The strength that seemed to feed off Jethro’s cruelty churned hot in my stomach. “You should know me by now. I won’t obey you. You or the rest of your family.”
He chuckled. “Found a backbone up there, did you?”
I bared my teeth. “I found it the moment you stole me from my family and showed me what a monster you are.”
He held up the whip, a shadow falling over his features. “I didn’t steal you—you belong to us. I only took what was rightfully mine. And I’m no monster.”
My heart raced. “You don’t know the meaning of the word, so how can you define yourself?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I think the height of the tree is giving you false confidence. I doubt you’d be talking to me that way if you were down here.” He twitched the whip. “Where I could reach you, hit you, make you behave like you ought to.”
He’s testing you.
I tilted my chin, looking down my nose. “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t, but right now I have the advantage, and I mean to use it.”
He laughed, absently stroking Squirrel’s head as the dog plonked himself by Jethro's feet. “Advantage? I wouldn’t go that far, Ms. Weaver.”
My skin crawled at the use of my last name. He didn’t use it out of consideration or even because the address was my identity—he used it to keep the barrier between us cold and impenetrable.
What is he so afraid of? That my first name will make him waver in his ludicrous family’s goals?
“Why don’t you call me Nila?” I leaned forward, not caring I was naked or stuck in a tree. I had the power for however long I kept him talking. “Are you afraid using my first name is too personal? That you’ll start to feel something for me?”
He sneered. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“What you did at the stables. Showing me sides of you that you’ve kept hidden, in the hopes it will spark some sort of humanness in me.” He shook his head. “I’m not someone you can manipulate.”
A small smile stretched my lips. “I already did.” Gathering my leaf-tangled hair, I draped it over my shoulder. The last dregs of sunshine disappeared behind a cloud, leaving us in green shadows.
“What?” His nostrils flared, his temper sparking like an uncontrolled blaze.
I smiled, enjoying his annoyance. He claimed he was cold-hearted and impervious. He lied.
I’ll show him. I’ll prove he’s as ill-equipped to play this charade as I am.
“Do you want me to paint it out for you? To show you how hypocritical you are?”
He grabbed Squirrel’s ear, making the dog flinch. Squirrel moved away, an angry reproof in his black eyes. “Careful, Ms. Weaver,” Jethro whispered. “Everything you say up there will have consequences when you get down here.”
I refused to let fear quiet me. Not when I had the freedom to speak—no matter how brief.
“Nila. My name is Nila. Say it. It seems we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so you might as well save yourself breath when you need to summon me. Or do you like reminding yourself that I’m a Weaver? Your so-called hated enemy. Do you need to reinforce that knowledge every time? How about that beloved silence you keep claiming you wield? You think you hide so well. Listen up. You don’t.”
Jethro backed away, crossing his arms. A dark, unreadable expression etched his face. “I call you by your last name out of respect.” He spat the last word. “We aren’t friends. We aren’t even acquaintances. We’ve been thrown into this together, and it’s up to me to make the fucking rules on how you’ll be treated.”
We both froze, breathing hard.
Oh, my God.
He’s been thrown into this. My mind charged ahead with questions.
Did he not want this?
Was he forced, same as me?
Jethro hissed, “Get out of the fucking tree. I want to be home before dark.”
Hoarding my questions and the small furl of hope, I pointed at the sky. “It’s already dusk. How long did you hunt me, Jethro? How long did you search for a vulnerable, weak, little Weaver?”
He ignored my questions, focusing on the last part of my sentence. “You think you’re weak?”
“No, you think I’m weak.”
“How so?”
I straightened my shoulders. There was a…genuineness in his tone. The animosity between us suddenly…disappeared. It took me a few seconds to answer. My voice was quieter, less abrasive. “You think I’ll put up with what you plan to do with me—that I won’t fight? That I won’t do everything in my power to stop you from killing me?”
