Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (36 page)

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Jace roared, shoving Carter when he got close enough. Carter stumbled backward to the ground, a look of pure fury crossing his features. He did not respond to Jace however and tried to lean back over Rowan. Jace shoved him and he once again went sprawling backwards.

“Damnit Jace!” Carter spat and made a motion toward Varin, but it was Chev who stepped toward Jace. Jace swung at Chev, who dodged it easily. Around Chev Jace could see that Carter was once again kissing Rowan and he yelled something in his throat. Jace didn’t know what it was but it sounded something like ‘I’ll kill you’ in his head.

Jace stumbled toward Carter again but Chev grabbed him, spinning him around so that Jace’s back was pressed to Chev’s chest. Jace’s arms were held behind his head as Chev’s muscular arms wrapped around his shoulders, pinning Jace immobile to him.

Jace thrashed against him but it was no use. Chev was twice his size and many more times stronger. Jace watched helplessly as Carter removed his lips from Rowan’s and began pressing his palms over her heart, pumping them up and down.

Jace stopped struggling and watched as Carter once more bent down and then repeated pumping her chest. Carter was just about to bend over her again when Rowan coughed, water spewing from her mouth. Carter pulled her into a sitting position as she heaved, cradling her to his chest and thumping her back softly.

When she was done coughing she looked up at Carter, her blue eyes rimmed in red and bloodshot. “I know.” Carter said with a smirk, his blue, almost white eyes, looking back into Rowan’s. Chev released Jace but he only stood there, feeling lost.

THIRTY-TWO

Rowan limped along beside Jace, who had his arm around her waist, holding her up. He had been unusually silent as they left the riverbank. Rowan’s lungs felt like they had fire in them; it hurt to breathe and she was sure her stitches had split open. Her side throbbed but when she looked down, her soaking shirt was only drenched in water, not blood.

She remembered going into the water. She had caught an image in Carters mind, of him and Elias. It had been so unexpected she had slipped. She remembered shouting for Jace, but it was Carter that had come to her on that rock. He had told her to trust him, and she had.

The next thing she knew she was spitting out water, Carter leaning over her.
You saved me, again,
was all she had said and he had replied in his normal cocky manner
, I know
. Rowan had wanted to hit him then.

Couldn’t he just say you’re welcome, or something normal?
But she had been too tired to strike him and Carter quickly withdrew, letting Jace surround her with his arms. Who hadn’t said a word to her since.

They had been walking for almost an hour. Rowan knew they would see it soon, her childhood home. Her heart beat in trepidation, her mind whirling
. Would the house look the same, each room left to gather dust exactly as I had left it
?
Or would someone have come in the almost year I have been gone, clearing out the house and making it their own.
Rowan didn’t know which would be worse.

Rowan knew this time of year, with the nights beginning to grow colder, that the trees surrounding her home would just be turning red, and brown, and yellow. Elias always loved to paint the trees as they turned for fall.

Rowans heartbeat picked up as she began to recognize her surroundings. In just a few more steps, they would come into the clearing where her house stood.

Even as Rowan thought this, they stepped from the trees into the immense clearing. Rowan sighed, looking up at her house, which towered over them three stories tall. Their small group gathered, standing closely together as they all admired the house. Except Varin, who looked straight in front of him, barely blinking. Except Rowan. Rowan looked sadly at the two graves at the far side of the clearing. Nothing marked the graves save for a small pile of rocks atop each one. Rowan knew no one would know the graves were there unless they had been the one to dig them. Elias had dug one, Rowan the other.

“Quaint.” Carter said sarcastically, tilting his head back to look up at the house. “Shall we?” He asked, strutting toward the house. The wind had begun to pick up and brought a chill with it, and Rowan could tell he was eager to get out of it.

“You go ahead, I have something I need to do.” Rowan told Jace, who gave her a questioning look, but still said nothing to her as he left her and followed the others into the warmth of the house. Rowan felt a prickle of disappointment that he had been so willing to part with her.

She had expected Jace to protest at least a little bit; after all, she had nearly died not two hours before. The Jace she knew would have refused to leave her side. Maybe Carter had told him about their kiss, though Rowan doubted that. Rowan knew she needed to tell him, but it wasn’t something she knew how to explain. To tell him Carter had kissed her, but it wasn’t something she had wanted. After all, she detested Carter the majority of the time.

As Rowan lost herself to her thoughts, she had made her way across the expansive yard. The grass had grown tall and the Great Tree’s long, sturdy branches blotted out half the sun, the tree growing unruly without any preening.

Rowan stopped in front of the graves. Grass had grown back over them and Rowan had to poke around the soft green blades to spot the pile of rocks. Seeing them did not make her feel sorrow, as she had thought, but instead filled her with an astounding emptiness that made her ache inside.

Rowan felt the presence that she was beginning to recognize as Carter press against her mind and she knew without having to turn around that he was watching her from the large window that overlooked the yard in the kitchen. 

Rowan wanted him to leave her alone, she cared to do her grieving in peace, but she did not know how to shut out Carter; and she was probably too tired to do so even if she did know how.

Rowan paid her respects to her father first, standing over where he was buried with the wind picking up her hair and tossing it lightly about her shoulders. The sun was beginning to set, and the light was quickly fading.

Rowan talked to her father, though she knew he couldn’t hear her, would never hear her again. She told him how far she had travelled to find Elias, though it was all for not. She told him how afraid she had been when Kastor had taken her. She told him all the horrible things he had done to her.

She felt Carters presence grow stronger when she talked of Kastor burning her arm. Rowan thought it was curious that he hadn’t seen the name branded into her skin, but she had been wearing Cecily’s long sleeved shirt, so she guessed no one would have seen the marks yet.

