My Hockey Alpha



Chapter 0694

Unless...

"Let me speak to my wife," I choked out urgently. "I want to at least see her, let her know I'm alive and that I love her before..." I couldn't force out the hideous words, but I didn't need to. "Please," I said, softening my voice a little, "I know you're not so cruel as to deny us closure." But her once beautiful features twisted with sudden bitterness. "Your wife will not be coming here," she said. "There's no need for her anymore. And after the ceremony, you won't even remember she existed. Your mind will be free."

"Free?" I hissed. "What are you saying, Mila?"

Mila smirked. "It's a simple ritual," she said. "With a few spells and some potions, you'll forget your past. Everything you've ever known will be right here, with me. You won't feel any pain, because your wife will have never existed in your mind."

My chest heaved with a sudden fury. I tried to lunge to my feet and reach for Mila, but it was too late; the silver ropes had made me weak. She didn't even flinch.

Rough hands were on me again then, wrenching my arms behind my back to rebind my lacerated wrists with more searing silver rope. I roared in agony until a ringing blow to the head from an unknown source sent me reeling, my senses spinning sickeningly again.

"Nina..." Her name caught in my throat. Our unborn child would now grow up fatherless. I never should have come here, but then again, would it have mattered? Maybe Mila would have found me anyway.

Either way, I had failed them.

Through my wavering vision I made out silken black clothes being forced onto my battered body. The fabric was cool against my skin, but it did nothing to soothe the burning caused by the silver ropes.

Finally, once they were finished, they dragged me back to my all-too-familiar cell and threw me down half-conscious onto the icy floor. As if my aching heart wasn't enough torment.noveldrama

With my skin still smoldering beneath my shimmering new clothes, the cell door crashed deafeningly shut. I didn't move from where they had thrown me onto the floor like a corpse. What little strength I still possessed was devoted entirely to keeping me alive.

Soon, Mila's footsteps signaled her presence outside the silver case again, I couldn't ever muster a glare in her direction.

"You look magnificent," she breathed, fiery eyes drinking me in.

With a rustle of skirts she knelt down in front of the bars that were separating us. One delicate hand extended as if to caress my face. I recoiled sharply on instinct, my lips curling back in a snarl.

Her fingers paused, then retracted. Her smirk never faded. I thought I had known evil before now when I had been taken by Selena, but this.. this was so much worse.

And it was the fact that, in just a few short hours, I might not even remember Nina... that hurt the most.

"Just a little more time," Mila whispered, her slender hands gripping the silver bars of my cell. "Just imagine it-our dynasty reborn from the ashes! Such glory awaits!"

A feeling of sick horror roiled through me. She was fanatical, unhinged, utterly convinced that her plan was righteous when, in reality, it was nothing but blood and gore just like her kingdom.

Mila took my silence for awe rather than numbed revulsion. She leaned closer so that her face was pressed between the bars, her slitted pupils widening like a cat's when it spotted its prey.

"I know you hate me, my love," she cooed, "but it will all be over soon. You'll love it here... promise."

With that, she stood and swept out of the room in a rustle of green skirts, leaving me there on the floor with nothing left-not even my dignity.

"Nina, forgive me," I murmured to myself.

My ragged plea was left unanswered. Of course Nina couldn't hear me; she was likely at home still, wondering where I was, why I never got off my plane.

And she would never know.