Raintree: Inferno (Raintree 1)

His keen eyes searched her face, noting the white look of utter exhaustion. “We’ll talk in the morning. I doubt you could form a coherent sentence right now. Come on, I’ll show you where your room is.”

She shrank back, and he looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Your room,” he emphasized. “Not mine. I didn’t make that a command, but I will if necessary. I don’t think you’d be comfortable sleeping in the bathroom.”

She was awake enough to retort, “You’ll have to make it a command, otherwise I can’t leave the bathroom, anyway.”

She had decided that his command not to leave the bathroom had been meant to short-circuit her own will, and by his flash of irritation, she saw she’d been right.

“Come with me,” he said curtly, a command that released her from the bathroom but sentenced her to follow him like a duckling.

He led her to a spacious bedroom with seven-foot windows that revealed the sparkling neon colors of Reno. “The private bath is through there,” he said, indicating a door. “You’re safe. I won’t bother you. I won’t hurt you. Don’t leave this room.” With that, he closed the door behind him and left her standing in the dimly lit bedroom.

He would remember to tack on that last sentence, damn him—not that she felt capable of making a run for it. Right now her capability was limited to climbing into the king-size bed, still wearing the oversize robe. She curled under the sheet and duvet, but still felt too exposed, so she pulled the sheet over her head and slept.

TEN

Monday

“Are you okay?”

Lorna woke, as always, to a lingering sense of dread and fear. It wasn’t the words that alarmed her, though, since she immediately recognized the voice. They were, however, far from welcome. Regardless of where she was, the dread was always there, within her, so much a part of her that it was as if it had been beaten into her very bones.

She couldn’t see him, because the sheet was still over her head. She seldom moved in her sleep, so she was still in such a tight curl that the oversize robe hadn’t been dislodged or even come untied.

“Are you okay?” he repeated, more insistently.

“Peachy keen,” she growled, wishing he would just go away again.

“You were making a noise.”

“I was snoring,” she said flatly, keeping a tight grip on the sheet in case he tried to pull it down—like she could stop him if he really wanted to. She had learned the futility of that in the humiliating struggle last night.

He snorted. “Yeah, right.” He paused. “How do you like your coffee?”

“I don’t. I’m a tea drinker.”

Silence greeted that for a moment; then he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. How do you drink your tea?”

“With friends.”

She heard what sounded remarkably like a growl, then the bedroom door closed with more force than necessary. Had she sounded ungrateful? Good! After everything he’d done, if he thought the offer of coffee or tea would make up for it, he was so far off base he wasn’t even in the ballpark.

Truth to tell, she wasn’t much of a tea drinker, either. For most of her life she’d been able to afford only what was free, which meant she drank a lot of water. In the last few years she’d had the occasional cup of coffee or hot tea, to warm up in very cold weather, but she didn’t really care for either of them.

She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to have that talk he seemed bent on, though what he thought they had to talk about, she couldn’t imagine. He’d treated her horribly last night, and though he’d evidently realized he was wrong, he didn’t seem inclined to go out of his way to make amends. He hadn’t, for instance, taken her home last night. He’d imprisoned her in this room. He hadn’t even fed the prisoner!

The empty ache in her stomach told her that she had to get out of bed if she wanted food. Getting out of bed didn’t guarantee she would get fed, of course, but staying in bed certainly guaranteed she wouldn’t. Reluctantly, she flipped the sheet back, and the first thing she saw was Dante Raintree, standing just inside the door. The bully hadn’t left at all; he’d just pretended to.

He lifted one eyebrow in a silent, sardonic question.

Annoyed, she narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s inhuman.”

“What is?”

“Lifting just one eyebrow. Real people can’t do that. Just demons.”

“I can do it.”

“Which proves my point.”