I wished Gabriel didn’t know my name.
I wished he’d never seen me, as icy fear trickled down my spine.
“Is that so?” Gabriel said, and with one swift motion, he pushed off the sideboard and took a step toward me.
“No,” Lucian called out sharply. “Gabriel, wait!”
“Get away from me!” I cried, stumbling backwards.
But Gabriel didn’t stop.
He lunged at me as saw Hemsworth rushing in from the side, and I flung the contents of my glass in Gabriel’s face.
I had taught at university for ten years and done psychological studies in some of the country’s hardest prisons, but I’d never felt anything like the frisson of fear that went through me at the sight of Gabriel’s coal-black eyes fixed on me as the blood-red drops of wine slid down his angular, sculpted cheekbones.
But I was so pissed my mouth moved faster than that primitive reptile part of my brain that should have shut up.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He raised his whiskey glass and smashed it against the big oak table, and then there was a jagged, bright piece of glass between his fingers.
“You should be. Want to play with me, baby girl? I can play too.”
He gripped my wrist, raising it high, his big fingers digging into my flesh as he dragged the sharp shard down my wine glass. The bright scarlet liquid gushed down my arm, splashing into my face and dripping down my neck.
Gabriel yanked my arm higher and closed his teeth around my wrist, sucking up the wine as his teeth bit painfully hard on me.
I wasn’t a violent person, not by a long shot.
Once one of my patients had thrown a glass bottle at me, close enough that I felt the breath of it past my cheek.
And even then I hadn’t been violent at all, just startled.
But I swung my other hand at Gabriel’s face, wanting to slap the shit out of him.
He was a fucking spoiled, rotten asshole!
But he deflected the blow easily as I saw the bright flash of his white teeth.
Then I felt a hard hand yank me back, ripping me painfully from Gabriel’s grip, and it was Lucian, with Hemsworth darting between us.
“Gabriel, stop. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it,” Lucian begged.
Was I mistaken or was there a little tremble of fear in Lucian’s voice as he looked at his own son?
“Fucking asshole!” I cried, too angry to be cautious.
“Let me see her,” he said coldly, shoving his uncle aside as Lucian dragged me backwards toward the door.
I struggled against Lucian’s hold, my cheeks burning. It was humiliating to be held back like we were two fucking prize fighters.
“I said let me see her.”
For a moment no one spoke, and I tasted something unfamiliar on my tongue, the tang of blood, the bite of iron.
Violence
The front of my shirt was soaked with wine, and my wrist stung where he had bitten down on it.
