Chapter 85 The Force Behind Me

Chapter 85 The Force Behind Me
Daniel threw his head back, a harsh, grating laugh echoing off the bare walls. It was a sound completely stripped of sanity, sharp and mocking.
​"Die?" he sneered, leaning over the footboard of the bed, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the wood. "You think your little boyfriend is a god, don't you? You think the Ryder name makes him untouchable."
​He straightened up, his smirk twisting into a mask of pure, arrogant triumph. "Let me tell you something, Cee. The person backing me up? They make Cole Ryder look like a kid playing in a sandbox. They are stronger than your boyfriend could ever dream of being."
​A heavy, suffocating weight dropped into my stomach.

​The person backing him up?

​My mind flashed back to the driver...The driver that poisoned me had said the exact same thing. They all kept talking about this shadow, this phantom leader who was supposedly powerful enough to bring down the Ryder empire.

​"What do you mean by that?" I asked him, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "Who is backing you, Daniel? What did you do?"
​"It’s all your fault!" he suddenly roared, slamming his fist down onto the wooden footboard.

The violence of it made me flinch against the mattress. He was always so violent...
He began to pace again, his breathing ragged, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "Everything is your fault! When your fuck king destroyed my life...when he stripped me of my dignity, my career, my home...I was a ghost. I wandered aimlessly in a foreign county like a dog, starving, waiting to die in a fucking gutter or something."

​He stopped pacing, turning his manic gaze back to me, a sickeningly grateful smile creeping onto his face.
​"But then they came to me. They found me in the dirt, Celene. They saved me. They fed me, gave me a purpose, and recruited me into something bigger than you can ever fucking comprehend." Daniel walked around to the side of the bed, leaning down until his face was just inches from mine, his breath hot against my cheek. "They gave me resources. They gave me a second chance. And now, I’m finally back for my pound of flesh... and I'm starting with you."

"Who is it, Daniel?" I choked out, trying to press myself as flat against the mattress as possible to escape his suffocating closeness. "Who found you? Tell me!"
​Daniel didn't answer. Instead, the question seemed to trigger something else entirely inside him.

He started to laugh again, like a deranged madman...
​"Who?" he mocked, his eyes wide and completely empty of reason. "Oh, wouldn't you love to know? Wouldn't your little prince love to know?"
​Suddenly, the laughter snapped shut. His face went dead calm, a terrifying, predatory blankness washing over his features.

​Before I could even draw a breath to scream, he lunged forward.
​The heavy mattress dipped violently as he climbed onto the bed, his knees pinning my thighs down through the delicate lace of the dress. I shrieked, thrashing against the leather straps around my wrists, but it was entirely useless. He crawled up my body... he was so heavy abdbwas suffocating me... but he didn’t stop until he was resting directly on top of me, trapping me completely beneath his weight.

​"You don't get to ask the questions anymore, Cee," he whispered, his hands coming down to grip the headboard on either side of my face, locking me in. "You're mine now."

I thrashed violently beneath him, arching my back and trying to twist my torso, but his weight was crushing, pinning my hips deep into the mattress. The sheer, emerald lace of the dress felt like nothing against his heavy body.

​"Get off me! Get off!" I screamed, a raw, primal panic tearing out of my throat as I kicked uselessly against the ankle restraints.
​"Shut up!" Daniel snarled.
​He brought his hand down, his fingers clamping hard around my jaw, locking my head in place so forcefully that my teeth clicked together. His grip dug into my skin, forcing me to look straight into his wide, bloodshot eyes. He leaned down, his face inches from mine.

​"Do you have any idea how many times I’ve replayed this in my head?" he whispered, his voice vibrating with a sick, terrifying intensity. "Every single night in the dark, wondering where you were, who you were with. I fantasized about taking you just like this. So roughly. I wanted to watch you cry. I wanted to hear you beg me to stop."

​A tear slipped down my temple, wetting his fingers, but the sight only made the twisted smirk return to his face.
​"And then," he murmured, his thumb dragging brutally across my lower lip, "I’m going to watch you finally accept it. I'm going to watch you realize nobody is coming to save you, Cee. You're going to accept it... and then you're going to begin to enjoy it, just like you used to."

"I will never accept you!" I spat the words directly into his face, the taste of bile and blood sharp on my tongue. I stopped thrashing, focusing every ounce of my remaining strength into a glare of pure, unadulterated hatred. "I would rather die, Daniel. Do you hear me? I would rather fucking die than let you touch me again."
​Daniel didn't flinch. He just stared down at me, his expression softening into a chillingly calm, patronizing smile.

​"Not if I can help it, Cee," he murmured softly, almost gently.
​He slid his heavy body off of me, the sudden absence of his weight leaving me cold and trembling against the mattress. I gasped for air, my eyes tracking his every move as he stepped away from the bed.

​He walked over to a dark corner of the room where a black duffel bag sat on a wooden chair. Daniel reached inside and pulled out a small, amber glass vial.

​He turned back toward the bed, holding the bottle up to the harsh light of the bare bulb so I could see the clear liquid swirling inside.

​"You see this?" he asked, his voice returning to that casual, terrifying conversational tone. He walked back to the bedside, a syringe clicking against the glass as he prepared it. "It's a very potent aphrodisiac. Custom made. Your mind can fight me all it wants, Celene. You can scream, you can hate me, you can wish for death... but this?"

​He tapped the side of the syringe, pushing a tiny bead of liquid out of the needle.
​"This is going to get your body exactly where I need it to be."