His dark eyes are big and lined with thick lashes that give him an appearance of a puppy.
He nods without a word.
My breath shakes, but I try to control the thick emotions at the back of my throat.
“And Christian?” I don’t finish the question, but Seven pauses once more, not looking at me as he nods a single, quick confirmation.
I stare at the beautiful man as he lays out gauze and a small tin can. Shadows lick across his sharp features. His skin isn’t pale like Christian’s. There’s a beautiful warmth to this man. It’s an aura that seeps into everything he does. He’s gentle.
You also thought Christian was a good guy, too, and now you’re chained and bloody in his bedroom.
I sigh again at that thought and continue watching the quiet man across from me.
He’s beautiful.
Too beautiful.
“And you?” I ask, afraid of the answer I will get, but I have to know.
“All of us,” Seven whispers on a tone filled with self-shame.
“But you’re not like them.” I tilt my head at him and wonder if he’s the key to getting me the fuck out of this place.
His head lifts abruptly, and the sharpness of his jaw ticks as he looks at me.
“I’m exactly like them.” The coldness of his gaze sends a shiver right through me. “Unbutton your shirt,” he orders on a voice like controlled violence.
I swallow hard, and I can’t look at him for several seconds. He is just like them. Just like the king. And he’s never going to fucking save me from this.
No one’s going to fucking save me here.
“Unbutton the shirt so I can put this on your back,” he adds on a gentler tone.
My attention lifts to his, and all that fear slowly settles inside myself.
“Right,” I mumble.
My fingers slip across sleek golden buttons. They’re heavy with a weight of possibly real gold. It’s ridiculous. Rich people really are obnoxious even when they’re supernatural.
The shirt slips down my shoulders, and I try to hold it against my chest as I turn away. I feel his gaze across my flesh as the shirt lowers even further. My spine arches as anticipation slips into the room. I feel the fabric slide down to the lace of my panties to fully show him my back.
I just turned my back on an admitted vampire.
And it probably shouldn’t make me wet at the sound of his approaching footsteps.
Seconds tick by like hours as I wait for him to touch me. The coldness of the room shivers along my flesh, with goosebumps rising across my arms. The cold length of the chain between my wrists skims my breasts, and I’m suddenly aware of how heavy my breaths are.
And then, ever so lightly, cold fingers slide slowly down the long length of my spine. A sting of pain shakes through me, but it’s an erotic, conflicting tingling that only builds deep inside with every move of his hand.
“He won’t touch you. Not really,” he says, his words kissing across my shoulder blade while a warm salve covers the wound on my back.
I hiss from the intensity that shoots through me, but it dissolves ever so strangely. It isn’t a numbing cream like human medicine. It’s... just gone. He takes the pain away with the slow motion of his hands.
“I don’t really believe you,” I whisper, a far-off laugh lingering on my words.
“He’s not legally allowed to touch you until Thorn arrives to give you away.”
Thorn?