I snort derisively. “I don’t think anyone would ever accuse you of being benevolent.”
His smile irons out a little. “You’d be surprised.”
I raise my eyebrows skeptically. “Regale me with tales of your generosity, my liege.”
“I kept you alive, didn’t I?”
“Was that an example of your mercifulness?” I ask sarcastically. “So sorry I missed that.”
“You know deep down I’m telling you the truth.”
“About what?” I snap.
“About your father. The man deserved to die.”
“Who are you to make that call?”
“The fucking don, that’s who,” he snaps back instantly. His blue eyes blaze a little brighter for a moment, and I expect him to charge forward. To touch me again. To yank my face into his, my torso flush against his own body, his smell in my nostrils, his heat radiating into me and through me…
Or maybe I just want him to do all that.
The desire is completely and utterly foreign to me. Maybe that’s why it terrifies me so much. Because the men in my past have been monsters in the shadows. I’ve spent every ounce of energy running from them when I could—and cowering from them when I couldn’t.
Wanting them? Craving them? The mere thought is completely laughable. Sex has never been something I wanted; it’s only ever been something I feared.
So these weird feelings bubbling up in me… I don’t know how to process them, how to name them. But they’ve got a baffling stranglehold over me. Primal. Deeper than words.
If it were any other man, I might have been relieved to know that my body isn’t as numb as my heart seems to be sometimes. But of course, he’s not just any man.
He’s Kian O’Sullivan.
My father’s murderer. Soon, he’ll add my brother to his list of kills.
How can I justify my feelings if… No, they’re not feelings; I won’t give him that kind of power over me. But I am feeling something.
I just need to pinpoint what it is so that I can stop it in its tracks.
Kian watches me wrestle with these frustratingly slippery thoughts for a while. Then he walks back to the door to leave.
But just before he disappears from sight, I find myself calling out to him. “Wait.”
He turns slowly, his eyes boring into mine. And suddenly, I don’t know what I wanted to say.
“You… you can’t just leave me in here,” I stammer pathetically.
“If you need something, just scream for me,” he says bluntly. “Maybe I’ll even pretend to care.”
Then he shuts the door on me.
When he’s gone, that old familiar anger returns, hot and lethal. I rail against my trapped hand as his footsteps recede into the silence.
I pull hard and feel the skin around my wrist give way yet again. The next layer comes off, drawing a fresh smear of warm blood.
I don’t even flinch against the pain. I just keep twisting my wrist, trying to find the position that’ll release me. That tempting slack is there if I just lean like this and twist like…
Five minutes later, my wrist is aching and the blood is thick and sticky and I’m no closer to being free.
I bite back the tears and sit down on the edge of the bed, battling the exhaustion hurtling through my body. When was the last time I ate something?