Ruthless Rebel (Black Hallows #5)

Chapter 13

13

ASHER

O ne hundred and four hours and seventeen minutes, that’s how long it’s been since my daughter left to head to the other side of the world without me. One hundred and four hours since I have felt like my heart has been walking around outside of my chest, out of sight, and beyond my protection. I mean, if I am being honest with myself, I have felt like that since the second I found out she existed, and if I am being more honest with myself, I have felt like that ever since the night I was held down and forced to watch the night she was even created.

Bile rises in my throat at the memory, just like every time I recall that night, and I take a deep breath in through my nose, as I focus my gaze out of the window onto the tarmac. I’ve been sitting on the plane for almost twenty-minutes and there is still no sign of Lincoln, not that he should be here yet, I am almost an hour early, but that hasn’t stopped me from staring at the door in annoyance about his lack of presence.

After checking in at the office this morning with Eliza, and going over some last minute stuff for while I’m away, I noticed that Lincoln never appeared from his office. Not that I was waiting for him or anything, yet still I felt on edge as I headed back to my penthouse to grab my stuff, and made my way here, to the private airport that Zack owns. The flight crew gave me a wide berth, as I Interrupted their preparations and stomped up the stairs without a word, and took my seat to wait for the one remaining passenger.

I haven’t seen Lincoln since he dropped me at my car in the woods the other night, and for some reason I thought he might have come looking for me over the weekend, but he didn’t. I’m not sure why that bothers me, and with no excuse to be at the house without Cassie or Elle there I didn’t seek him out in return. My plan to corner him on Friday night, about the murders, went up in flames when he walked back to his car without a trace of any crimes committed, but that isn’t what stopped me short. No, it was the sight of him completely and utterly naked without a care in the world. I mean, what the fuck was he thinking just striding through the woods naked in the middle of the night? Anyone could have come across him like that. That thought only angers me more, as my fingers tighten around my already bouncing knees, in anticipation of his arrival and the flight we have ahead.

I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t realize how much time has passed, but I sense his presence as soon as he ascends the stairs onto the plane. The tension lining my entire body only increases as he steps through the door and locks eyes with me. He doesn’t look surprised to already find me here, despite him arriving early himself. In fact, when he spots me, he smirks, as if he expected nothing less. He shares what I am sure are pleasantries with the two flight attendants, before moving to take a seat right across from me, forgoing the vacant seats on the other side of the aisle.

“Now I see why our lovely crew are so tense, have you been causing trouble already, Dark Prince?” He muses, staring at me with that insufferable smirk still in place.

“Don’t start with me, Blackwell,” I spit, and his grin only widens.

“Why? Are you good at finishing?” He asks, the innuendo not lost on me in the slightest, and I grit my teeth to bite back any retort.

With us both now present and seated, one of the flight attendants quickly runs through the safety procedures with us, and the stops we will be making, while the other secures the rest of the cabin ready for takeoff. With every passing second my tension only increases, until I feel like my entire body might explode, and it’s only made worse with Lincoln’s lingering stare never straying from me, as he assesses my every move.

By the time the engines start up, my heart is thundering in my chest, and I am struggling to catch my breath, and he stares at me knowingly. “You’re scared of flying.” It’s not a question, yet still I take a deep breath as I grant him with a response.

“I don’t like feeling out of control, putting my life in somebody else’s hands,” I breathe, as my fingers dig into my knees even harder, until all I can focus on is the pain of my grip.

I don’t bother adding that it comes from the days where my father and Greg would beat me out of the blue for sport, before I was old enough to fight back, or from the nights I was aware of all the girls they were hurting, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Yet I’m sure he sees the invisible scars across my body all the same. After all, he was the one to patch me up after the last beating I ever took because of them. That’s if we don’t include the bullet I took that was meant for Elle.

As always, there isn’t a hint of pity in his eyes as he looks at me, forcing a smile to his face. “Of course, as if the almighty Asher Donovan would ever be satisfied with anything as simple as his own pilot and a private jet,” he laughs, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t put it past you to barge in there and demand to fly us there yourself, not that it would matter, because even if we were to plunge to our untimely deaths, you’d still sweet talk the devil out of taking your soul.” He leans forward, bringing our knees together until they are almost touching, as his hand lands on mine, “It’s okay to be afraid though,” he adds, but I am already snatching away my arm from beneath his touch in a panic.

“Please don’t touch me,” I spit, and his hand recoils in shock, before he regains his composure from my outburst and retracts back into his seat.

“Sorry, I forget that some people get weird about that kind of thing,” he mutters, looking embarrassed, and for the first time, my attention slips from my impending flight to him.

“What kind of thing?” I snap, and he sighs, glancing at the flight attendants who have now taken their seats for takeoff, before coming back to me.

“About someone who is gay touching them,” he grimaces slightly as he says that, and I know he must be recalling the other times he has come close to touching me, about the taunts he and Logan have fired my way, and I don’t know the words to convey what I truly mean.

“Your sexual orientation doesn’t bother me, Lincoln,” I sigh, his name rolling off my tongue easier than it should, and I swear I see his cheeks turn a slight shade of pink. “I just don’t like to be touched, by anyone,” I add, not really wanting to get into the reasons why, my past left buried, but I should have known that it wouldn’t be that simple with him, nothing ever is.

