He lets out a laugh. “Easy, girl. You’ll have what you need.”
“I don’t want what I need. I want what I’m owed.” I snap my fingers beneath his nose. “Pay up.”
“This is starting to become far less cute,” he warns in a growl.
“What is?” Silver dips in, interjecting without any sense of shame, or acknowledgement of the moment we were having.
“I want my money. And I want my clothes. And I want... whatever else I can think of when the time comes,” I say, pushing up and away from Tore. I grab the blanket that was put over me and wrap it around myself. “I was feeling bad about what I did. Now I know one of you was going to do it anyway.”
Silver smiles one of those enigmatic smirks. “A business-minded young woman, aren’t you. You think you should get what you’re owed?”
“I do!”
I absolutely want my money. I have been poor for a very long time. If I had riches, I could hire guards, support myself. I could be free and independent. I could have the life my parents always planned for me.
“What if you’re owed more than money?”
His voice is low and enticing. His eyes seem to flash as they draw me in. There is something magnetic about Silver, something I can’t draw my attention away from.
“What do you mean?”
“What if you’re owed sex? What if you’re owed ownership? What if you need to belong to a group of men capable of handling you? You’re a dangerous, wild little thing, Trissa, but we will succeed where others have failed.”
“Succeed in doing what?”
“Taming you, making you the good girl you want to be.”
“I don’t want to be a good girl.” That sounds petulant, because it is.
“Yes, you do. You want to be my very good girl, and Tore’s and Zen’s and Keanau’s and Pharaoh’s and Alexios’ and Cowboy’s...”
“There’s too many of you.”
“Too many all at once, sure,” Silver concedes. “But over time you will find your place with all of us. We are all very different people. We have very different things to offer.”
“Right now, you all offer the same beatings.”
“Because you need to be disciplined. We know what you’re like, Trissa. You’re dangerous when you’re not supervised. You turn beauty into death. You take your revenge when the time is right. You had impeccable timing with the sheriff. The kind that can’t be taught.”
I try not to be too pleased at what doesn’t seem to be a compliment, more than a simple statement of fact.
“We know we can’t trust you. And that’s why you can trust us.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” I snort.
“He’s saying we’re going to be all over your little ass.” A deep, bass-y voice makes me turn. It’s Pharaoh, entering the room. He takes my breath away. There’s something so anciently attractive about him, but entirely elegant.
He crooks his finger at me, beckoning me from Tore’s arms. I don’t move. I don’t know what Pharaoh wants me for, but I am too sore to satisfy any more male desires today.
“Come here, Trissa.”
“No.”
Tore gets up and slaps my bottom, but lightly. “Do as he says.”
“Why?”
The next slap is not as light. I hiss and curse and move slightly toward him, doing as I am told even though I very much do not want to.