Uriel had taken a personal hand in Jordan's hospitality.
I shook my head, refusing to accept that answer from him. "Jordy, I know you've been through some shit, but—"
"No, you don't know," he spat back at me, the cold venom in his voice burning me as surely as any acid. "Get the fuck out of here. I'm not going anywhere with you. Ever. You're dead to me."
Despite my careful mastery of my emotions and my meticulous compartmentalization while I had searched the jail block, my control slipped and his words cut me to the core. I stifled a short gasp, shaking my head in disbelief.
There was no way, no way, Uriel could have turned Jordan against me in just a few weeks. Was there?
Fuck. My heart ached for whatever my prince had been through.
Voices echoed from along the corridor, and I flicked a panicked glance at the open door. In a matter of moments we would be discovered and punished. It was now or never.
"Jordy, we can discuss this later, but right now is our only chance to get you out of here. Now pull yourself together and get on your fucking feet. We need to go!"
But he didn't budge. He didn't even try to get up. Instead, he just stared blankly at me.
"He knew you'd try this, you know? You just played right into his hands like the predictable little puppet you were raised to be." His whole tone was filled with disgust and disappointment. It sliced through me like razor blades. "In here!" he called out, alerting the Society guards to my whereabouts and dooming us both.
I kicked and screamed as four burly men seized me, but the shocking jolt of a Taser rendered me useless before I could free myself. Seconds later, I slumped in their grip, my body hanging as tears rolling down my face.
Jordan didn't utter another word as they dragged me from his cell, but I forced myself to hold his gaze as long as I could. Until my head flopped forward and my captors hauled me into the corridor and slammed the cell door shut once more.
Fear of what was to come for me didn't even factor into my concerns. All I could focus on was the fact that I'd failed him. I'd failed Jordan, and Uriel had poisoned my caring, gentle prince against me.
I'd fucking failed.
Chapter 8
Blinking my eyes awake into the light of a new dawn, I found my mind riddled with confusion. I was back in my bed. How had I gotten back into my bed? And why wasn't I strapped to a chair in a punishment room for my pathetic jailbreak attempt the night before?
I tried to rub my eyes, but my wrist tugged against a restraint, and I groaned. Of course I wasn't just back in my bed like nothing had happened. My wrists were both restrained, and when I shifted my face to look around the room—
"Good morning, my lovely flower," Uriel purred, stroking a finger down the side of my face. He was lying on the bed beside me, the sheets casually tossed over his lower half while his upper body was totally bare.
A spike of fear hit me, and I quickly scanned my eyes down my own body—as much as I could see, anyway. Thank fuck, I wasn't naked. I was, however, in a delicate white lace nightgown. Certainly not what I'd been wearing when Uriel's guards had Tasered me, then "accidentally" punched me hard enough to knock me out when I'd started struggling again.
"You've been a naughty girl, Rose," Uriel murmured, ignoring the way I'd stiffened up all over and continuing to stroke my face like I was his pet. "Here I was thinking you'd come back to me. That you understood the vitally important role you hold for us all. For the people."
Bile rose in my throat, and I flinched away from his hand. "Save the bullshit, Uriel," I sneered. "This isn't for the people. This is your own god complex at play. You won't be happy until you eclipse the monarchies in both power and corruption."
Uriel didn't answer, but I felt the shift in his mood seconds before his open palm met my cheek in a stinging slap. It was hard enough to make my ears ring and stars dance before my eyes. I didn't make a sound. I'd learned the hard way that would only make things worse.
"Apparently you've forgotten more of your training than I realized," my sensei spat. He tossed the sheets aside and straddled my hips, his fingers circling my restrained wrists and biting deep into my flesh. Thank fuck he wasn't naked, though. He wore light gray sweatpants, but they did little to cover how interested he was in my current predicament.
Fucker had always loved seeing me helpless. Took me too long to figure that out, but it’d been clear the night we slept together.
"Maybe I was wrong to leave you that night," he mused, tracking his golden eyes over my thin sleepwear as though he could see through it. "Maybe I should have taken you with me to continue your training."
