Her sweet chains

Part 35

Chapter 35

It was dark before we returned back to the Den, yet Darius loud voice still boomed out of his study as the two of us padded through the entrance hall hand in hand.

"Jessie, Now." He said firmly, I smiled at Derek and tried to move towards the study but Derek kept a firm grip on my hand. I looked back over my shoulder and smiled fondly. I may have agreed that we would act like mates when I was around but he seemed to be far too into the whole idea. He was still holding my hand because he was trying to protect me because Darius had raised his voice, stupid as the action was as Darius yelled ninety percent of the time yet it didn't matter it was an instinctive thing. I leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. Derek lifted my hands to kiss my knuckles gently before squeezing my fingers and releasing them his eyes telling me he'd be waiting here for me. I sighed and walked into the study Darius was sat at his desk in a pool of light piles upon piles of paper covered the entire desks surface in a haphazard sort of pile that Darius insisted did have an order to it. He looked up from these papers as I closed the door gently behind me and smiled but it looked weary or maybe it was just him that appeared weary. Darius had clearly lost weight, his skin looked pale, and he had large dark circles under both his eyes.

"Hello Princess." He said with a gentle smile. I frowned at him,

"Are you alright?" I asked, he smiled again

"Shouldn't I be concerned about your welfare?" He said with a smile.

"You don't look well." I said moving closer to the desk squinting a little at my father.
"it's been a tough few months." Darius said rubbing his forehead with a groan.

"What it is?" I said easing myself down into a chair in front of his desk.

"Just rogues being well rogues." He said distractedly.

"The murder?" I asked knowing I didn't need to clarify which murder,

"No."

"Have you had any progress with that?" I asked cutting him off,

"No not now Jessica." He said with a sigh,

"You don't know who it was yet?"

"No jess but I know it's not him." He said wearily.

"I'm not asking that I always knew it wasn't."

"I ...its not the time for that now Princess." He said wearily running a hand across his face. "I just wanted to talk about Derek." I just winced and put my head in my hands , though inside I couldn't help but me thankful that I had thought to dress on my way back to the den, although I was caked in mud and clearly dishevelled it was still better than being naked caked in mud and very dishevelled. "You know that he was banned from making his way to UCE. He had to work hard to find a loophole in my order, and from the look of it." He said with an intense glare at my bruised wrists, "and the reports I have from Jamie he was rather irate when he came to get you." I lifted my head to look at him softly "I upset him." Darius kept his eyes locked on my wrists, "he loves me, he wouldn't hurt me." I said firmly, Darius raised an eyebrow as if puzzling over what I thought the bruises were. "He wouldn't." I said sternly.

"Alright." He said "well I just wanted to check your okay."

"Yeah." I said nodding with a smile as sincere as I could manage, "I am really."

"Well we'll see but its good to have you back." I smiled at the false sentiment he was clearly exhausted, so I took this as a dismissal and stood up, which Darius mirrored. "I'm going to have to punish Derek for his behaviour it's too close too disobedience." I nodded to be honest I knew that already and so did Derek. "If you can send him in, and then I want you to go to bed not stand out there eavesdropping I would hate for you to have to spend Christmas pairing up socks." I smiled and leaned over pressing a kiss onto Darius' cheek.