His face battled with a smirk and understanding. He settled on a frosty grimace. “Of course, I expect it. If you didn't, I’d say you were already dead inside. No one wants to die.”
I had no reply to that. A chill darted over my skin. For the first time, we were talking. So much had happened since we met. There was so much between us that it felt as if we’d been fighting this war for years—which maybe we had, and we just didn’t know it.
“What do you mean to do with me?” I whispered, dropping all pretence and opting for truth.
He jerked, his eyes tightening at the softness in my tone. “I’ve told you.”
I shook my head. “No, you haven’t.” I looked away. “You’ve threatened me. You’ve made me come in a room full of men, and you’ve told me the method of my death. None of that—”
“You’re saying that isn’t being honest about your future?”
I glared. “I wasn’t finished. I was going to say, before you rudely interrupted, what else is there?”
His mouth parted in surprise. “Else? You’re asking what else there is to this debt?”
“Forget the debt. Tell me what to expect. Give me that at least, so I can prepare myself.”
He cocked his hip, trailing the whip through the rotten leaves by his feet. “Why?”
“Why?”
He nodded. “Why should I give you what you want? This isn’t a power exchange, Ms. Weaver.”
I bit my lip, wincing at the sudden hunger pains in my stomach. What did I have that he wanted? What could I hope to bribe him with or entice some feeling of protectiveness and kindness?
I have nothing.
I hung my head.
Silence existed, thick and heavy like the rolling dusk.
Amazingly, Jethro murmured, “Come down, and I’ll answer three questions.”
My head shot up. “Give me answers now, before I come down.”
He planted his boots deeper into the mulch-covered dirt. “Don’t push me, woman. You’ve already gotten more conversation out of me than my fucking family. Don’t make me hate you for causing me to feel weak.”
“You feel weak?”
“Ms. fucking Weaver. Climb down here right now.” His temper exploded, smashing through his iceberg shell, giving me a hint at the man I knew existed.
A man with blood as hot as any other.
A man with so many unresolved issues, he’d tied himself into untieable knots.
My heartbeat clamoured as Jethro’s ice fell back into place, blocking everything I just glimpsed.
I sucked in a breath. “Hypocrite.”
He seethed. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.” Standing on awkward legs, I hugged the tree. “Three questions? I want five.”
“Three.”
“Five.”
Jethro moved suddenly, stomping to the base of the tree, gripping the bottom branch. “If you make me climb up there to get you, you’ll be fucking sorry.”
“Fine!” I moved carefully, wondering how the hell I would climb down. “Call me Nila and I’ll obey.”
He growled under his breath. “Goddammit, you push me.”
Someone has to. Someone has to smash that hypocritical shell.
I waited, face pressed against knobbly bark, fighting against the weakness in my limbs from exhaustion and hunger.
The mere thought of climbing down terrified me.
Jethro paced, crunching the undergrowth beneath his black boots. He snapped, “I will never say your first name. I will never be controlled into doing something I don’t want to do ever fucking again—especially by you. So, go ahead, stay in your tree. I’ll just camp down here until you either fall or wither away. I don’t revel in the thought of you dying in such a fashion. I don’t relish the conversation I would have when I returned empty-handed with just a diamond collar sliced from your lifeless neck, but never think you can make me do something I don’t want to do. You’ll lose.”
He smashed the whip against the tree trunk, making me jump. “Is that quite understood?”
His temper seethed from below, covering me like a horrible quilt of scorn. I pressed my forehead against the bark, cursing myself.
For a moment, he’d seemed normal.
For one fraction of time, I didn’t fear him because I saw something in him that might, just might, be my salvation.
But he’d been pushed too far by others. He’d reached his limit and had nothing else to give. He’d shut down, and the brief glimpses I saw weren’t hope—they were historic glints at the man he might’ve been before he’d been turned into…this.
I climbed.