I swallowed heavily. I'd done so freaking much to push that night from my mind, and now it was all for nothing. I'd separated my sensei from Uriel in my memories, made them into two separate entities. But now that he was here in the flesh, the lines were all blurred again. I needed to remind myself. My sensei had taught me to fight, made me resilient, trained me to survive. Uriel had tried to brainwash and control me. He'd lured a young, naive girl into his web... then taken her virginity and cast her aside as "not ready" for his grand plans.
At the time, it'd broken my heart. But it hadn't taken much time and distance to make me see clearly. Uriel was a predator. An abuser. He was totally deluded, and now all the pieces were dropping into place. His hatred of the monarchies had only been the tip of the iceberg. This radical resistance faction? This was the belly of the beast.
He’d done me a favor that night. Hindsight allowed me that much clarity. By leaving me behind when he’d relocated to Europe, he'd inadvertently freed me from his oppressive influence. Instead of pining for my lost "love," I'd stepped back and seen his behavior for exactly what it was. Grooming. Not just in a sexual way, either, if this resistance plot had really been in place since my birth.
Fucking hell. What a mess.
"What are you going to do with me now?" I stupidly asked. All those repressed emotions from so long ago had my mind stirred up, and my training slipped.
Fear flashed through me when Uriel smiled. "Whatever I want, love. But it's time for you to remember where your loyalty lies. To remember that you are here, alive right now, because of me. You owe me everything."
If this dick's next words were "I'm god in this compound," I was going to throw all caution aside and do my best to kill him. I was that close to losing my shit.
Uriel must have seen that glint in my eyes because he smiled and backed away slowly until he was standing on the side of the bed, staring down at me. "Be ready in ten minutes or Jordan won't be alive to see tomorrow," he told me. He would do it too; I could see the death of the American prince in his cold gaze.
Then he walked off. Leaving me fucking cuffed and helpless.
Well, I was never really helpless, but ten minutes would be cutting it close. With a sigh and a few choice words about a certain power-crazy dictator, I got to work on freeing myself. With about thirty seconds to spare I got myself free—minus some layers of skin— and hurried to throw some clothes over the lacy outfit someone had put me in.
The violation of my privacy and body was a factor I'd deal with later—for now, I just had to get through whatever Uriel had planned and hope that all of us would be alive to fight another day.
In my head was a running montage of Jordan's face. The darkness in his eyes. His spirit had looked like Rafe's, the light almost completely extinguished, and it fucking hurt to see him like that. Was there any saving Jordan, even if I freed him today? Trauma left a scar on your soul; even if you couldn't see it on the skin, it was always there.
"Hurry up!" A voice snapped me out of my daydream. I looked up to find the front door to my cage-masquerading-as-an-apartment was open. The man standing there was someone in the military, his face almost completely covered by a black mask, his eyes turned away from me so I couldn't see them.
Sucking in a deep breath, I composed myself, forcing years of training to the forefront so I could go into my "robot mode." It was a self-defense mechanism that allowed me to separate from my emotions and just get through whatever was coming my way.
"Follow me," the voice snapped, and then he turned and marched away. I hurried to keep up because I had a lot of work to do to rebuild trust. It was essential I did so that I could escape and get the guys out, and Jordan had undone days of groundwork already. I was back to square one. Or possibly square minus one because now Uriel knew I'd been faking it before.
When I caught up to the guard, I was surprised at how tall and broad he was. My training always had me cataloging people when I met them to figure out if they were a threat or not. This guard was not just huge, he also moved in a predatory way, his long legs eating up the distance as we strolled across the compound, and not once did he look back at me, which was a huge indication he was powerful and secure in his power.
No one disobeyed this man. He had to be important to the extremists. Important to Uriel, and for a brief moment, I debated if I should just kill him. Probably save myself the trouble of having to do it later. Not to mention I had this bucketful of rage to work off, and this guy would not be an easy competitor.
Common sense fled, and I changed the way I was positioned to give myself the best chance to attack. My to do list started to run in my head on an endless loop. Full focus, no second-guessing myself.