He wouldn’t even look me in the eye as he untied my hands, grinding his teeth like he was in a murderous rage.
“Get out of here. Go home,” he said, turning away from me.
I clutched his shirt to my chest. “What?” I asked, chasing after him.
Finally he met my stare, and his gaze leveled me. As ferocious as a kick to the teeth. “Get the hell out of here, Anika. Get your ass back to the castle. Or I’ll take my rage out on that maid of yours that’s always following you around.”
My mouth fell open and I stood there, horrified, as if he had transformed into a monster before my very eyes.
He knew Maria was my best friend, not just my maid. He knew I’d brought her with me into this new, strange land when my mother had married his father. He knew what she meant to me. The very idea of him mentioning such a thing rattled me to my very core. Now, even the kiss seemed like nothing but a cruel joke.
“You would never.”
He narrowed his eyes, and ran his tongue over his teeth.
“You’ve got no fucking idea what I’m capable of. Rosie’s there, through the trees.” I pointed and jerked my head toward where I’d left the horses. “Now get the fuck out of here. And don’t make me say it again.”
Chapter 3
Maksim
She didn’t say another word to me; she wouldn’t even look at me.
With her jaw hard and her lips pursed, she tucked my shirt tight into her britches and stomped through the trees. I watched, moving forward keeping my distance, as she mounted Rosie, taking off at a full gallop without even a fuck you glance.
The forest floor shook under my feet when she thundered away, as skilled a rider as any man I’d ever met. Her fox darted into the underbrush, no doubt taking a faster route as he was unable to keep up with her pace. In a matter of seconds, she was gone. And I was all alone.
I blew out a long breath and ran my hand over my jaw, trying to pull myself the fuck together. If I could’ve punched myself in the face, I would have.
I had to go and fucking kiss her? I hated myself for what I’d said to her, about Maria but I fucking panicked. What kind of brother forces his sister to kiss him, except a complete monster? Well, a monster I would be if that was what it took to make her hate me, and perhaps if she hated me then I could stop fucking loving her.
I’d fucking blown it. All of it. Just for the sake of one single kiss. What a kiss it had been, though—I could still taste her, I could still smell her. And I wanted her now more than fucking ever.
Wanting her like I did. I hated myself for it. Letting out a growl, I punched my hand into my palm as hard as I could.
Funneling my rage, I set about lugging the decapitated bodies of the highwaymen into a pile. I dragged them by their ankles off the path, piling them up like firewood. They deserved deaths a lot worse than they got as punishment for scaring Anika. Let the vultures come to peck out their eyes and dispose of their corpses.
Cracking my neck side to side, I got my own horse from where he was waiting deeper in the forest. He could tell that my blood was still up—when he saw me coming, his eyes went wide and he jerked his head back as I touched him.
Though I felt like I was back in some semblance of control, clearly I was still white-hot with rage at myself and with desire for Anika. Horses. Like living divining rods. They fucking know the truth that we don’t know how to admit to ourselves.
I calmed him down with a few long strokes of his flank and then mounted him, heading slowly out of the forest. The threat to punish Anika’s maid, Maria, was an idle one. But I knew my reputation for cruelty would make her believe it. I knew full well that Maria was one of her biggest weaknesses.
They were both alone here in Estana—they had each other and not much else. Anika had her mother, but they acted like strangers. Maria was Anika’s only real family. I knew that it had shocked Anika, me threatening her closest friend, and I hated the memory of the look on her face, the utter disgust, the absolute contempt.
But desperate times call for desperate fucking measures. If I hadn’t gotten her away from me, right that very second, I knew I’d have taken her, with or without her consent. Threatening Maria was the lesser of two evils. And evil was what I did best.