“You don’t need to do anything.” His dark green gaze lands on me, holding me hostage, stealing the breath from my lungs with the dark promise of something I truly don’t want to fathom. He is danger wrapped up in a tailored suit. That’s all it is. Undeniably handsome, but also unpredictable in his demeanor.
“I need to speak to my family. You cannot hold me here for no reason. I’m not your property, even though my father signed that godforsaken agreement.” My voice is brittle with frustration, my throat feels dry as if sandpaper has lodged itself in my esophagus, and with each word I utter, it only seems to hurt more and more.
“If you’d like to talk to someone, it can be your friend, Aelin. Other than that, you’re not to talk to anyone else.” His voice comes out with a warning that if I were to try anything, he’d know, and he would hurt me.
“Then let me speak to her,” I plead because if I can talk to her, then she can get help. She can call my father and get him to sort this mess out. Fix what he did.
Lycan ignores me for a moment as he pours the hot tea into a cup. I watch as he drops a small spoon of sugar into the liquid and stirs a few times. Once he sets the teaspoon down, he shoves the cup toward me. “Drink this. It will calm that fire so we can talk like adults.”
“Don’t treat me—”
“Scarlett,” he growls, my name a warning on his lips, his eyes blazing with fury when he looks at me again. “If you don’t want to obey me, I’ll happily tie you to the St Andrew’s cross in my dungeon and leave you there, naked and crying, until you realize I’m the one in charge here.”
My mouth falls open in shock, but my body responds to his threat with heat sizzling in my veins. The apex of my thighs pulsing with unrelenting need, and I can’t stop myself from squirming in the seat. I don’t want him to have this hold over me, this effect that sends me rabid with hunger for him to do just what he’s promising. But I can’t help it. My traitorous desires take hold when Lycan throws his dark promises at me.
“You may be in charge in this house, but you don’t own me.”
“Yet,” he adds, knowing he has me because my father has agreed to allow Lycan to marry me. “Are you joining me for breakfast, or are you going to your room to sit alone?” Lycan asks so gently I snap my gaze to his, finding in those emerald orbs genuine concern.
“Do you want me to eat with you?” I’m not sure why, but after I voice my query, my heart gallops like a wild horse in a field, enjoying its freedom. But it won’t last long because that stupid muscle that beats wants him to say yes. Even though my mind is convinced he must say no, that I should want him to say no. I don’t.
For a long moment, Lycan watches me, taking in my hair, my face. When his gaze lands on my mouth, his tongue darts out to wet his full lips. “Yes, stay. Perhaps you’ll enjoy my company and realize I’m not as bad as you think,” he tells me as a satisfied grin forms on his perfectly handsome face.
“I doubt that,” I bite out, taunting the wolf while sitting in his den. I must be stupid, but this man brings out the childlike qualities I’ve always had. “What could you possibly tell me to make me change my mind about marrying you?”
“Besides the fact that I saved your life… That would be my brother. And he isn’t a man you want to be caught in the dark with. He’s a hunter. He enjoys making pretty girls his toys.”
My eyes widen in surprise at his confession, but quickly recover before testing, “Just like you?” I realize he could get angry. He could lock me in my room and never let me out, but I can’t find it in myself to sit quietly.
“The women I take are willing accomplices to the pleasures I bestow on their bodies. I didn’t hear you complaining while you drenched my fingers.” Lycan picks up his mug, sipping his coffee as he regards me.
The door behind us opens, and the girl from earlier appears once more, this time with two plates of breakfast, including a mound of delicious-looking scrambled eggs, two rashers of bacon, and what I can only guess is dark rye toast.
Once we’re alone, I look at Lycan before speaking. “I’m a woman. A touch from someone handsome, someone who’s just saved my life is—”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Lycan throws back. “You like the danger,” he tells me with the confidence of someone who’s known me all my life. “There are women out there who crave it, who ache for the need to be taken, owned, to be submissive under a man who knows how to make them feel something.”