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Post by Diana Ward on Dec 7, 2016 2:29:21 GMT -5
Diana was panicking, she couldn't move and she was forced to hear Christian's explanation. She refused to be moved by it. Her heart was cold. She was dead inside. At least that's what she tried telling herself.
It was all still so much of a shock for her she couldn't really process his words though she heard him, she would have to process his excuses later.
There was a bigger concern for her, "Why can't I move?!" she asked a slight panic hidden under layers of detachment.
Burke for his part was slow to act, he had never seen Diana attack with such a fury before and were it not the situation they were in he would have been duly impressed by both Diana's offence and Christian's defense. As it was there were three new pressing concerns: Christian was somehow able to control Diana, Diana was pregnant with Christian's son, and a group of belated security were rushing in on them.
Regardless Derek had to act fast, while Christian's attention was focused on Diana, he took great pleasure in hitting his frenemy over the head with a heavy object from the desk.
"We got to get out of here." Derek explained coming toward her.
"Not without him! He doesn't leave my sight." she spat.
Derek sighed grabbing her and Christian and apparating ironically back to Christian's house.
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 2:44:31 GMT -5
The blow to the head knocked him unconscious and Christian fell to the floor. His heavy body was limp as Derek grabbed him roughly and disapparated. He was dropped on the hardwood on the foyer where he a pool of crimson formed beneath him.
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Post by Diana Ward on Dec 7, 2016 2:53:37 GMT -5
Diana shook herself out of Derek's grasp as he started to check her for any injuries.
She pushed him away and pulled her wand training it on Christian.
"Get him upstairs, there's handcuffs in the drawer next to the bed."
Another time Derek might have raised his eyebrows, but for the moment he obeyed. There was something terrifying about this Diana.
While he was securing an unconscious Christian to the bed he realized it was her utter lack of emotion. Diana had been hard when he met her, but she had never been emotionless.
He was lost in thought when she joined him in the room and tossed a bandana on the bed, "Gag him." she ordered then disappeared again.
Derek did as she asked then ran a hand through his hair. Suddenly it all seemed rather foolish that they didn't suspect Christian in the first place, but then that was neither here nor there if Diana and he were bonded and she was pregnant - Merlin! - with Christian's child.
Diana reappeared with a sewing kit and began to sew Christian's cut where Derek had hit him. She applied a salve and was satisfied that he would live, though he would have a terrible headache upon waking up. She moved with a dead calm and a deceptive nonchalance though her body was coiled for an attack.
Then she waited. He would wake soon and she would be ready for him.
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 3:08:21 GMT -5
He felt the throbbing of his pulse in his shoulder before he opened his eyes. It was that point of awareness before waking when you had no control over your body and your mind was slow to act. His eyes fluttered opened, colors blurred before him until he awoke with a sharp inhale.
Diana was waiting for him, along with Derek. Christian paid the man no mind, having not yet learned his lesson in focusing solely on Diana. Christian spoke again, explaining he was protecting her, but the sounds were muffled and inaudible thanks to the gag in his mouth. He moved to go to her but found he was shackled to the bed. Their bed. The movement pulled at the wound in his shoulder. He pleaded for her understanding again though his words never reached her.
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Post by Diana Ward on Dec 7, 2016 3:20:57 GMT -5
Diana was a highly intelligent woman, in the time Christian had been unconscious she had deduced that her vow to love honor and obey had been taken as literal as his was to remain faithful, which opened up a whole different can of worms.
"Save your strength." she said as he pulled at his bonds, "You're going to need it."
Her tone was flat, emotionless, as though she were asking him to remember to pick up toilet paper from the store.
"I don't want to hear anything you have to say, and I don't trust myself in the same room with you. Apparently our marriage has made me rather vulnerable where you're concerned. I've discussed what I want to know from you with Burke. He's going to ask you some questions. I took the liberty of dosing you with veritaserum while you were unconscious." her eyes finally met his, "I'll return when it's over."
She didn't say it, but her eyes told him all he needed to know about what would happen after Burke's interrogation.
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 3:36:04 GMT -5
He struggled despite her warning. He fought against his bonds as if he was fighting for Diana herself. In fact he was. But his movements stilled as she threatened him with a cool detachment unlike any he had seen from her before.
"I love you," he mumbled through the fabric in his mouth but the words were nothing but indiscriminate sounds by the time they made it to her ears.
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 3:42:39 GMT -5
He watched her leave and whatever remnants of a heart a man like him had it was hurting for the woman whose world had just fallen apart. He turned then and faced Christian. The same depth of emotion was directed at the man, only it was utter loathing.