It was a lot harder going down than going up. My eyesight danced with grey, my knees wobbled, and sweat broke out on my skin, even though I was freezing now the night had claimed the day.
I battled with him and lost.
Time to face my future.
The closer I came to the ground, the more fear swallowed me.
I cried out as Jethro’s cold hands latched around my waist, plucking me from the tree as if I were a dead flower, and spinning me to face him.
His beautiful face of sharp lines and five o’clock shadow was shaded with darkness. The hoots of owls and trills of roosting birds surrounded us.
“I have a good mind to whip you.” His voice licked over me with frost.
I dropped my eyes. I had no more energy. It was depleted. Gone.
When I didn’t retaliate, he shook me. “What? No reply from the famous Weaver who swore at my father and brotherhood and earned the right to run for her freedom?”
I looked up, stealing myself against his golden eyes. “Yes and what was the point?”
“There’s a point to everything we do. If you’ve forgotten it, then you’re blinded by self-pity.”
A ball of fire rekindled in my belly. “Self-pity? You think I pity myself?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think. I know.” Letting me go, he grabbed the saddlebag resting against another tree and pulled out a blanket. Spreading it over roots and crinkly leaves, he ordered, “Sit, before you fall.”
I blinked. “We’re not—we’re not leaving for the Hall?”
He glowered. “We’ll leave when I’m damn well ready. Sit.”
I sat.
WHAT THE FUCK are you doing?
I couldn’t answer that. I had no clue.
I should throw her over my shoulder and escort her back to Hawksridge. Instead, I made her sit. In the middle of a forest. At dusk.
What the fuck?
Nila sat by my feet smiling sadly as Bolly, the top foxhound, nuzzled into her naked side—his wet nose nudged against her breast as he whined for attention.
She sighed, hugging him close, pressing a kiss into the ruff of his neck. “You outted me, you rascal.” Her voice wobbled, even though a tight smile stayed locked on her face. “I want to hate you for it, but I can’t.”
Bolly yipped, hanging his head, almost as if he understood exactly what she jabbered on about.
I stood staring at the odd woman—the woman who, even now, surprised me.
Something twisted deep inside. Something I had no fucking intention of analysing.
Everywhere I looked, she was scratched and bruised. New bruises on top of old bruises, shallow lacerations that’d scabbed over and deeper ones still oozing blood. My eyes fell to her feet. They were covered in cuts with a puncture on the fleshy part of her large toe.
I waited for a twinge of guilt—for that humanness I told her I didn’t possess. The only emotion I got was annoyance at her hurting herself. She’d marred herself, and that reflected badly on me.
“You would rather slice yourself to pieces while running away from me, than suffer a few debts by my side?”
Her head snapped up, dark eyes arresting mine. “I would gladly hurt myself to gain my freedom.”
“And why is that pain any different from the pain I might give you?”
So much feeling existed in her gaze as she whispered, “Because it’s my choice.” She let Bolly go, dropping her hands into her naked lap. “It’s what I’ve been saying all along. You’ve stripped me of any rights. You’ve planted photographs ruining the only life I’ve ever known. You’ve destroyed—”
Something cold and angry slithered in my heart. “You talk of hurt and pain—as if I’ve treated you so unfairly.” Leaning over her, I hissed, “Tell me one instance in which I’ve hurt you.”
She frowned, her body neither flinching nor curling away from my encroachment. “Pain comes in many appearances, Jethro. Just because you haven’t raised your hand to me—apart from a slap in the dining room—doesn’t mean you haven’t hurt me more than anyone else before. You degraded me.”
“I’ve been nothing but civil. I wiped it all away for you. I did what I promised.”
She shook her head, sadness glassing her eyes. “You think that by taking me at the end, everything that happened is forgotten?” She laughed; it was full of brittle anger. “You say I belong to you—that I’m yours—custom-made and born for your torment.” A single tear fled her gaze. “Then why didn’t you stop them? Why let them have me if I’m meant to be yours?”