Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 142

Chp 142: Not In Here.

Aurelia’s POV

34

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I woke up to a white ceiling that wasn’t mine, and a woman I didn’t know leaning over me in a lab coat.

“There she is.” She straightened. “Back with the living. You gave us a fright.”

I tried to sit up, but the room tilted so I gave up on it. “Where…”

“Slowly. Your head is going to punish you for hours yet.” She pressed two fingers to my wrist and counted. “Do you remember your name?”

“Aurelia.” My mouth was dry as paper. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“Sonia. I patch people up around here.” A small smile, almost fond. “And you and I have met before, though you were in far worse shape the first time, if you can believe it.”

At first, I couldn’t believe it. But then suddenly I could, because the smell of the place had reached me. Cold stone and pine and a memory that turned over in the back of my mind.

“Where am I, Sonia?”

“Ridgeline.” She said it like it was nothing at all. “The Wilder’s territory. You have been here since last night, when he carried you in half frozen and soaked in enough liquor to drop a grown man.”

Everything in me went cold.

Kaelen.

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“Your blood said otherwise. You had enough alcohol in you to stop a heart, and you were walking alone at night in a part of the city that eats women like you for sport.” Her voice stayed gentle. “Reckless. That’s the kindest word I have for it. Whatever you were running from, you nearly ran clean off the edge of the world doing it.”

Just then the door opened without a knock, and the whole room changed.

I felt him before I saw him.

“Out,” he said.

Sonia was already gathering her things. “She needs rest, Kaelen, not…”

“Out, Sonia.” Not unkind. Just absolute. “I’ll call you if she needs you.”

The doctor went. The door shut. And then it was only me and the large man filling the room.

“You,” I said.

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16:51 Mon, Aug 31

Billionaire’s Betrayal, a contracted revenge

14

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“Me.” He dragged a chair to the bed, turned it backward, and sat with his arms folded over the top of it, grinning like it was the best morning he had had in years. “You look better with the colour back in you. Last. night you looked like something the river spat out.”

“How did I get here?”

“I carried you.”

“From the city. From Warren Street.” My head pounded. “That’s an hour out. Why would you…”

“Because I was there.” He shrugged one huge shoulder. “Because four men had their hands on you and you were too drunk to stand, and I don’t care for those odds.” His grin dropped a notch. “You were running, little thing. I know running when I see it. You had the look of a woman putting every mile of dark road she could between herself and something.” He tilted his head. “A husband, maybe.”

The word hit like cold water. “You don’t know a thing about my husband.”

“I know he let you end up on that street.” Flat. Sure. “That’s all I need to know about the man.”

I had no answer. There wasn’t one.

He leaned in then, slowly, and before I understood what he meant to do his hand came up and cupped the side of my face, rough and warm, and I should have pulled back but I did not.

“You shouldn’t.” My voice had gone thin. “I’m married, Kaelen. Whatever this is, I’m married.”

“Out there.” His thumb moved once, slowly, along my cheekbone, and his yellow eyes held mine and wouldn’t let go. “You are married out there. In the city, in his tower, on his paper.” He leaned closer, and his scent wrapped all the way around me, pine and snow and something that made my heart hurt. “Not in here. In here you belong to no one but yourself. And maybe, if you are very unlucky, to this place. It has wanted you back for a long time.”

At that moment I was shaking, and I couldn’t have told you from what.

Then he let go and stood up, and the loss of his warmth was its own small shock.

“Rest,” he said, easy again, as if he hadn’t just tilted the whole world under me. “We have months to catch up on, you and I. But it can wait until you can stand without falling down.”

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They gave me a room when I could finally walk.

Sonia led me down a long hallway of old dark wood and colder grey stone, and I kept one hand on the wall, because somehow I still felt dizzy.

The room was three times the size of any I had ever slept in. A bed piled with furs you could lose yourself in. Warm lamplight. A tall window that looked out over black mountains and a sky with far too many stars, more than the city had ever let me see, and for one moment I stood in the doorway and felt something I had no right to feel in a stranger’s house.

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16:51 Mon, Aug 31

Billionaire’s Betrayal, a contracted revenge

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