A Slave to Love

Chapter 46: Blame

Blade's cell phone went off loudly and he growled a profanity.

"It's fine, just answer. It could be important," I said, relieved at the interruption.

"I don't give a fuck about anything happening outside of this room."

"Blade, please? Maybe it's about last night."

He wavered, studying me intensely before he reached over me for his phone.

"It better be important," he said as soon as he answered, not even a hello or anything.

He listened for a moment before his body slumped, a hand coming up to rub his eyes.

"Shit. That's going to kill her. There's no way they're going to rethink it or—? Yeah, no. I'm not surprised either. Okay. Thanks, Ace." He sighed before he hung up, tossing his phone further down the bed into the mess of blankets.

"What happened?"

He didn't say anything, just held his arms out and open to me. I crawled back into them, curling up against him, my head tucked under his chin. He was quiet for a long time, and I wasn't sure he was even going to answer me, or that he even heard me, but then he finally spoke. Then I realized why he was so hesitant.

"They found Alek last night with Lexi," he began slowly, carefully, choosing his words with utmost delicacy. "She explained what happened and Raoul vouched for her. Aros took Alek to his place and locked him up while he and the council figured out what to do with him. A bunch of the other incidents involving Alek came to light since then because now Aros is digging into his life." Another long pause. "Ace said they're going to destroy Alek. The trial is a formality at this point."

Destroy Alek. They were going to kill him because of what he did and tried to do to me. I wasn't sure whether I was happy that he wouldn't be able to try it again or pitied him for Lexi turning him against his will and turning him into this out of control monster. I was thinking that Blade felt the same.

"He's out of control because he's inexperienced though, right? And upset because of Lexi? If he had some time to learn he could improve and be normal again?" I asked. It felt like someone had jabbed a hook in my stomach and was slowly turning it so all my insides were being scrambled. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. I really really wanted to plug my ears and cry and never talk about it again. Hopefully Blade couldn't hear my pounding heart; it felt like it was beating so hard and fast that it was going to explode. It was all too soon.

Execution just sounded so permanent. Terrifying. Imprisoning him sounded fair, but the death penalty? That was barely legal in the majority of states now and they were immediately jumping to that. He had hurt me last night, nearly killed me, but the circumstances surrounding his change...I both pitied him and was repulsed by him. Wasn't he just a victim of Lexi violating him too?

"Ace tried to tell Aros about that, maybe change his mind or at least buy some time, but Aros refused and said the decision was already made."  His cell rang again, loud and insistent like an alarm. This time he picked it up without complaint and held it to his ear, answering with a distracted "Yeah?"

Two seconds later he was leaping up, catching me around the waist when I nearly fell over from his abrupt move.

"What do you mean she's gone? How could you lose her?!" he yelled, letting me go as he jumped off the bed to his feet. "Did you not know to keep a better eye on her with all this shit going on?"

He listened for a moment, grinding his teeth and flexing his free fist. He was pissed as hell. I couldn't begin to imagine what the hell was going on, but apparently last night's nightmare was just a warm up for today.