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There was a venom in my voice I didn’t recognize, but there was also a promise there. I was willing to do it. To break up my family, to cause my mother pain and suffering if Swiss made the choice first.
And I also knew that he’d rather cut off his own hand than hurt my mother in any way. Even in this almost primal state he seemed to be in.
Silence rang out in the club, and everyone was on tenterhooks, waiting with bated breath. But I wasn’t looking at anyone else. I was only looking at Swiss.
His eyes went from me to the man who had now yanked me to his side, tugging at me until he was slightly in front of me. That pissed me off, but it still meant that Swiss wasn’t going to discharge his weapon with me so close.
Swiss’s eyebrow twitched with fury.
My mother walked toward him and gingerly took the gun from his hand. I was finally able to pull in a full breath of air when he let her. She handed it wordlessly to Hansen.
The tension in the room did not abate even a little, though. Because Swiss was not done.
“You’re getting married,” Swiss growled.
Both my mother and I gaped at him.
Elden was still in an alpha stare off.
“You’ve got to be fuckingkiddingme,” I shrieked, not breaking their stares from one another.
“I’m not fucking kidding,” Swiss grated out.
I waited for Elden to come to my aid, but again, he was busy with the aforementioned stare off.
Which was fine; I didn’t need anyone to come to my aid.
“You remembermy mom, right?” I addressed Swiss.
That finally made him break the alpha stare off. He glanced at my mother, who was still gaping at him, and his eyes softened, but even the crazy love he had for my mother wasn’t enough to fully penetrate his alpha fury.
“I’m familiar with her,” he grunted.
“Since you’re married and in love in a way that I wouldn’t have believed unless I witnessed it, I imagine she’s told you about her history.”
Although his eyes remained fixed on Elden, Swiss’s hardened expression softened a bit more. Not completely yet, though, so I pressed on.
“You’re doing the nonverbal thing, but I assume you have retained the ability to hear sounds.” I leaned forward, glaring, rage shaping my words into pointed, dangerous things. “So I’ll remind you of what happened when my mother got pregnant and was then forced to marry the man who impregnated her.”
Swiss froze, and Elden exhaled loudly.
“He wouldn’t lay a hand on you,” Swiss sneered.
“No,” I agreed. “Not unless I wanted him too,” I added wickedly, causing Swiss to curse.
Elden rubbed his temples.
“And I did,” I continued. “Wanthim to touch me. Which is how I ended up pregnant. Just in case you missed that one health class. And I do … want him.” My cheeks flamed. I hadn’t intended to go so far, but my fury was paving the way. “But I don’t want to marry him.” I didn’t look at Elden because I didn’t want to see disappointment or relief in his expression. I didn’t know which one I wanted. All I knew was, in theory, I was very against marriage. I had been before I knew about my father and after.
Marriage did not start off as some wholesome, sweet thing. It never was wholesome or sweet, it just had a great PR team. Marriage was about forcing alliances between families, women used as cattle in transactions that had nothing to do with what they wanted. Because history didn’t care much about what women wanted.
I forced myself back to the present. Where I was currently furious at my stepfather for thinking we’d time traveled back a couple of hundred years.
“I don’t want to marry him because my stepfather isforcingme to do so,” I hissed at him. “The stepfather who is supposed to be all about living life on the fringes of society, about abandoning social norms like forcing a woman to get married because she had the gall to engage in unprotected sex.”
“You tell him, girlfriend,” Sariah chanted from her spot beside Colby. He was still gripping her arm. She was smiling.
Interesting.
