Page 31 of Breaking Isolde
I pull away, sitting next to her, watching her breathe.
She’s perfect. And now she knows it.
She stares up at me, ruined, and for the first time she looks truly afraid. Afraid of her own feelings. Afraid that she won’t carry out her mission.
I lean over her, pressing my mouth to her ear.
“Casey’s death was an accident,” I whisper. “You’ll come to believe that in time.”
She shudders under me, body still wrecked from the orgasm.
I push up and stand over her, letting her see the blood on my lips, the marks she left on my skin, the evidence of her own defeat.
“You’re perfect,” I say, softer this time. “In ways she never was.”
She glares, but there’s no hate left in her. Just exhaustion. Shame. And something like awe.
Chapter 7: Isolde
Idon’tsleepthatnight, not after Rhett Grey leaves his fingerprints all over my fucking soul.
He doesn’t even slam the door—just slips out, silent, leaving me coiled in my own sheets and shame, the world oscillating between rage and need and humiliation. I stare at the ceiling until dawn fillets the horizon, then spend an hour lying perfectly still, listening to my pulse punch out the memory of his hands on my wrists, his voice in my ear, the hot ache between my thighs.
It takes another hour before I can move without shivering. I drag myself to the bathroom, shut the door, and peel off my pajamas. The bruises stand out like proof. Finger marks, vivid and purple, ringing both wrists. A splotch on my throat, perfectly thumb-shaped. I turn my head left, right, watching the blood rise and settle, remembering each mark like a badge.
My face is the worst: eyes swollen, lips chewed raw. My hair is a mess, knotted and slicked with sweat, but I don’t have the energy to fix it. I splash cold water over my skin until my teeth chatter, fighting not to make a sound. I use the towel to muffle a scream, but it’s thin and animal and makes me want to laugh until I break.
There’s only one thing I want now: answers. And not the kind you find in files or rumors or the stupid little notes I leave myself, but the kind that bleed out when you press hard enough.
The kind that only Rhett can give me.
I dry off, pull on black leggings, a hoodie, and a windbreaker that will hopefully keep the freeze off my bones. I lace up my boots, double-knot the laces, and don’t bother with makeup. I want the world to see the damage. I want him to see it, too.
The campus is a ghost town at 8:30 AM on a Saturday. The path to the greenhouses runs along the back side of the quad, behind the maintenance sheds and the abandoned tennis courts. There are rumors about the old glasshouses—stories about secret parties, acid trips, freshman hazing gone wrong. The only part I care about is that it’s private. Hard to get to. Nobody goes there except people who want to hide.
I also know he’s out there somewhere watching. Since I don’t have his number to text him like a civilized person, stalking will have to do.
I’m not even through the gate when I feel him watching.
It’s not paranoia. It’s instinct, the sharp, electric sense that someone is fitting a scope to my forehead from somewhere in the hedges. I keep my pace steady, resist the urge to look back.
The greenhouse itself is a corpse. Half the glass panels are gone, the rest spidered with frost or shattered by storms. Inside, it smells like rot—wet earth, dead vines, mold, and the old metallic sting of rusted frames. A jungle of broken pots and collapsed shelving fills the north wall, all of it choked with black moss and the twisted skeletons of what once passed for life.
Guess there’s no need for the rich to garden when they can afford whatever the fuck they want.
I step in, boots crunching on gravel and bits of broken glass. The fogged-over roof lets in just enough light to make the dead plants glow from below. I scan for hazards—trip wires, booby traps, the standard Westpoint fuckery—but there’s nothing. Only the slow drip of condensation, and the silence of the dead.
I pick a bench at the far end, the stone still damp from last night’s rain. I sit, plant my hands on my knees, and stare at the warped reflection of myself in a waterlogged planting tray.
I wait. And wait. And wait some more.
He makes me wait twenty minutes.
When he appears, it’s sudden and theatrical, like he’s materializing from thin air just to flex. He’s got his hands in the pockets of his coat, blonde hair perfectly tousled and still damp from the shower. His lips are upturned and there’s stubble growing over his chin. His green eyes burn right through me, the color almost radioactive in the haze. His coat is tight around his shoulders and for a moment, I want him to slip it off so I can see the muscles strain against his shirt.
For all intents and purposes, he’s hot as fuck and I should want him to want me, except for the tiny fact that he’s a fucking murderer.
He leans against the door frame, backlit by the hard white of the morning. “There are easier ways to get my attention than trying to force me to follow you,” he says, voice perfectly calm.
