What the hell’s he going on about? Not marrying will bring wrath upon his clan.
He drags his eyes to me, his gaze boring into mine with raw hatred. “Yer the feckin’ groom, aren’t you? Let’s make this clear. I won’t have her bringing war to the fucking clans. She’ll be punished for this before she’s presented to you.” He spits out you like it’s distasteful. “Could be the only way to stop what will happen.”
I take an involuntary step toward him, but stop when Keenan grabs my arm.
“She will,” Martin says, his nostrils flaring. “Severely. She can’t put everything at risk without consequence. We have to make an example of her.”
His placating demeanor vanishes, and for the first time since we came here, I see the mask of the ruthless leader, the man who’d kill you as soon as he’d look at you. “I’ll see to it.”
The fuck they will.
They’re well within their rights, by Clan law, to punish her before she marries me, to show both their allegiance to us and their adherence to Clan law. But the very thought of this man, or any of them, touching my future wife, sends savage, wild fury ripping through me.
I make my decision, and as soon as I do, I know it’s the right one. Keenan will back me up.
“Aye,” I say. I don’t even recognize my own voice, as if someone else has taken over my body and held back the demon that wants to spill the blood of the Martins.
Keenan and Nolan look at me. It’s my call now. I’m the one who’s to wed her. “She ought to be punished,” I agree. And I mean it. Keenan nods in agreement.
“She brought us to the brink of war.” I shake my head. Silence hangs in the room while they listen. “But I’ll forgive your transgression against us on one condition, Martin.”
He raises an eyebrow. Unblinking. Nolan and Keenan tense.
“I’m the one who’ll punish her.”
Martin sputters, but he seems at a loss for words. Nolan’s lips quirk up, likely seeing the promise in this plan, and Keenan nods approvingly. “It’s fair, Martin,” he says.
I don’t want their filthy hands on her. She belongs to me now, and soon she’ll bear my name and ring.
If she’s mine to take, she’s mine to punish.
Martin looks relieved, not even hesitating when he issues his command.
“Show him where she is.”Chapter 4Aileen“Let me go, you arsehole!” I kick my legs and manage to wriggle myself out of the grasp of the fucking henchman holding me. He curses when my heel kicks him in the crotch, but as soon as I’m free, another one grabs me.
“You bitch,” he says through clenched teeth. “If you were any other fucking wench I’d split your lip open.”
“Come at me, then,” I say. “Fucking do it. Make me as ugly as you can before you drag me before my future husband. I’m sure he’ll be grateful.”
His eyes narrow from his crouched position, but he doesn’t respond. The man holding me does, though. His grip slackens. They know I’ve struck a chord. If they deliver me to my future husband as spoiled goods, they’ll regret it. I think I’ve finally gained some traction, when a cold, hard voice sounds behind me.
“Selfish and arrogant, just like the rest of them. Don’t even know the fucking trouble you’ve caused.”
I close my eyes as cold fear sweeps through me. I’d know Blaine’s voice anywhere.
The rest of them. My other sisters.
Granted privileges from birth, Blaine was taught that women are substandard, that men are the ones in power. He mimics the disrespect shown my mother and sisters by my father, and when he came of age, he pleased my father by leaving a long line of abused women in his wake.
I turn to face him. When he smiles, the black spaces where he’s missing teeth give him an appearance of a ghoul, something macabre and terrifying. He inherited my father’s thick, heavy eyebrows and tiny eyes, deeply embedded in his heavy face. I try to be brave, but this is the man who once kicked a puppy to death for stealing his dinner. That’s all I am to him. Another animal who’s threatened his belly.
He stalks toward me, and I glance quickly behind him. Will my father come, too? Will they punish me together? For the first time, real fear claws at my insides, and I feel as if I’m going to be sick.
“You haven’t won, you spoiled brat,” my brother says with a sickening grin. “We’ve brought you here for your punishment, and when we’re finished with you, you’re marrying the bastard McCarthy.”
I look quickly about me for a means to escape, the need to flee an instinct I can’t quench. But there’s nowhere to go. We’re in a windowless room, the walls thick and impenetrable. The floor’s cold, charcoal-gray concrete. There’s a small, plain wooden table in the center of the room and two chairs. They’re both sturdy and thick, but the one closest to me sends a shudder through me when I see the metal handcuffs attached to it. In the opposite corner of the room stands a pole with sturdy rings above it. I shake, my mind easily conjuring up a prisoner strung up to be punished.