“Any idea on who it is?” I asked.
“No idea,” Emil stated, rounding the stairs with me. “They came alone though. We had eyes on them the entire time. No one followed them in.”
“Keep your eyes peeled,” I said as we reached the main level of the house. “Put up another man in the back tree line. Something doesn’t feel right here. This could be a ploy. Misdirect and come in from another angle.”
It was what I would have done if I was trying to get onto someone’s property.
Emil pulled the radio out of his belt and communicated my demands to the others, giving me a moment to collect my thoughts. Leda had said she wasn’t scared of me but scaredforme. At least that was some sort of consolation, knowing that she still cared.
I was still the monster of her dreams. She hadn’t quite stopped caring for me.
Now, I had to live up to my promise to protect her.
I fucked up once, but I didn’t plan on doing so again.
Chapter 7
Leda
Meanwhile
I took several gulps of air, hating that my body felt like it was on fire and begging for release because of Lucas. When he finally came to my room, I had my thoughts carefully laid out, starting with why he had put me back on that auction block.
But the moment he kissed me, all of my carefully laid plans went out the window. Istarvedfor his touch, his kiss, his everything. His smell overwhelmed me, and his touch. Ugh! The way his fingers had traced down my body with familiarity almost had me urging him to finish.
Biting my lip, I turned away from the window, and after ensuring the door was indeed closed, slipped my own fingers into my already wet folds. In short time, I brought myself to a quick and furious orgasm that left me breathless and dizzy.
Lucas started it, butfuckif I was going to wait around for him to finish it.
My body trembled with relief as I removed my fingers and washed them in the bathroom, enjoying the look on my face in the mirror. I wanted Lucas. It didn’t matter what he did to me. I wanted him so badly I could taste him on my tongue. It was borderline obsession what I felt for him, deeper than just infatuation, and scarier than a passing fancy.
It wasn’t like I could leave. Since Adrian had attacked us on the yacht, I could only wager that the entire town below was on high alert, as well as the few guards I saw greet us when we arrived. There was no way out for me this time.
I didn’t think I would be right for giving Lucas yet another problem to deal with. And the last thing I wanted to do was fall into Adrian’s clutches again.
Would he be coming?
I walked out of the bathroom and over to the balcony door to shut it so that Lucas wouldn’t see it open and freak out. If there was a threat coming, he needed to concentrate on that and not me.
Behind the curtain, it wasn’t long before I saw a car making its way up the winding drive. It was too far away to see who was at the wheel.
If it was Adrian, would Lucas hand me over to end this war?
I couldn’t say. Everything he said to me made me want to believe that he would protect me. But his betrayal was still fresh. I wasn’t about to trust him. Not completely. Not yet.
The car stopped in front of the house, and a sole occupant climbed out. I didn’t recognize him, and my heart sank just a little. I didn’twantit to be Adrian by any means, but a messenger meant the sender was negotiating from a position of power.
And unfortunately for me, that probably wouldn’t work out well.
If I were a gambling woman, I would have imagined the negotiations would be short and humiliating. As a young girl, I had secretly watched my father conduct plenty of negotiations like that. A messenger would be sent, the negotiated would come—hat in hand—to hear his terms, and then there would be a moment where the negotiated would be humiliated. Then it was over.
On occasions, my father would be ruthless. Sometimes, negotiations were no more than punishments being dispensed. There would never be blooddirectlyon his hands, but he always had ways of making people bleed.
***
I crouched low, looking through the rungs of the staircase railing as I listened to my father’s shouts fill the air.
“What do you think they are arguing about?” Nico asked beside me, crouched low in case anyone was to walk by.