I let my hands drop down, feeling the muscles around my mouth pull it into an affronted smirk.
“Oh, and I expect yourwishesare aligned with Albert’s, aren’t they? Why else would you tolerate this?!”
Einar’s eyes met mine, full of frost. He advanced upon me like a brewing storm, oppressively still and cold. I took an involuntary step back.
“If that were the case, my girl,” he spoke, exercising his talent for being deafeningly quiet, “would I let you speak to me this way? Eh?”
I bit my lower lip to stop it from trembling. I shook my head.
“No. I don’t expect you would.”
“No,” he affirmed more kindly, sensing that he had made his point, but still took another step closer to truly tower over me. “I most certainly would not. Granted, you would not make it easy for me to break you but break you I would. We both know I’d have it in me to do that. It would be so much simpler to smack you around than to worry about you constantly. What makes you happy? Will you get angry if I say this or that? How do I keep you satisfied? Will I ever be good enough for you? Will you leave me when you get the chance?”
Einar’s eyes bore into me until I felt like he could see to the marrow of my bones, seeking answers to his questions.
“Albert thinks I’m weak because I’d much rather think about all of the above and more, day and night, than be nothing but a tyrant to you, one you only stay with because you have no choice.” There was gravel in his voice, but he kept his volume low.
Despite his harsh words, he stepped back to grant me more space. His mouth was hard and unsmiling. I resisted the impulse to lower my gaze, withstanding the piercing look in his eyes without squirming or looking away. Satisfied, his expression mellowed out soon after.
“Still ... I wouldn’t push me quite so hard if I were you.” A wolfish grin flashed on his face.
“Are you flirting with me? If you think it will make me drop this, then you’re sorely mistaken.”
I lied. He wasn’t all that mistaken. He knew far too well just how much I liked my seduction with a hefty dose of fear, and the way he used that knowledge was unholy. Every cell of my beingbuzzed and tingled with the desire to see exactly what would happen if I did push him, provoke him, just a tad, just enough for him to show his teeth and reward me with retribution. It took all my willpower to stay on the subject and not let myself be manipulated into abandoning it.
“Back to your other question, then. I didn’t interfere because it is not my place,” Einar said mildly. “I don’t approve, and told him as much, but ultimately it is not my business.”
“What do you mean? You are the leader, of course it’s your business!” I protested for the second time, but in an admittedly more subdued manner.
“Sure. I am thesettlementleader. So, I lead the settlement. I decide how we use resources and assign tasks to people. I interfere if someone is endangering the colony as a whole. But I’m here to wage a war on the virus, not to involve myself in domestic squabbles. Even if I wanted to—and I most certainly don’t—I have no mandate to tell people how to live their private lives. The minute I start doing that, the minute I rob someone of their hope for what they want the future to look like, I guarantee you there’ll be no colony,” he told me emphatically. “And especially if that someone is Albert, backed not only by his ten Hungarian pals, regardless of their opinion on the matter, but by other like-minded men. There’d be a mutiny. A bad one, since the Hungarians are the best bloody fighters we have. I won’t risk losing them just so that one girl doesn’t get slapped around.”
Trickles of the ugly truth behind his otherwise damnable words sneaked into my mind despite the barriers I had put up against them. I nodded, grudgingly, and one of his hands slipped around my waist while the other pushed a stray strand of hair away from my face.
“What if I tried to help her?” I asked. “What if I tried to get her away from him?”
He shook his head firmly, his hair glinting like metal in the unwavering autumn sun.
“No, you mustn’t do that. You’re my girl. If you get in the middle of this, chances are you’ll force me to do so as well, if only to protect you. I won’t get in the way if someone unrelated to me gets involved, as long as it doesn’t disrupt the settlement too much, but it sure as hell can’t be you, Ren.”
I nodded with a heavy sigh, knowing my defeat when I saw it and unwilling to dwell on it for any longer. For the time being, at least.
“I’m your girl, now, am I?” I rolled the words out of my mouth, tasting the pleasure they gave me, smiling up at him tremulously in an unspoken invitation.
“You are.” Einar grinned back at me as he ran his hands down the curve of my hips. “And come to think of it, it wouldn’t hurt to teach you a lesson or two in what that means.” He bit my earlobe, and I giggled as his long stubble tickled me. “Hmm, yes, I think I would enjoy that ...”
“I think I would too,” I replied truthfully, digging my nails into the bare skin showing through his collar until I was sure to leave faint red marks behind. “But better do that in private, don’t you think?”
“My thoughts exactly, sweetheart.” My only warning before Einar picked me up over his shoulder and carried me up to the apartment.
22
OF SINS AND SACRAMENTS
He set me down by the bed in the sun-flooded bedroom, the charcoal sheets glinting in the sharp light.
“Do you want to play a game?” Einar asked, breathless in a way that suggested he was so not from the exertion of the climb, but from excitement.
“Yes,” I replied, my own breath hitching in my throat.
