't want to leave Eve alone. Though their bond had only been solidified in the past few days, Fie felt bereft without it. Empty. From the look on Drax’s face, he felt the same.
His eyes cut to Priest, anger rising up all over again even though his Brother had already been punished and that should be the end of it. That was the Brothers’ way. But Fie couldn’t forget, nor forgive.
‘How could you have done this?’ he asked quietly. ‘We were meant to be Brothers. But you … and you as well,’ he said, looking at Drax. He shook his head. ‘You’ve both been vying for power in this unit for too long and now it has cost us our strength, severed our bond with our Fourth, and broken our female.’
Fie drew his knife and stabbed it into the polished table in front of him angrily, forever marring its perfect surface.
‘Learn how to be Brothers once more and mend our unit,’ he said them. ‘I am going to do what we should have done and try to comfort our mate. And when you have decided which of you is to be our leader, we are going to bind ourselves to her again. She is ours.’
With that, he stood and left the room, going back to Eve. He opened the door and let himself in. She was laying just as he’d left her on the bed, staring at nothing.
‘Eve,’ he said, but she didn't even react to his presence, or his words. ‘Fourth.’ That got an expression of disdain. ‘It was not I, nor Drax, who broke the bond,’ he said. ‘Priest did it in some misguided notion—’
‘Because he despises me,’ she finished quietly. ‘As you all do. You hate my father. I could see it when you spoke of him.’ She didn't look at Fie. ‘Was all of this somehow to take revenge on him for something?’
He sat on the bed next to her.
‘I can’t speak for the others, but not for me. Not now.’
He drew her into his arms and frowned when she stayed rigid, trying to keep away from him.
‘Enough, female,’ he said. ‘You are our Fourth. You will be again.’
