“Finish what you were going to say.” His fists shook. “Before you can’t.”
I swallowed hard and had every intention of turning mute, but the final sentence fell off my tongue. “No matter how much you try to scare me, I’ve...grown used to you. I don’t think you’ll hurt me which makes me bolder than I should be. I’ve seen you at your weakest. I’ve seen the way you adore Whisper. I’ve seen you. But...you’ve also seen me. You’ve helped me when I was hurting and gave me your blood to prevent me hurting again. You do care, even if you pride yourself on making it seem like you don’t. Which makes me wonder if...”
“If?” he snarled.
Ugh, just get it over with, seeing as you were stupid enough to start.
Tipping up my chin, I announced, “If you have feelings for me.”
He didn’t move. Not even to breathe. “You’re asking if I like you? What are you? Twelve?”
I flinched as something dark and starving flickered in his stare before being smothered with a mocking scoff.
Before I could reply, he muttered, “Out of all the whores and killers they’ve sent me, you’re the weakest and most useless. You can barely stand upright when having a conversation. You have a tendency of stealing my wine and threaten to pass out if I so much as look at you wrong. You would rather nap than work and have an annoying little habit of distracting me.” He laughed softly. “Do you think I could like those qualities?” He stepped into me, tall and threatening. “That I could like you?”
Swooping to my feet, I backed up.
I almost fell over Whisper as he slunk to my side and pressed against me. “You don’t have to be cruel about it.”
“Is it cruel to tell the truth?”
“It’s cruel to take pleasure in it.”
“I’ve never felt pleasure,” he snapped. “Not once. Not a single fucking day have I ever experienced a single droplet of pleasure or happiness, yet here you are expecting me to command you to give me one.” Stepping into me, he flicked my forehead with his finger. “I fear for what’s going on in that broken brain of yours.”
I froze.
Did he just...flick me?
He shook his head with a chuckle as if my reaction amused him.
He acted like a schoolboy tugging the pigtails of the girl he liked.
It made me even more confused and—
“This is what I wanted to teach you,” he growled, yanking the dagger he’d stolen out of his waistband.
My mouth went dry as he held it up.
The metal glinted with the many lightbulbs from the chandelier above.
I stiffened. “What...what are you doing?”
“Stopping you from getting into even deeper trouble than you already are.” Running his thumb along the sharp edge, his eyes narrowed. “Romance is an utter waste of time. I have no interest in it. No desire to feel it. Just because I find comfort in your company doesn’t mean I want anything more than that.”
“You find comfort in my company?”
He drew himself up as if he hadn’t meant to say that.
His voice dropped to a growl. “You are here to do what I ask, that’s all. I will never ask you to sleep with me because the very idea of losing any more control than I already have sickens me.”
“Never say never,” I blurted stupidly.
God, why?
What is wrong with you?
The knife twinkled in his hand as he shook a little. “You truly have a death wish today, don’t you?”
“It’s your fault.” I groaned and hung my head. “What is it about you that makes me say things that I know are hazardous to my health?”
He gave a low, humourless laugh. “I don’t know...you tell me. You’re the only one reckless enough to talk to the monster everyone else wants to bleed to death.”
My heart physically hurt. “So you admit you’re not as cold-hearted as you pretend to be?”
“Oh, I’m not cold.” He shrugged a little too casually. “I burn every minute of every fucking day. The searing pain in my veins means I want nothing more than revenge on those who did this to me and if it wasn’t for the fact that your presence helps temper that pain, I wouldn’t bother being anywhere near you.” He grinned and traced the tip of the dagger along my neck. “Do you honestly think you would still be alive if I didn’t get some benefit from keeping you that way?”
I gulped, leaning away from the knife.
“I get it.” My chin strained upward, trying to avoid the cold kiss of metal. “I’ll stop. I’m sorry. I—”
“Quiet.” The dagger froze against my skin.
For a heartbeat, I thought he’d decided I wasn’t worth the trouble and decided to slit my neck, but a growl rumbled in his chest, exactly like Whisper.
Slowly, deliberately, he tilted my chin higher with the flat of the blade.
The cold edge pressed just below my jaw, angling my face into the light.
“Who,” he asked softly, almost politely, “did this?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I BLINKED. I BLANKED. MY HEART thundered. “What?”
The dagger left my skin just as his fingers replaced it. He traced the thin, angry line Lydia had autographed on me last night. His touch was so careful, so gentle, it burned.
“Who cut you?” His voice shook with barely controlled fury. “Who dared fucking hurt you?”
I swallowed, heat rising into my face. “It’s nothing.” I couldn’t tell him what happened because that would lead to confessing I’d lost his blood. And after this fun little conversation where I’d learned the only reason he kept me alive was because I was some unexplainable pharmaceutical for his pain, no way did I want to antagonise him any further.
He inhaled sharply as his hand fell from my jaw, clenched into a fist, then opened again as if he couldn’t decide what to do with it.
“Was it those two who never leave my front steps?” The veins in his temples stood out; a shimmer of sweat appeared by his brow, making it seem as if he strained against some internal leash.
I tried to step away, to avoid the rage pouring off him but his hand lashed out and wrapped exquisitely tight around my wrist. “Answer me.”
Whisper slunk low to the ground, flattening his ears.
Lucien’s hand trembled around me, his jaw clenched so tight the tendons in his neck twitched. He looked...dangerous. Unhinged. Fury was a living thing, stalking under his skin, filling with pressure and hate and violence.
Our eyes snared and I drowned in him. In his rage and misery and pain.
Such, such pain.
His teeth ground together just as a soft beep sounded. A flash of red appeared beneath his shirt. He sucked in a ragged breath as his spine snapped straight.
He stumbled, the dagger clattering from his fingers as he doubled over. Gagging on despair, his impossibly handsome face twisted, beautiful and terrible, his teeth bared as he clutched his chest with both hands.
“Fuck.” His knees buckled.
I caught him without thinking—my arms snapping around his waist, hauling his bulk against me, but it was no use. I didn’t have the strength to keep him upright and we collapsed together. Me beneath him—his burning, burning body crushing mine against the carpet. His head fell forward; his lips smashed to mine, entirely by accident.
He froze.
I froze.
Every nerve lit like a firework about to ignite.
His lips burned as hot as the rest of him, pressed tight to mine, his body solid and unmovable.
For one dizzying heartbeat, I gave in. For one destroying insanity, he sank heavier over me. Our bodies pressed and heated, all of him against all of me, his lips parting, the warmth of his mouth dark and—
“What the fuck are you doing?” Wrenching away, he rolled off me and lay panting on his back.
Scrambling to my knees, I touched my lips.
Another barely-there kiss but...wow.
I’d been kissed before, but only once, and only by a boy I’d had no feelings for. I’d chosen to lose that first kiss label because I was sick of being mocked for it. I sometimes regretted not losing my virginity that night too, just to get it over with.