I watch as he turns my words over in his mind, twisting them every way he can no doubt, until finally I can’t stand it any longer, and snap, “What?”

“It’s just,” he starts, pausing slightly as if trying to decide his next words carefully, before he blurts, “How do you fuck?” As the wo rds leave his mouth, he reaches out to swipe one of the unopened bottles of water off the table, as if he just needs to do something with his hands, twisting it open and taking a deep drink.

“I don’t,” I reply calmly, making him choke on the water in his mouth, before he coughs to clear it.

“You’re a virgin?” He asks incredulously, his mouth hanging open in shock, and for once I think I have the Ruthless Rebel Lincoln Blackwell completely stumped. I almost wish I was, just to keep that look on his face a moment longer, because I know when he discovers the truth he will never look at me the same again.

“I didn’t take you as one for such bullshit ideologies, Blackwell, but for the sake of transparency, I haven’t been a virgin since the night my father led ten women into my room until I no longer was, when I was fourteen.” My words are paired with the crack of my neck, as I focus between my statement and my breathing, as the plane starts to accelerate down the runway.

“What?” He snaps, even though I know he heard me perfectly, and when my eyes meet his, I see a mixture of hatred and fury. “Your father forced you to fuck ten women when you were still a child?” He asks, and I know from just his tone that if my father were still alive his days would be numbered, because he would have just found his way onto Lincoln Blackwell’s invisible hit list.

Yet still I almost laugh at what he just said. Ten. I wish.

The plane lifts off the tarmac into the air, and I can’t stop myself from replying, “No, my father forced me to fuck hundreds of women while I was still a child.” And it’s only once the words are out do I realize talking to him is distracting me slightly, so I find myself adding, “After Elle escaped and he thought I was with them , he wanted to bring me fully into the fold, and train me until I was one of them. So first it was the ten women who, as he put it, showed me the ropes, and then I was expected to complete my own conquests at the parties he held for his sick friends.” My body presses back into my seat as we climb higher and higher in the plane, at an angle that doesn’t allow me to forget where I am.

“But you were just a child,” He whispers, the same words I said to him not that long ago, and I smile.

“I stopped being a child the second I heard Elle scream,” I tell him, the sound forever lingering in my brain like a phantom I can’t erase. “Elle was held down on a filthy table and raped by my brother like she was nothing. I was fucked in the comfort of my expensive bed sheets by beautiful women who were all more than happy to have a Donovan beneath them, even if I was only the spare.” I know he sees the way I look at things as soon as the words leave my mouth, but I know he won’t force me to admit the truth, not here at least.

Which I am grateful for, because when I close my eyes I can still feel their hands on my stomach as they rode me, smell their perfume in my nostrils as they crowded me, and hear their over the top moans as I fucked them as fast as I could so it would just be over quicker. My father never suspected the disdain I felt for them, in fact he was proud of me for fucking them and letting them go, never letting any of them get under my skin. Little did he know that I would have rather flayed my skin straight from my bones than let another one of them touch me, but that’s all in the past now. I haven’t touched a single woman since the night before my eighteenth birthday, the last time my father had control over where I put my dick, and I haven’t been interested in putting it in another woman since.

Silence lingers between Lincoln and I after my admission, and as soon as we are level and flying steady, he is out of his seat and storming down the aisle before I can even take another breath. I let my head sink back onto the seat, thinking that he has made himself scarce, but then he is back with a full bottle of vodka and two glasses, taking his seat and sliding one of them towards me. He pours his own drink first, before moving to mine, spilling the perfect amount into the glass as always, as if he has taken notice of such things, and then nods for me to take it.

“To the only Donovan ever worth a damn,” he gestures towards me in cheers, downing the vodka without waiting for me to take a sip.

“I thought drowning my sorrows doesn’t help?” I ask, bringing the glass to my lips and taking a sip, savoring the burn it causes at the back of my tongue.

“Yeah, well, the person who deserves death is already rotting in hell, and I’m not currently in a position to dig up his fucking grave and piss on him,” Lincoln seethes, his temper flaring hot and heavy between us, as he sloshes more vodka into his glass, despite me knowing it’s not his drink of choice.

This moment, and his declaration, suddenly feel too serious, and I have to swallow another sip before I force my tone to be light as I ask, “Defending my honor now, Blackwell? I didn’t know you were so protective of me.”

Despite my attempt at a joke, Lincoln remains serious, spearing me with an almost soulless gaze as he replies, “I always protect the people I care about.”

Eight words that render me completely speechless, because despite everything he has done for me and our family, I never once stopped to think about how he would feel about me. I mean yes, he saved my daughter, walking right into a den of lions without any regard for himself, just to get her back. And I still remember how he looked at me, as I lay dying on the floor after my father shot me, but I have always pushed his attention away as if it meant nothing, but I’m not sure I can ignore it anymore .

For months now he has been trying to lure me in, to tempt me into something I had never once considered, but I think right now, at this moment, I’m in trouble, because for the first time ever, I just might want to give in to him.