My teeth ground together.
You hear me?
You want me to wear tight clothing? You want to destroy me?
No!
Rashness overrode my brain. My hand soared up, yanking off the strap clinging loosely to my shoulder. It slid down and down. My fear-hardened nipple was the only thing keeping the weightless garment from revealing my full breast.
Elder froze, his gaze locking onto the bruised skin. “Christ, what are you doing?”
I bared my teeth.
Being an animal.
“Fuck, you really don’t understand, do you?” Smooth as syrup, he leaned forward and plucked the strap from my elbow. His fingernails threatened my paper-thin skin, slipping the strap slowly, ever so slowly, up my arm to rest on the hollow of my neck and shoulder.
His face was obsidian with no sign of light or sanity. “Don’t push me. I warned you, Pim. I’m doing my best around you, but if you pull a fucking stunt like that again, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
His palm cupped my shoulder, his flesh kissing my flesh. His face came millimetres from mine. “Whatever issues you’re going through, don’t take them out on me. Otherwise, I’ll have to return the favour and take my issues out on you.” He chuckled with black undertones. “And if I do that, you’ll know the truth about me. You’ll know that Alrik was playing make believe while I’m the true villain.”
Saliva dried up. My tongue swelled with pain.
For the first time, I believed what he said. For the first time, he didn’t hide whatever he battled. He let me look inside him, and I didn’t like what I saw.
He wasn’t a gentleman. He wasn’t refined.
He was chaos and uncultured and dying to be free to invoke whatever calamity he needed to inflict.
No…
Goosebumps scattered as his fingers stroked my shoulder, reminding me he still held me, still owned me. Terror transformed to horror as my eyes flickered from his lips to his gaze.
He didn’t move, letting me draw my own conclusions—to read between the lines of what he would never say, but I felt. I felt every word, every threat, and it didn’t pacify me, it made me want to bolt from the room and throw myself into the sea.
Running his finger under the strap, he bent and kissed my shoulder. He’d touched me before. He’d kissed me before. Yet that simple readjustment of my clothes was more erotic than anything we’d ever done.
“You still want to go to war with me, silent mouse?” Elder leaned back in his chair, making the ornate wood creak with his large bulk.
Don’t call me mouse!
“Are you so repulsed by me that you’re willing to push me until I push back? Is it so bad to be cared for when the entire time I give you sanctuary, I want to take so much more in return?”
I stopped breathing.
He buffed his fingernails on his t-shirt. “I didn’t want to have to be so stern with you, but it seems I don’t have a choice.”
My sniff made his black eyes sharpen. “All I ask of you is politeness, obedience, and eventually your voice. Three things that won’t hurt you or reduce you to something you’re not.”
I shivered at how easily he delivered his terms. How simple he made them sound when they were some of the hardest requests for me.
“You do that, and I’ll be able to keep my distance and treat you kindly. Don’t, and you’ll regret it.”
You’re hiding behind obscurity.
Don’t threaten with vagueness.
Tell me what you’ll do.
Gritting my teeth, I plopped the spoon into the soup and swirled it around. I had no intention of eating. My tongue was a constant reminder of what I’d almost lost by being brave. Elder had made it his mission to heal and cure me. But for what?
It was the not knowing that burrowed like a mole through my mind, bringing dark tunnels of recklessness. Bravery no longer had anything to do with it.
It was a matter of survival.
My previous questions came chugging back on a steam train, railroading me with coal smoke and speed.
What do you want?
Tell me.
Right now.
Tell me you’ll sell me. Hurt me. Use me.
Tell me you’ll free me.
Tell me what you’ll do if I disobey.
Just tell me so I can decide if I want to fight you, obey you, or throw myself off the bow of your ship and end it once and for all.
I wasn’t aware my anger had overflowed physically until the spoon shot from my fingers, splashing green goo all over the pristine table.
My shoulders rolled as I hunched for a beating. It would be a good one. I’d never been allowed at the table for this exact reason. I wasn’t worthy of human tools because I was too dim-witted and merely an animal to be used when it suited its owner.
He called me an animal.
Whatever attraction or pride I thought I’d seen in his gaze was gone now we’d finally been honest.