The Camp (Chateau 2)

But putting her back in her cabin wasn’t an option.

Her voice broke the silence. “Magnus?”

I didn’t respond.

“You should just send me back to my cabin…”

I stared at my desk.

“Because when you leave, they’re gonna get me anyway.”

I released a loud sigh because it was true. Why suffer this proximity when my absence would expose her to all the cruelty again? Now that I’d taken her away, they’d want her even more, just out of spite. I felt like a lone wolf trying to protect a pup from an entire pack. The second I was gone, they would rip her to pieces. “Then I won’t leave.”

She was quiet.

That sounded like a terrible plan too, but I didn’t have any other option.

The mattress shifted as she came closer to me, her chest pressing against my back, her arm wrapping around my waist. Her face moved to the back of my neck, her warm breaths falling on my skin at a quickened rate. Then she kissed the back of my shoulder, pulling me closer to her.

I pulled her arm off my body and pushed her away. “Get off me.”

She stilled, stung by my reaction. “You don’t want me?”

“No.”

She was quiet again.

I just wanted to go to sleep…and do this all over again tomorrow.

Emotion cracked her voice this time. “He didn’t… He didn’t rape me.”

I threw the sheets off and sat at the edge of the bed, wiping my palm across my face in irritation. “You think that would matter to me?” My arms moved to my thighs, and my bare hands rubbed together. “Don’t misunderstand my intentions. I helped you because I couldn’t abandon you. But I don’t desire you anymore. I desired the woman that I trusted. You are not that woman anymore.” I rose off the bed and stepped away, needing space so I wouldn’t throw my fist through a wall.

“I am that woman—”

“You fucking humiliated me.” I turned back around and stared her down, seeing her eyes well up with new tears. “You have no idea what they did to me. You have no fucking idea how they tortured me! Why the fuck would I want you when you sent me to the guillotine? Why the fuck would I want you when you weren’t there for me when I was there for you?” My shouts became so loud that the guards in nearby cabins probably heard them. “A man protects his woman against everything—but she also protects him. You fucking abandoned me.”

Tears dripped down her cheeks, and she bowed her head, like she couldn’t look at me.

“No. I don’t fucking want you.” I couldn’t look at her, so I turned away and faced the wall. The cabin was too fucking small for me to go anywhere other than the bathroom, but I refused to cower away in the room where I took a shit every morning.

She cried quietly.

Melanie told me Raven had fought against the executioner to get to me. She lifted the burning rubble off my back to save me, giving her hands scars she would carry the rest of her life. I’d seen them myself—so I knew it was true. But that wasn’t enough to make me forgive and forget. She took that knife for me, but that still wasn’t enough to make me move on. Nothing would make me move on. “I let you live here so Alix and the others won’t do the unspeakable. But that’s it. My invitation means nothing more than that. So, you keep your mouth shut and be as invisible as possible. Touch my laptop or do anything stupid, and I will throw you back outside. Got it?”

She got out of bed, still crying, and went into the bathroom. The door locked—like she thought I would go after her.

I went back to bed and tried to go to sleep. Her tears were slightly audible through the door, so I grabbed the remote, turned on the TV to drown out the sound, and forced myself to go to sleep.

Ten

Plaything

A week passed, and we didn’t speak.

I spent my nights at the communal cabin, drinking beer, playing poker with the guys, watching TV. I’d begun to bring her dinner right after the workday so she would be asleep by the time I came to the cabin for bed.

It started to become a routine.

She was my silent roommate.

Sharing the bed with her was always uncomfortable. I’d have to lie in the same position so I wouldn’t touch her. In my sleep, I would roll over the other way, and once I touched her, I’d wake up and roll back the other way. Sometimes, I went right back to sleep…and other times, I was awake for an hour.

The guards didn’t ask me about Raven. They didn’t mention her at all.

When I played poker with the guys, Alix was quiet. But his silence was better than his perversion.