Diana had grilled him on questions she wanted answers for, but he had one of his own first.
"What the f*ck Ward?"
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 3:58:58 GMT -5
As his gag was removed Christian called after Diana but she was gone and far enough away to not hear him calling her name. His head fell back defeated and he slowly turned to Burke. Christian wanted to blame Burke for locating Copperbottom and taking Diana there without Christian, but he knew he was the only one to blame for his current situation.
"You have no f*cking clue what's going on," he insisted. "Let me loose."
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 4:03:55 GMT -5
Derek was tempted to do just that. He had never seen Diana this way and it honestly scared him. Coupled with the fact that she was pregnant made him also feel like he was in over his head. He ran a hand through his hair and made a mean gesture of frustration toward Christian for doing this to him.
In the end anger won out, "This is a real sh*t show and I don't even know where to start, but the last thing I'm going to do is release you. Diana wants answers, you owe her that much." he hissed.
"When did he hire you exactly?"
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 4:14:53 GMT -5
"I'd answer all of her questions without the bloody veritaserum!" But then Diana wouldn't trust his responses.
"Months ago. The day after I saw Diana in the inn." She had told him to go to hell. The memory usually made him smile, but not today.
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 12:29:58 GMT -5
"What were the terms of the agreement?" Derek asked. He didn't want to know, he honestly couldn't fathom a price high enough to kill the woman he had come to know, let alone a woman that had been as intimate with Christian as she had been.
Even if they were no longer lovers when Christian met up with Diana again, he still knew her intimately, and she had loved him even then. It left a bad taste in Derek's mouth either way. He might go through with it if he were ordered to by the man they both served, but he wouldn't for money. Then again he was a Burke and didn't need it, but neither did Christian really.
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 13:20:06 GMT -5
Christian told him the price. There were enough zeros to make even a Burke's eyes widen.
"I had three weeks originally. Copperbottom wanted it done quicker but Diana had intrigued me and I wanted to see what had made her change so much since we'd last met before I took her out."
If Christian hadn't seen Diana only a day before taking the contract, if he hadn't seen a completely different person standing in the more mature body of the woman he had known for only a week so long ago the job would have been over in a matter of days. Christian's life would have been completely different. He wouldn't have bothered to talk to her or drink with her, wouldn't have had the opportunity to be held captive by her and let her spill her secrets at his feet. He wouldn't be in love, married, or bonded. Christian would have never known he was a father and would not have been given the opportunity to become one for a second time and do it properly.
He wouldn't be given that opportunity now. The thought of losing his family made Christian beyond angry.
"Obviously it's been more than three f*cking weeks, which proves I'm not planning to f*cking kill her! Why would I take out all those board members if I had any f*cking plans to carry out the bloody contract?! For F*ck's sake, you can't even partake in a f*cking Life Bond ritual if the f*cking feelings aren't pure! F*ck!" He shouted the last obscenity loud enough for his voice to carry throughout the house.
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 13:27:54 GMT -5
Derek's brows did raise a bit at the exorbitant amount Christian had been offered. He was still angry though, but the anger he felt would fade. Diana wasn't processing the emotions so she couldn't go through her anger.
Derek's anger was still hot at the moment, "But you were planning on it!" he returned, "You were going to kill her! When did you decide not to? What made you change your mind? Jesus Ward! This whole time we've been looking over our shoulders for the f*cking assassin and the entire time she's been in bed with him! And who the hell is the other guy that nearly killed you both on the ship?"
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 13:58:47 GMT -5
"I've done far worse for far less, Burke. You're well aware." Derek knew the role Christian played as one of Lord Voldemort's followers. But Derek had feelings for Diana which made it seem more personal to him than it had been to Christian when he first accepted the contract.
"It's my bloody job. People pay me to eliminate other people. I don't generally care about the f*cking reasoning so long as I get paid." Christian had a skill and he profited off it. It was economics 101, even Derek with his sympathetic heart should have been able to see that.
Christian set to answering Burke's list of questions, unable to hide any details thanks to the potion coursing through his bloodstream. He wouldn't have tried to hide them without it.
"I decided not to kill her two days after I accepted the contract. When she told me Alyx was mine. I wanted to meet my daughter and couldn't do that if the only link to her whereabouts was dead."
"You might have been looking over your shoulder but as I held the contract I knew we were in the clear. I kept Diana safe by extending the contract. If I had given it up a new hit wizard would have been hired and we'd have one more threat to contend with. Not to mention I'd be on the chopping block as well."
