“Childish?” she repeats, a familiar rage building in her tone.
I’m certain this won’t end well for me, but that stubborn streak of defiance ingrained inside the very marrow of my bones refuses to back down. There is also the small part of me that simply wants to keep talking to her, even if it is a fight. “Incredibly childish.” I bite the words out, clenching my jaw.
She nods her head a couple of times before licking the front of her teeth, and as fucked up as it is, something inside me sparks to life at the anger brewing behind her gorgeous, honey-colored eyes. In my mind, anger and passion toe a fine line, and if there is one thing that can bring me to my knees, it’s Azalea when she’s passionate.
“Question for you then, since you seem to be so brilliant. Out of everyone in the room, which one of us threw a temper tantrum over a debt payment and decided to then kidnap someone against her will who had nothing to do with said debt and has ever since been too big of an ass to admit they were wrong and therefore kept the person prisoner in the coldest, emptiest, loneliest castle that has ever graced all of Condefes?”
My face hardens. Her blow landed its mark. She knows I detest it when she mentions how much she hates my castle. Her lipstilt into a triumphant smile when she sees me try to mask my budding anger at her remark.
Crossing around my desk, I close the distance between us. She stands taller and turns with me as I circle her until the backs of her thighs are pressed against the edge of my desk behind her. Once I’m standing in front of her, I place both of my hands on top of the wooden surface, caging her in. Only then does she turn her face away from mine to keep herself from touching me, as if I’m some kind of leper. A surge of fury burns in my veins at the repulsed crinkle of her nose. Before I can think better of it, my hand grips the back of her neck. Using my thumb, I roughly press it against her jaw until her face tilts back up to look at me.
“Do me a favor then,prisoner,” I sneer, tightening my grip, “and wear something pretty to dinner.”
Her nostrils flare, and my eyes drop to the movement before dipping further to look at her lips. I can see her suck in a breath as she watches me, and to my utter dissatisfaction, it’s not a breath of anticipation. She’s nervous. Nervous that I’ll take something that isn’t being offered to me. In this moment, I can see exactly how much of a monster she sees me to be. Sadly, I don’t blame her. Time has turned me into a beast that has left me unrecognizable even to myself.
Dropping my hand from her neck, I stalk out of my study, knowing I’m heading towards a cold drenching. I crave the sting of icy water, hoping it will extinguish the burning heat in my body.
By the time I’m sitting down at the dinner table, my thoughts are no less scrambled, and my urges are barely subdued. I hear the door creak, and lift my head, curious to see the ensemble she put together after my demand from earlier. I almost can’t stop the laugh that rumbles inside me when Azalea enters the room. She came to dinner in rags.
6
Azalea
Ipullthethreadbaregarment over my head and toss it in a heap on the ground, leaving me in nothing but the silken slip I wore beneath it. Rhoden and I spent the afternoon on a mission to make the ugliest dress we could for me to wear to dinner. Braxton can boss me around until he’s blue in the face, but that doesn’t mean I will ever listen to any of his demands.
I grit my teeth at the memory of how smug he looked when he saw me in my chosen attire, as if he somehow still won. Perhaps he had. After all, I was the one wearing tattered strips of cloth for a dress. Still, how could he look at me with amusement and not even the slightest flicker of frustration? The condescending prick.
I so badly want to make him feel even a fraction of the suffocating rage I feel daily because of him. Not that it will do me any good to get under his skin, but I still try. After all, I have to entertain myself somehow in this dreary place.
The memory of Braxton’s vile smirk lodges its way into my brain. The way the corners of his lips tilted and the slightest glimmer entered his striking dark eyes, as if we were sharingsome kind of inside joke. Somehow, my blatant disobedience of his demand amused him. Dare I say for the briefest of moments, he looked almost…happy. And I hate it.
Needing something to distract me from the dastardly dinner, I turn to my writing desk, hoping that drafting a letter to my fiancé will help in ridding my mind of just how infuriating Braxton is. I stall when I turn toward my desk, and my eyes dance over the glass vase still sitting on my nightstand with the bouquet of now slightly wilted forget-me-nots. The once vibrant purple petals seem to have dulled from the lack of attention they received throughout today. Those fucking flowers that I’m not sure are meant to act as an apology, an attempt at wooing me, or simply as another means to piss me off. And they do. They piss me off so profoundly that seeing them right now catapults my once-dimmed temper into uncontrollable outrage.
I don’t know how I didn’t notice them as I was getting ready for dinner, but they should have long since been disposed of. Now, I intend to do just that. Crossing the room, I curl my bony digits around the cool glass, but as I hover the vase over the waste bin next to my writing desk, I hesitate.
For a fleeting moment, I feel something stirring deep in my gut. Something that doesn’t feel like anger, or disgust, or even annoyance. Something that feels entirely different. Before I can try and decipher what that feeling is, I hear my door creak open. Turning my head, I see Rhoden slip into my room, a nefarious look gracing her features.
“How did it—”
“You were supposed to get rid of these.” I snap at her, shaking the vase in the air for emphasis before placing it back on my nightstand. The sudden urge to expel them, and whatever they were momentarily making me feel, out of my presence, is overwhelming.
Rhoden pales. I’m never harsh with her, and certainly rarely ever this curt. “I-I’m sorry.” She stumbles over her words, and I hate to see her good mood tarnished.
“No.” I shake my head, slumping down onto my bed. Normally, I would cover myself up, and not just laze around in my slip in front of Rhoden, but I’m too exhausted to care after today. I dramatically fling myself backward until I’m lying flat on my back and stare blankly at the cream-colored ceiling. “I’m sorry,” I groan, listening as her feet patter across the floor of my room.
I’m soon greeted with the weight of something draping over my stomach. Looking down, I see that Rhoden has gotten me my robe. Sitting up, I scowl at nothing in particular as I slip my arms through the sleeves and secure it tightly around my waist.
“I take it dinner went well then?”
“I swear to all the celestials above Rho, he lookedamusedwhen I walked in tonight.”
“Amused?” she squawks, looking just as flabbergasted as I feel. “Are you sure you didn’t misread him?” She shakes her head, her perfectly straight black hair swaying like water with the movement.
“I swear to you, I think I almost witnessed his first laugh.”
Rhoden snorts, which always seems like such a startling noise coming from such a delicate girl. “You must be dramatizing the situation.”
“Do you find me to often be dramatic?”
