Hold Me Never (Holding Never) (29 page)

I decide that I can't stand to be lying flat on my
front. I want to sit up and face him. Force him to look me right in
the eye when he tells me what he has to tell me.

At my movement, Jaxon seems to snap out of his immobile
state. When he reaches out to help me as I struggle up, I manage to
slap his hand away.

She doesn't know? She doesn't know who you are?

You'd better tell her, and tell her fast.

I sway a little, feeling the whole room tilt
precariously before righting itself. I clench my fists hard to stop
my hands from shaking. Jaxon is sitting at the very edge of his
chair, leaning forward as if to catch me if I fall.

This very thought sends a searing jolt of pain shooting
from my gut, straight up to my brain. It is as if a firework has
gone off in my head. I clutch both sides of my head, releasing a
strangled, tortured sound.

“
Zoey, Zoey, what's wrong?” Jaxon's worried
voice breaks through the jumble of nightmarish hallucinations in my
head.

No, not hallucinations. Memories. These are not the
products of my fevered imagination. These are my memories. They did
happen. They did happen to me.

“
No! Let go! Let go of me!” I grab chunks
of my hair and yank viciously.

Jaxon is holding my wrists, trying to get me to release
myself. “Zoey, don't do this. Listen, I'm here with you. I'm
here.”

“
No, you're not here!” I glare at him
through a haze of unwanted, unbidden tears. “You are not here,
not here! Where were you when I needed you? You...you cuffed me,
took me to the Palace by force, delivered me to a fate worse then
death. Where were you when I was being whipped? Where were you when
everyone groped me with their hands and mouths, and laughed as they
ate off my body? You're not here. You're never here with me.
You're never here! I hate you! You! You are no different from the
monsters you serve! You are a liar!”

Jaxon lets go of my wrists as if I'd burnt him. With my
hands free, I rear up and slap him hard across the face. He rocks
back so violently the chair topples behind him. I jump at the loud
crash, and blink rapidly as the room comes into focus.

The horrific memories swirl in my mind, blurring a
little at the edges.

I gasp and gulp in lungfuls of air as if I'd just
surfaced from a deep, dark underwater prison. But what I had been
through had been worse than a dank prison. It had been hell.

I stare up at Jaxon, breathing hard. The left side of
his face is red and throbbing, and there are thin lines of blood down
his cheek where my nails have raked through his flesh.

He stands and regards me quietly. “Will you hear
what I have to say?” he asks at last.

“
What can you say that will make me feel better?”
I laugh bitterly. All the fight and anger seem to have drained from
me in a rush, leaving me empty and wretched.

“
It's not meant to make you feel better. It's so
you know the truth. About me. About everything.”

I stare at the ground without answering.

I can still feel his eyes on me. After a tensed, silent
moment, he leaves the upturned chair behind him and comes over to me.
“May I?” he asks softly.

I look away from him, seething and hurting. I feel him
sit down beside me, leaving a small gap between us.

We sit side by side, our faces turned away from each
other. The silence and distance stretch between us even though we
are mere inches apart. I chew my lip angrily and wait. I will not
be the first to speak. Neither will I make this easy for him. He
owes me an explanation. He owes me the goddamned truth!

I owe you more than this.

He has been lying to me all this while!

Just when I am about to yell at him, he exhales a deep,
shuddering breath and begins to speak.

In a quiet, solemn voice, he tells me about the
resistance efforts of the people to overthrow the Emperor and drive
the Imperial Army out of their homeland. The Unified States would be
broken up and each state would regain its independence and freedom.
That's what the rebels are fighting for. Freedom and independence.
It would be the way it was, before the Imperial Army invaded all
these small, separate, independent states.

The people have been oppressed, tortured, robbed and
raped for decades. With each uprising, each defeat, each bloodbath,
the rebel armies have regrouped and grown stronger, tougher, more
resilient and determined. They won't stop fighting until they have
driven every last Imperial soldier out of their soil. They want to
take back their homes, their futures, their lives. For too long,
they have been reduced to cattle, being milked to pad the Emperor's
coffers and advance his greed and ambitions.

“
The Emperor? Or the Empress?” I manage to
snort.

Jaxon gives me a look and pauses a moment. But he
chooses not to address my cryptic comment. Soldiering on, he tells
me that he has been a crucial part of the resistance for about two
years now. “I've been serving in the Imperial Army for as long
as you've been alive, Zoey. I've risen through the ranks, and I've
seen too many things, done things I shouldn't have done, been part of
a military campaign I should never have been a part of.” He
looks down at his hands. “There is blood on my hands.
Innocent, civilian blood.”

“
And mine,” I snap sarcastically.

He doesn't defend himself. “Yes.”

I touch the tiny aquamarine stud in my ear. “But
you did try to help,” I concede with a sad sigh. “You
tried to save...”

My mother.

He shakes his head. “Not enough,” is all he
says. He falls silent for a long while.

Finally, he raises his head to look me in the eye.
“There was only one purpose in my life these past two years.
I...I never meant to fall in love.”

My throat and chest constrict at his words.

“
I never meant to fall in love with you, Zoey,”
he whispers.

“
Why?” I ask finally in a tight voice.
“Why...didn't you let me go then? Why drag me all the way to
be...”

“
I couldn't risk having my cover blown. If the
Emperor became suspicious of me, the resistance would lose my help.
I had to...”

“
You had to sacrifice me.”

“
I told myself I wouldn't feel anything more for
you. That you're not mine. That I don't deserve you. That the only
thing I could do for you was lie to Dr. Rolin, so that you wouldn't
stand out and be chosen...”

