Sin of Fury (15 page)

The price of Jamie’s life, and her
ultimate betrayal. Of body, mind, and soul — he would try his
hardest to overcome his reserves about touching and feeling, and
Jamie would know nothing of it. He planned to use her, to take her,
but she would not know.

Talon’s feet carried him to the main
room, where Jamie had fallen asleep with such a fright in her mind.
He shoved the guilt aside, wondering how he was going to even start
this. Talon didn’t want to know what would happen tomorrow if he
failed to take Jamie. He should give her time, give her comfort,
give her...something.

He growled at himself, sitting on the
bed. The towel was around his waist still, the water long dried. As
he stared down at her, he wondered what would happen to her, and
how he would take to watching her die.

Talon wouldn’t tell her of anything;
that would be his gift to her.

Sheets rustled as she turned on her
side, facing him. Her hand was curled against his thigh, face
nuzzling into the bed. Foreign emotions riled through him — the top
of them being regret.

“
Jamie, get your coat on,”
her mother came into the room, eyes panicked. Her normally cool
demeanor was crumbling before her eyes.

She put the coat on
without questions, lip trembling. “Mother?”

“
Not now, dear. We need to
go, we need to go...” Her voice trailed off as she ran from the
room, coming back a second later with keys in her slender
hands.

Jamie had been in her
room, emailing a friend of hers from school. She had put off her
homework, believing that talking to her friend about her cheating
boyfriend was much more important. The pink walls had always been
comforting, her bed as plush as a cloud. The desk was grand, white
and full of papers and cassettes.

Her father complained to
her often about the clutter, but she paid no heed. He would leave
in a fit, and the subject would be dropped till he caught a glimpse
of her desk. The only time she bothered to clean was when he had
people over, but they didn’t come to her room so it was never that
big of a deal to her.

Now, though, she had a
feeling that this would be the last time the walls would be a
comfort. The pink room, the happy room, was an opposite of what now
pounded through her heart.

Trembling, she grabbed
hold of her mother’s hand and tugged, even as she slipped into her
loafers that sat next to her desk. “What’s happened? Why are we
leaving? Mom, I have a test tomorrow,” she said, panic threading
her voice, matching her mother's. “We’ll be back,
right?”

Her mother didn’t seem to
hear her. Clammy hands grabbed onto hers, pulling her through the
room. The window was wide open, Spring air rushing around them.
Jamie didn’t have time to look back in her room before the door was
pulled close and she was being taken down the grand staircase.
Alabaster handrails, a sweeping entrance, a noble carpet... It was
all the making of a a US Senator.

“
Mom!” she pleaded,
pulling back her hand. Her mother’s hand was shaking wildly, her
whole body following suit. She had a white pull over, her brown
slacks elegant on her long legs. Blonde hair was coiled on her
head, diamond ear rings dangling from the side of her face. Her
cheekbones were high, and normally looked elegant and regal. Right
now, though, they looked too pale, sickly, the tears falling from
her face completely at odds with her outfit, her normally composed
demeanor.

Jamie felt her heart stop
at the site of a long car, men on either side of the door that was
being held open. Right then, Jamie realized what was happening. She
jerked herself from her mother's grip, fighting the urge to cry, to
scream.

She held her ground. “I’m
not going,” she said, steel lacing her voice. “I won’t leave Dad
alone.”

“
Baby, you don’t
understand... You don’t know.... Please, hurry up and come with
me,” her mother begged, reaching for her arm again. Jamie bounded
back, feeling heat strike through her as her mother’s hand brushed
her skin.

She felt cold. So cold, as
if her soul was being torn from her. She was only fifteen, only in
high school and still young and pampered enough that she had to
rely on her family, but she had learned a few things in her
etiquette classes — such as keeping a cool composure, something her
mother was dangerously lacking.

“
Jamie,” her mother
choked, crystalline tears falling from pale blue eyes. “He’s going
to come back, he’s going to be furious... Please, you have to
listen to me. You don’t understand, Jamie! You don’t know, you need
to leave!”

Her desperate cries rang
through the room. It seemed as if even the diamond chandelier above
their head was trembling. Her head shook, her long pony tail
brushing the small of her back. Jamie strived to keep calm, to
remember what she had been taught. “I won’t leave him. He’s my
father...”

“
No!
” her mother screeched, the pain in her voice rising. Her
head shook veminently, strands of hair falling around her face.
“Jamie, you don’t
understand
,” she sobbed.

“
Mother...” she started,
voice cracking.

“
Please, just get in the
car,” she pleaded, the despair in her voice almost making Jamie
listen. Instead, she stole herself against the pain in her mothers
eyes.

“
I won’t,” she said,
holding her chin high.

At that moment, her father
came through the door that led to the spacious kitchen. His face,
strong and hard, was flushed red with fury. His large hands were
clenched at his sides. For the first time, Jamie was actually
frightened of her father.

She backed away slowly,
hands fisting in her pleated skirts. The room was turning hot
enough that her socks felt like unsoftened wool against her
legs.

Her mother blanched,
jerking back. Jamie watched from inside the house as the men in the
dark car piled in, leaving her mother there with a furious man and
a stubborn daughter. Except, it was more than that. So much
more...

Jamie wasn’t prepared for
the hard fist that connected with her head, or the shocked cry of
her mother and the image of her trying to run to the door. Her
knees hit the tile with a sharp slap, elbows barely catching her
upper body before her pulsing face hit the ground.

“
Trying to leave me?” he
shouted, storming to her mother. The only thing Jamie registered
besides the hard stomp of his feet on the tile was the sound of
their voices. The anger, the panic, the devastation...

