I stared at him, my pulse loud in my ears, drowning out everything but the sound of his voice. The fear I’d expected to feel, the rational, self-preserving fear wasn’t there. Instead, something else was curling low in my stomach, winding up my spine. A low, unsettling pull like the air between us was threaded with wires, each one humming with an electric current that only I could feel.
His gaze didn’t flinch, didn’t waver, didn’t break. I’d been looked at before, judged, weighed and found useful or not. But this wasn’t that this was a look that stripped me down to bone and rebuilt me in his image before I could take my next breath.
“You don’t even know me,” I said finally, my voice thinner than I wanted, though the words were meant to land like a challenge.
“I know enough,” he replied, and there was no doubt in his voice, no hesitation. The weight of it settled over me like a chain… but it didn’t feel cold. “And the rest, I’ll learn.”
Something in his tone told me it wasn’t a patient kind of learning. It would be the relentless, consuming kind, where every inch of me, every thought, every secret would be found out and claimed. And I didn’t know if I wanted to run from that… or straight into it.
“I’m not yours,” I pushed back, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “You can’t just… decide that because you, because you bit me…suddenly I belong to you. I’m not some possession you can pick up and keep.”
His jaw ticked once. “You can argue all you want,” he said, low, dangerous, “but it doesn’t change the truth.”
My mouth opened to throw another retort, but it never came out, because Lucien moved. Fast. One second, I was glaring at him, the next his mouth was on mine, scorching and unyielding. The kiss was a storm, heat and dominance, the taste of something dark and addictive flooding my senses. I forgot to breathe, forgot the fight, forgot my own name for one dizzying second.
Then he pulled me closer, his arm like iron at my back, his other hand stroking down my waist, moving up to cup my breast…
That’s when everything shattered. The heat, the dizzy pull between us, it all collapsed under the weight of memory. A different hand, a forceful grip. The smell of stale sweat and cheap whiskey. Voices laughing while I was held down. The tears filled my eyes, my muscles tensing like I was being attacked.
My chest tightened like a vice. The room spun. I shoved at him, not hard enough to move him, but enough to break contact. “Don’t…” The word came out hoarse, jagged. My breathing sounded like I had just run a marathon.
Lucien froze instantly, his hand dropping away. His eyes went black, not the hunger I’d seen before, but the kind of darkness that promised death. He stepped back a half inch, and his voice, when it came, was lethal.
“They touched you.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.
I didn’t answer, I couldn’t, but I didn’t have to. The air between us felt like it went razor sharp. His rage was a physical thing now, a predator pacing just under his skin. He turned away, dragging both hands through his hair like if he didn’t, he’d wrap them around someone’s throat. “Every. Single. One of them,” he said, each word cut from pure violence, his voice a deep growl pulled from his very soul, “will beg for death before I’m done.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest, pressing into the headboard. Part of me wanted to tell him not to go, not to make more blood spill because of me, but the other part of me, the darker part, wanted to know that the men that hurt me, that hurt the other women, would never be able to do it again.
Lucien stood there for a long beat, breathing like he was forcing air in and out of his lungs. Then, slowly, he turned back to me, the edges of his fury smoothed over, but not gone. Not even close.
“Rest,” he ordered, his tone softer but still absolute. “You’re safe now. Nothing touches you again.”
He didn’t leave. He stayed in the chair beside the bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his presence like a wall between me and the world. I felt the heat of him even with space between us, the weight of his eyes tracking every shift I made.
I don’t know when my own exhaustion won, but the last thing I was aware of was the silhouette of him there, watching, guarding, holding the violence back until I was asleep.
Chapter 5
The second her breathing evened out, I knew I had to get out of the room. Not because I didn’t want to be there, hell no, I wanted to keep watch over her all night, but because the pressure inside me was a loaded gun with a hair trigger. One wrong thought, one memory of the bruises on her ribs, and I’d snap.
I slipped out without a sound, closing the door behind me, and headed down the hall to my own room. The second the door shut, I drove my fist into the wall.
The plaster gave way with a crack, splintering under my knuckles, leaving a ragged hole the size of my forearm. Blood streaked my skin, but I didn’t feel it. I never felt pain when the rage was this deep, it drowned out everything else. The skin started knitting back together before I’d even taken my next breath, the bone aligning as the fury still pumped hot through my veins.
“Motherfuckers,” I growl as I started pacing. The room felt too small, my thoughts too loud. The image of her flinching under the doctor’s hands kept flashing through my head. The faint track marks on her arms, her split lip. The fucking goddamn chains.
The chair by the desk was next…I fisted my hands around the top before I slammed it across the room until it shattered againstthe far wall, wood splintering across the floor. My breathing was ragged now, sharp, each inhale cutting against my ribs.
I needed blood. Not to drink…though I’d tear into someone without hesitation, but in the old way. The kind of blood that came from ending someone who deserved it.
I grabbed my phone and hit the number I wanted. It rang once.
“Lucien.” Draugr’s voice was calm as ever, that quiet lethal tone that meant he’d be ready for whatever came next.
“I need you here,” I said, my voice lower than usual, rough around the edges.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
