Blood Red Dawn by Karen E. Taylor

Author:Karen E. Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2013-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Deirdre Griffin: New York City

I finally awoke the evening of the next day. I felt woozy and shaky, but more importantly, I thought, rubbing the sore spot on my arm where the needle penetrated, I was angry—so angry I wanted to take Max apart with my bare hands. I couldn’t even begin to imagine his rationale on drugging me. Once again everything he’d been doing to me made no sense.

The sound of his key in the lock made me wild. I sprang out of bed and hurtled toward him, hands extended, nails crooked. He caught my wrists and roughly pulled them down. “Awake, I see,” he said, a twisted smile distorting his classically handsome face.

“No thanks to you, Max. Was it necessary to drug me without my knowledge? This sort of action goes above and beyond the bounds of spousal duty, don’t you think?”

“You were in a rare mood last night, little one. You’d worked yourself up into a fit complete with full-fledged delusions of a life that never existed. All that nonsense about Larry Martin and Mitch Greer and my keeping coffins in this room.” He laughed and I bristled to feel his condescension. “In a mood like that, you’d be capable of anything, so I took what action I deemed necessary. You are my wife, after all.”

“Your wife?” I gave a snarling laugh, sounding almost hysterical even to my own ears. “More like your prisoner, I would say. So what is on the agenda for tonight? Whippings? Interrogations?”

He looked hurt. “Why do you persist in making me out to be your enemy, Deirdre, when you must know, deep down in your heart, that I only want what’s best for you.”

“Then let me go, Max. That would be what’s best for me.”

“You say that, but you are still—”

I practically howled in frustration. “Sick? Yes, yes, yes. I am willing to admit I’ve been sick. I even vaguely remember the symptoms you’ve described. But I also remember other things, vivid things, important events which, no matter how hard you try, you cannot control or change. You may deny it all you like, but still, I know I have led a life that did not involve you. And that life was chosen by me in lieu of what you had to offer me. A life led with another man in another time and place.”

His voice lowered a bit, seeming, if possible, to be filled with love and pity. “Oh, Deirdre,” he said, “my sweet little one, I very much wish that things had turned out differently for us. That you hadn’t been struck with this damned sickness holding you in delusions and false dreams. We were happy together once, surely you can remember that?”

And as he said the words, I realized that, in some small way, what he said was true. We had been happy together. At some point in my forgotten life, I had wished for nothing more than a chance for the two of us. In that moment I softened toward him, wanting more than anything to be held in his arms.

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