Her mother made a choked
sound. The ringing sound of a slap pitched around the room. The
sound was as brutal as the act.

“
I found out what you
did,” he hissed. Jamie’s ears rang, blood rushing to her head. She
dug her nails into the ground as best as she could, trying to keep
from falling down again. “She is not
mine
!”

His outraged shout hurt
Jamie’s ears. It must have hurt her mother’s too, because she
whimpered. Jamie refused to look up as pain started to lick along
her heart, flirting like hot fire in her soul.

“
Let me go,” her mother
pleaded, her voice watery. Jamie could only imagine the tears that
were trailing down her cheeks. “I will take her, I won’t demand
anything from —”

“
As if you would have the
gall to even ask anything of me! Bitch,” he hissed. The sound of
angry stomps coming across the room made Jamie flinch. The flinch
turned into a full blown draw back as a fist tangled in her
hair.

“
Why should I keep her in
my house?” he demanded, yanking her to her feet by her hair. Jamie
cried out, feeling fear pulse through her with renewed strength.
Her father had always been a bit rough, but right now... Her nails
dug into his wrist, trying to get him to let go. Right now, it felt
as if he really would kill her.

“
She’s a curse,” her
father spat, ignoring Jamie’s cries of pain.

“
She’s just a
child
! Let her go,” her
mother screamed, lunging forward. A large hand wrapped around her
neck, almost strangling the breath from her. The door of the house
slammed shut, almost on its own accord. Her mother reached for her,
despair etched on her already aging face.

“
You are not leaving,” he
snarled, tightening his grip around her neck, robbing her of
precious oxygen. She felt herself start to pale, hands turning numb
at how tight they were around her father’s wrists. The floor was no
longer under her feet.

It took all of her
willpower not to cry out. “Father, what--”

His breath, reeking of
whiskey and smoke, feathered over her face. “Don’t call me that,
brat.”

Only a couple of hours
before, he had called her darling and honey, had been nice and
smiling. What had happened to make him this way? Her nails dug in
so much that his blood started to trickle down her wrist. What had
he found out?

Her mind reeled, her
mother’s outraged cries and his angry curses alerting her to
something that she hadn’t known, something that had never crossed
her mind before.

His furious shout echoed
through her mind.
She is not
mine...

Jamie stared at her
mother, realization slamming into her with the force of a
semi-truck. “Mother?” she pleaded thinly, her struggles against his
hold on her ceasing. “Please...” Jamie had no idea what she was
asking for, what she was silently praying for. His hold had
tightened so incredibly that her scalp was now turning numb. The
delicately painful plucks of her hair, the strands being torn from
the root, helped with the numbing — as did the pain in her heart
that now settled like a heavy ache.

“
James, let her go!” her
mother shouted, clawing at him now. The plea in Jamie’s voice must
have spurred her on, because she took the hit he gave her with
gusto and kept coming at him. The angry cries and shouts echoed in
the large reception room. Servants were thankfully absent, their
dog in the kennel in the back still. It felt much like a bad movie,
Jamie thought.

Her feet finally touched
the ground. Her father’s hand left her hair, her body dropping to
the floor with a dull thud.

Silence. Stony, intense,
horrifying silence. Her mother’s high-pitched scream echoed through
the room, the last sound that was heard for what seemed like
forever. Jamie curled into a ball, her legs to her chest. Her hand,
bloody with her father’s crimson liquid, held her tender head as
tears started to roll down her face.

Then the soft hand of her
mother touched her. Her father’s polished shoes retreated, silent
like a phantom. The door to the manor, the horror house was still
closed, the limousine outside long gone.

Jamie had always wondered.
Wondered why no one in her family had such dark hair, why no one
was as short as she was, why she had always seemed to
be...different. But she had wrote it off. There were large
portraits made of precious oils, charcole, and anything else that a
painter could think of. Scattered around the house, they spoke of a
family that came from wealth...and a completely blonde
family.

Even her mother’s family
had been blonde. And brown eyed. And tall, elegant.

Jamie was none of those,
and although her mother promised her that she would be one day, she
knew that she was always going to be short, dark haired, and blue
eyed. Her skin never tanned, and she could barely walk in
heels.

Now she understood
why.

A choke came from her
closing throat, a sob bubbling its way to her trembling lips. Pain
whispered along her heart, her head, her very soul.

The door slammed open, the
large mahogany wood seeming to shatter against the wall. Her
father’s pounding feet could be heard even from across the room.
Her mother tried to drag her to her feet, to the door.

And then the shouting
began again — Jamie could do nothing but sob helplessly.

Jamie woke slowly. Painfully. Aching.
At first, she thought she was home, or at least in the hotel. But
as her surroundings became clear to her, the tears that had already
been streaming down her cheeks quickened.

Jamie was shocked, reaching up to
touch her cheeks with shaking fingers. The wetness that came away
was horrifying, and even more so when she realized that a dark form
was sitting beside her.

Her heart stopped.

She met the heated gaze of
Talon.

And burst into tears.

The hot rush of them streamed down her
cheeks, the tears like cold fire on her skin. The blatant weakness
she was showing him frightened her, made her vulnerable, but she
could not contain the pain as she recalled the past.

Life had never been the same after
that. Soon after, she had moved into an apartment and had visited
her mother frequently, but with secrecy. Chris had come along
later, and had known her father. For whatever reason, she had not
cared. Instead, she had shoved the knowledge out of her mind, and
hadn’t realized until he cut her out of her mother’s life
completely that their acquaintance had not been a pleasant
one.