Femme Fatale.

13

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The night is bitterly cold and her heart is icy.

She bites her lip,trying to fight another wash of devastating tears as she picks the telephone but a ragged gasp escapes her dry throat and a soft cry rises in the darkness.

Shawn answers and rushes to pick his sister.

When he arrives he sees Carla, crying and shaking from the cold and anguish. He springs to her. He can hear her teeth chattering, her very bones rattling it seems, by the shuddering, chilling shaking of her whole body.

He takes her wordlessly into his comforting warm arms, doing his best to still the appalling tremors which seem as though they will shake Carla's slender frame into a thousand pieces.

"I'm here sister, hush now," Shawn whispers at last.
♥♥

Songs for the chapter:
i. Hush hush baby - Lxandra
ii. Con te partiro - Andrea Bocelli

♥♥

I sit still in the car  looking out to the darkness, expressionless and totally cut off from everything that goes about me as Shawn rocks me in his arms.

There is a mist drifting in icy waves, clinging and ghostly, but I had noticed none of this nor the lung biting, flesh numbing cold as I had phoned my brother and ran out of the hotel.

When I finally come down Shawn reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a sugared plum.

"Sweets for the sweet," he says planting a kiss on my forehead.

"Oh Shawn," I say. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"Your cry anguished me and I could not think of anything but drive to you and comfort you," he says. "Whatever has happened that is so awful, Carla?"

"Nahar spanked me," I say simply.

At once my brother flares up. "Where is he?" he asks, looking around. "I don't see him."

"He might have left already. He thinks I'm out on foot heading home."

"I will kill him," Shawn says grimly.

"No, Shawn. Don't bear him up and scare him off. I hear he is royal and I want him," I say firmly. "Now that he has hurt me I have the upper hand. I have everything to play for."

"For God's sake lass. Don't do this to yourself, Carla. Look at you. You're a mess all for that wretched bastard. Let it go. Let him go," Shawn says, putting a sympathetic hand on my arm and I quickly brush it off as though it is nothing more than a troublesome fly.

"Don't, Shawn. Brother or not, don't say a thing against my course for I won't have it. I have set my eyes on him whether he is a duke or whatever hold and title he has, it has to be mine."

"Dear God,Carla." Shawn is almost beyond speech. "He does not love you but if you are willing to go on making excuses for him, go on defending him, loving him, believing in him until...until he flings it in your face and tells you in his own brutal way what a fool you are then so be it." He hugs me tightly and keeps rocking me in the strength of his despairing arms.