Rowan supposed that was for the better. She didn’t want anyone to look at her with a pitying look in their eyes as they saw her disfigurement. The burns were healed now, the skin red and puckered. She could read KASTOR clearly, now that the wound was no longer scabbed.

She used to think of taking a knife and cutting the skin from her arm but figured she would probably get an infection and die if she did that, so she didn’t. She did however only wear long sleeves, hoping if she couldn’t see the horrible mutilation, she wouldn’t think about it. It worked, most of the time.

Rowan told her father about Jace. “You would have approved of him, I think.” Rowan said, “He’s the most loving, generous, kind ,person I’ve ever met.”

“I can be loving to.”
Carter told her and Rowan pushed back at him, trying to shove him from her head. She heard his laughter echoing inside her at her meager attempt to expel him from her thoughts.

When Rowan finished the telling of her journey to her father she turned her eye to her mother’s grave. Rowan’s thoughts were bombarded with the image of the night she had died. Rowan did not try to deny them, giving herself over to relive the horror of that day.

Her mother had come to her, crying. It had been three days since Elias had left, even then rumors had begun to spread; about him, about their family.

“It’s my fault he’s like that, but I did not know then. I swear I didn’t know.” Her mother had sobbed.
She’s incoherent in her despair
, Rowan had decided as her mother had fallen to her knees in front of her. “He will come for us now. I can’t go back, I can’t go back.” She clutched at the hem of Rowans dress, tears spilling from her puffy red eyes.

“Maybe you should get back in bed.” Rowan suggested to her mother, who only shrieked, a high-pitched wail tumbling from her throat.

“I can’t go back! I can’t go back!” Her mother had said frantically, her head thrown back. Rowan wondered if she had been possessed. “Kill me Rowan. Kill me please! I can’t go back!” Her mother had begged.

Rowan had taken a step back from her, but her mother clutched the hem of her dress, holding her tight.

“I can’t go back!” Her mother repeated, like broken clockwork chiming the same hour over and over again. Rowan had started to grow frightened. She had seen her mother wear many horrible faces; twisted in rage, or hatred, even fear as Elias had tortured her, but she had never seen the immobilizing terror that now shone out of her mother’s eyes like a beacon.

Rowans mother had flung herself from Rowan then, dashing toward the kitchen. Rowan was rooted to the spot with shock for several seconds, then regaining her senses she bolted after her mother. When Rowan reached her mother, she was holding a large knife, meant for butchering. She was sobbing uncontrollably and muttering to herself.

“Ican’tgoback, Ican’tgoback, Ican’tgoback.” Her mother held the knife in front of her, her hand gripping the handle so hard her knuckles were white. The blade pointed at her chest.

“Mama, stop this!” Rowan had screamed, tears now falling from her eyes. Her mother rocked back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut.

“I can’t go back I can’t go back. He will come for us now. He will come.” Her mother had looked at her and Rowan saw the finality in her mother’s eyes. Rowan had sprung forward but it was too late. The knife was buried in her mother’s chest and she was slumping to the ground, red blood leaching from the hole.

Rowan had pulled the knife out, pressing her hands to her mother’s chest to stop the blood flow. “He will come for you now to. I’m so sorry. Rowan. I’m so sorry.” Her mother had gurgled, blood leaking from the corners of her mouth.

“Mama!” Rowan cried, but it was too late, her mother’s head lolled to the side, her eyes staring distantly at the wall, unblinking. “MAMA!” Rowan had shaken her. Her mother’s head bounced freely. Rowan had shoved the body away from her in horror, scooting backwards on the pale blue tile of the kitchen floor.

Rowan had dug her grave in silence, next to her fathers, and laid her mother in it as gently as she could. She changed from her blood soaked clothes silently. Rowan had then gathered as much clothes and food as she could carry then left the house, not even bothering to clean up the blood in the kitchen.

Rowan thought that her mother’s blood was probably still in the kitchen, dried and flaking.

“It is
.
But I’m having Varin clean it up. Blood on the floor does tend to ruin ones appetite.”
Carter told her. Rowan ignored him.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” Rowan whispered to her mother. She turned and reluctantly made her way back to the house, the sun setting behind the trees.

THIRTY-THREE

“Don’t say anything to me.” Rowan said to him as she made her way into the room. Carter smirked, the left side of his mouth slightly higher than the right.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He responded, turning to look at her. She was wondering where Jace was and Carter wished angrily that she would stop thinking about that damned man for one second. Rowan turned to look at him, sensing his unexpected anger.

She frowned at him but didn’t comment on his temporary mental outburst as she made her way out of the kitchen. She did so without looking down at Varin, who was cleaning up the last of the congealed blood from the floor.

“I wouldn’t want your job.” Carter told the man, looking down at him and crossing his arms. Varin looked up at him with unblinking dirt colored eyes, then resumed his work without a word. Carter raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in mock agreement, then followed Rowan from the room, to explore the rest of the house.

As he made his way through the ornately decorated home he tried to imagine Elias and Rowan here as children. He could not picture Elias as anything other than the God he was but he could imagine Rowan playing by the hearth in the winter, or running across the red dyed rug laughing, her black hair streaming behind her.

Carter made his way into a seating area and plopped down on a large tan sofa, propping his feet up on a cushion, his elbow resting on the arm of the sofa.

“Didn’t you just make yourself right at home?” Jace said to him in his usual hostile matter.

“Well saving your girl’s life is hard work. I’ve done it twice now and it’s rather exhausting.” Carter responded, bored.