Alex's Angel by Natasha Blackthorne

Author:Natasha Blackthorne [Blackthorne, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical
Publisher: Total-E-Bound Publishing
Published: 2012-02-25T23:31:03+00:00

Chapter Nine

He turned to his cousin. Peter’s pale blue eyes were wide, shocked, transfixed on the table. Alex glanced down. On the table before him, bright red blood splashed down into a puddle of broken glass and wine on the polished mahogany—yet the sight seemed to bear no connection to anything real.

Drip, drip, drip. A deafeningly loud echo. Water rolling down blue and yellow tiles, blending with the bath water and…and… Oh God, don’t look!

Too late.

The water was crimson…

The hideous gurgling echoed off the tiles. No, no, no! Stop it. Call it back. But the water swirled and swirled and swirled, carrying life’s blood with it down the drain.

Down, down, down.

Eventually everyone got pulled down and carried out by the tides of life.

Why fight it?

A seductive light-headedness swept over him.

“Here, take care.” Peter’s sharp voice cut into Alex’s waking nightmare.

Something touched his hand. He glanced down. Peter had laid his napkin over it. There was a proper response here but he’d be damned if he could think of it. He saw and heard and felt, yet remained lost in a slippery place where time held no meaning. He stared dumbly at Peter.

Peter wrapped the linen firmly about Alex’s dripping injury. The touch brought him back to the here and now. Seven silent, shocked faces were staring at his hand. With his uninjured hand, he clasped the napkin to his injured one, the snow white fabric quickly turning bright red.

Contempt rose in him. No man who hadn’t experienced torture had the right to speak with any authority on the subject. They could never know. No one survived whole. Some gave in and died. Some continued on, broken and damaged.

But no one came away from evil without being corrupted themselves.

What could any of these men possibly know of the extremes of torture, exquisitely applied and designed to push a person to their ultimate limits? Or of watching another person driven to their own personal breaking point? He glanced around the table and didn’t see one face that bore the marks of such spiritual desolation. Instead, the eyes staring back at him were wide, as if he’d suddenly turned into a madman.

Aware of the depth of his breaking down, the extent of his weakness in front of these gentlemen—peers of his father, no less—he forced a casual grin, engaging the social charm that had always got him by. “Damned cheap French glassware.”

Every face instantly relaxed and chuckles ensued.

“Trust you, Dalton, to blame the French for your own damned carelessness!”

“And you Republicans would model our government after them when they can’t even make a decent glass stem,” Alex rejoined. Renewed nausea rose in his gorge. “I’ll just go repair this.”

Internally he shook and he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t vomit all over the table.

“Should we call for a physician?” Peter asked, his face cautious and concerned.

Shaking his head, Alex laughed carelessly. “Good God, Peter, don’t be such a woman.”

“But your hand—all that blood!” James said as he rose from his seat.

Alex motioned with his good hand.

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