“
Yes. They break the virgins—horribly.”
I close my eyes against the images of Hani and the mutilated girl in
the Emperor's bed.

Jaxon lets out a ragged breath and looks deep into my
eyes. “After what I did, all I did, I don't deserve you. When
you came to me—” he sucks in a shuddering breath. “—it
was like a dream. A dream come true.”

I look down, frowning and blushing deeply.

The memory of our first night together burns through my
mind. It was the first time I had ever been with a man. Jaxon had
made love to me, passionately, tenderly, completely.

“
I love you.”

The shock registers on my face.

“
I love you,” he repeats softly. “I
told you that, before I left. I promised I would come back for you.”

I nod and swallow painfully. “I heard...a guard
tell the Emperor that you've been captured or killed by the rebels.”

“
The only way to be reborn is to die.”

“
What?”

“
A Commander of the Imperial Army died that night.
And a rebel leader was born.”

“
That's...kind of dramatic, don't you think?”
I give him a lopsided smile.

He smiles back, but his smile disappears the instant his
eyes leave my face and rake down my arms and legs. My wounds still
hurt, but they seem to hurt him even more, much more deeply than me.
My injures hurt my flesh, but they seem to have ripped right through
his heart and torn his soul asunder.

“
I should never have left...” His hands are
clenched tightly into fists, his whole body trembling with pain.
“When I heard that the Emperor had chosen you, I...”

“
You came back,” I say softly and frown.
“But...how? How did you know?”

“
There are...people on our side...in the Palace,”
he answers carefully.

I nod slowly, trying to order my reeling thoughts.
Those two nights, when Jaxon took me to his bed—it was a
miracle we didn't get caught. Everything had gone so smoothly, so
safely. It was a miracle, but someone had worked that miracle. And
it wasn't just Jaxon. There was someone else in the Palace, helping
him, helping me.

I chew the inside of my lip furiously. Who could it be?

Who would be watching me so closely?

Could it be one of the Matrons?

Who had the position and the power to help me?

It had been so seamless, so skilful, so cleverly
disguised. Whoever it was would have been...

A master—or in this case, a mistress, of disguise.

“
Stay, I'll send her instead.”

My eyes round at the memory of her loud, imperious
command.

“
Go down to the Grooming Room and get all the
Matrons up here to measure the girls. Go. Now!”

“
Yes, Mam Mallisa.”

But I hadn't done that—not straightaway. Instead
of going to the Grooming Room, I had gone up to Jaxon's chamber, and
he had given me my mother's earring. As a sign.

My quivering fingers trace the polished stud on my ear.
There was no way Mam Mallisa would have missed this glittering
addition to my ear. Yet she had made no mention of it. She had
deliberately ignored my glaring absence and delay. I had not been
admonished or punished at all. She knew.

I look up to see Jaxon watching me intently. I take a
deep breath, and whisper, “Mam Mallisa.” And that might
not even be her real name, I realize. In fact, I have never even
seen her real face. Under all the garish makeup, fake eyelashes,
gold-capped teeth and outlandish hairdos, I have no idea what she
really looks like. She is the ultimate mistress of disguise, of
subterfuge and stratagem.

Jaxon continues staring at me, neither confirming nor
denying my suspicion. His eyes flick down briefly and as he blinks,
there is a barely perceptible nod of his head. But it is enough.

I open my mouth to ask about her. Will she be exposed?
Is she in terrible danger? Will she be punished? How did she know?
Why didn't she tell me? Why did she...?

When Jaxon meets my gaze, I clamp my mouth shut with a
heavy breath. From the grim, tight look on his face, I know that for
now, he has told me all that I need to be told. There will be few
answers to my many questions.

There are many secrets between us still.

Secrets meant to protect me.

I think.

How many more are there in the Palace, in the Imperial
Army? How many more are helping the resistance? How many will be
sacrificed?

I think of the young men and women who are humiliated,
mutilated and killed for sport, the silent, suffering Matrons, the
Sirens, the Slaves. How many of them will die? How many are already
dead?

I was among them. And I was this close to death. I was
just a hair's breadth from having my throat slit and thrown to the
snakes. I remember the knife at my throat, the blade piercing into
my flesh before the glass exploded behind me and my angel of
vengeance swooped in to wrench me back from the arms of death.

With a shiver, I wrap my arms around myself. “I...I
almost died,” I choke at last. I turn to him, my vision
blurring. “You saved me.”

“
No, Zoey. You. You saved me,” he says in
all seriousness.

I blink repeatedly at him. How could I have saved him?
What did I do?

“
You hold my heart, Zoey.”

I stop breathing.

Jaxon reaches out to take my hand. “You have my
heart, completely.”

“
M-me?”

“
You.”

Tears spill from my eyes as I tilt my face to him. He
cups it with both hands, looking into my eyes for a long time.
Slowly, he leans in to kiss me. His lips press against mine
tentatively at first, kissing me very softly.

I raise my hand to his neck, feeling his pulse, his
warmth, his strong shoulder. His kiss deepens, and I part my lips
for him. He kisses me deeply, passionately, hungrily, his hands
pulling me closer.

Desire spears through my aching body, and I rasp against
his mouth, “I...I want to touch you, Jaxon. I've missed you so
much. I want your hands on me. All over me.”

“
Zoey,” he breathes heavily, pulling away.
“But you...you're hurt.”

“
So make me better.”

A ghost of a smile crosses his features. Gently, he
picks me up and settles me on his lap. My arms immediately wrap
around his sturdy shoulders as I lean into his neck and breathe him
in deeply.