Something heavy knocked him in the head and he fell down, dazed. The last thing he saw was a huge conglomeration of dead troll parts clogging up the hole from the bomb.
Then everything was blackness.
Chapter Forty
“Come on now, darling—you’re embarrassing me,” James hissed under his breath as he tried to drag Elise back to the center of the large living area where everyone else was having drinks and making polite small talk.
“Oh, I’m embarrassing you? What a shame!” she hissed back, staying stubbornly in the corner she’d picked out as a safe spot. “Did it ever occur to you, James, that I had good reason not to speak to my mother and stepfather for over ten years? Did you even stop to think at all when you invited them to come here?”
James’ voice rose in exasperation. “I assumed it was because—” He stopped abruptly—the conversation in the room had fallen silent. “Excuse us, please,” he said, smiling ingratiatingly. “Elise isn’t feeling very well at the moment. We’re going to go get her something cool to drink and see if we can’t perk her up a bit.”
“I don’t want a drink,” Elise protested as he pulled her through the living area and dining room and into the huge kitchen with its central island and copper pots hanging from the walls. “I want to leave. I want to get out of here now, James.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he fumed, dropping her arm at last and going to make sure the door was securely shut. “You’re not going anywhere. What you are going to do is march right back to the living room, get a drink, and act like a normal adult instead of a rude, misbehaving child.”
“A child?” Elise couldn’t believe her ears. Couldn’t believe that James was dictating to her this way. Or that he had gone and invited her own personal nightmare to an impromptu pre-wedding party.
“Yes, a child,” James ground out, glaring at her. “I know all about your childish spat with Charles—how he accidentally ran over your precious dog and you never would forgive him. But honestly, Elise, ten years is enough. Don’t you think it’s time to let bygones be bygones?”
Buck crushed under those huge, ugly wheels…Charles laughing as he dragged me across the lawn…pushing me down…hurting me…
The memories came back in a flood, just as she had always known they would once the vault was broken. But instead of running away from the horror or trying to bury it again, Elise somehow found the strength to face it. What happened is part of me, she thought, feeling sick but certain. Merrick knew about it and he loved me anyway. It doesn’t make me less, doesn’t make me a bad person.
“James,” she said, looking her fiancé right in the eye. “I’m not a virgin.”
“What?” He frowned, clearly at a loss. “What are you talking about? I had your background checked—thoroughly checked—before I proposed. Unless you and that big ugly Kindred—”
“Don’t talk that way about Merrick,” Elise snapped. “And anyway, he isn’t the reason I’m not a virgin. Charles is.”
“What?” James looked at her blankly. “Are you trying to tell me you had an affair with your own stepfather?”
“No, James,” she said evenly. “I’m trying to tell you he raped me. Repeatedly. That was why when I left home for college I never went back. It’s the reason I cut my own mother out of my life—because she wouldn’t believe me.”
“Well, I mean…” James cleared his throat. “You have to admit, darling, it is a rather a lot to swallow.”
Elise couldn’t believe her ears. “What? Are you seriously saying you don’t believe me either? You think I’d lie about something like that?”
“Not lie, exactly.” James shifted uncomfortably. “But, well, Charles has told me all about what am imaginative child you were. Don’t you think it’s possible that you were so upset about your dog that you might have, I don’t know, made something up in your head to explain why you were feeling so badly?”
“Made something up in my head?” Elise’s disbelief was quickly turning to rage, but she made an effort to keep her temper and speak calmly. “You and Charles seem to be awfully close all of a sudden,” she said evenly. “Care to tell me why he’s been sharing so much personal information with you?”
“Well, honestly, we’ve been in touch for some time—I researched his company back when I was doing my background check on you, darling. I contacted him and we ended up really hitting it off, as you say.” James spoke as though it was no big deal for him to have a hidden friendship with her horrible stepfather.