"Copperbottom held the deal and if he died so too did our contract. He had to be last. And he would have been too, if you'd stuck to searching for any useful f*cking information on our mystery killer like you were supposed to! Now Copperbottom's dead and there's one more board member left who is now going to put a f*cking bounty on Diana's head and every hit wizard throughout Europe is going to be coming after my f*cking wife!" Christian pulled again at his restraints, ignoring the sharp pains emanating from the wound in his shoulder and the throbbing in his head.
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 14:22:02 GMT -5
"I know you're not trying to pin this mess on me. I did my job. I found information, I just didn't expect it to lead to you. Neither of us did. And you can make all the excuses you want about accepting the contract and not killing Copperbottom, at the end of the day this is on you. You accepted the contract, and when you changed your mind, you didn't have the decency to come clean to the very people who were fighting along side you, to the woman who trusted you."
Derek could understand, very begrudgingly, how Christian might take the contract. But he didn't understand why Christian let them all sweat a threat that wasn't there for so long. After the man had changed his bloody course he still kept his involvement secret and wasted time and resources. In short Christian had played them and now he was paying for it.
But it wasn't up to Derek to forgive him or understand; he worried about the woman downstairs. The pregnant woman who just found out her husband, her life-bond partner, the father of both her children, had intended to kill her. The happily ever after she had begun to believe in had shattered, and a piece of her soul that she had somehow scavenged over the past few months was destroyed completely.
For Diana it wasn't a matter of forgiving Christian. She loved Christian, she could probably forgive him for even this betrayal, but what she couldn't forgive was herself. She couldn't let go of how close she had come to being taken out by the one blind spot she had. She had to carve out that weakness and replace it with stone, and the only way to do so was to turn it all off.
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 14:35:41 GMT -5
"Oh give it up! Diana has never fully trusted me," he replied, shocked at the truth that he had always known but had never really acknowledged. "She's too damaged to trust me or you or anyone completely. She'll be suspicious of our children, she's so broken. And there wasn't any time in our relationship when she would have believed that I wasn't trying to kill her all along if I had mentioned it before all of those bastards were taken care of. F*ck, she would probably still have been suspicious if I told her on our son's wedding day, but I had plans to f*cking tell her. Right after we took the last one down. I sure as hell wasn't planning on telling her while she was stocked with a f*cking armory strapped to her!"
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 14:44:12 GMT -5
"Well she obviously trusted you enough to give you complete control over her, how long have you known that you could pull her strings like a f*cking doll? What have you made her do?"
This was one of Diana's questions. Derek didn't understand the truth behind Diana's fears. Christian was both right and wrong. She was extremely broken, but she had trusted him. More than trusting him, she mistakenly trusted herself to trust him. What had he done to her against her will?
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 15:10:01 GMT -5
"I made her agree to kill me!" Christian shouted. "The Life Bond can be broken if one of us kills the other and I made her swear that she'd kill me if it would save her." Christian looked hard at Derek but continued speaking.
"I've only realized it for the past few weeks and tested it on stupid things to ensure I could get her to agree to break the bond. Made her fetch me things and go to rooms she didn't have any need to go to. Made her shut the f*ck up a few times when her bloody hormones took over. I'm not a bloody monster," he spat.
Christian turned his gaze away from Derek, unable to stop himself from admitting the worst of it. "But there were things I didn't mean to happen. I didn't know what I was doing. I forced her out of the house, she wandered alone all day until I found her." He swallowed and continued. "Made her consummate the marriage on the cruise ship, sealing the Life Bond." That had been well before he found out anything about Diana's vow of obedience but it had eaten him up inside that their fate was sealed by his hasty words.
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Post by Derek Burke on Dec 7, 2016 15:18:38 GMT -5
The veritaserum kept Christian honest otherwise Derek might have questioned Christian's intentions as well as whether or not he had knowledge of his actions in 'making' Diana seal the life bond or wander alone. He was leaning toward the most dastardly of intentions where Christian was concerned, but the picture was becoming more clear. Christian's only 'sin' was not coming clean. That didn't mean Derek wasn't still angry.
"What else do you know about the Board Members? The other assassin?"
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Post by Christian Ward on Dec 7, 2016 15:47:36 GMT -5
"Nothing," Christian said bitterly of the final board member. Christian had men searching for anything to direct them. Even as Christian lay chained to his own bed with a knife wound in his shoulder and a gash across his head, Christian's men were searching. They'd found nothing thus far.
"I couldn't risk interrogating Copperbottom for the information, it would have made him suspicious and he'd call off our contract and hire someone else. But my men have found nothing linking the assassin to Copperbottom. I'm guessing its our remaining friend's pet, trying to take full control over the company. But f*ck if I know."
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