His head tilted, and he chuckled under his breath before giving me several points to take to Theo. When he finished talking, he stood and offered his hand. My heart thumped in my chest while I considered refusing him.
Had I ever voluntarily touched this man?
With a shaky hand, I reached for him. Warm fingers closed around mine, and he yanked me to my feet. I tried to let go, buthe held tight and pulled me close. “You still think I’m going to hurt you, don’t you?”
I swallowed. “Hurting people is what you do.”
His brow raised. “Why would I spend all this time trying to keep you alive just to hurt you in the end?”
“I don’t know. You’ve been playing mind games from the beginning.”
His eyes flared with surprise, there and gone before I could investigate it. “Have I?”
“You—you purposely mess with me.”
He shook his head and dropped my hand. “I think you hear what you feel. Not what I say.”
Was that true? Though the man had lost some of his terrifying aura, he still chilled my blood to ice. Every time the memory of his first execution popped into my head, the fear would wash over me like acid rain.
I’d witnessed Lucas Scott kill dozens without mercy. It was only a matter of time before I was next.
“What do you want from me?”
His voice softened as it sometimes did, almost brittle in its exhaustion. “I don’t want anything from you, Sophia.”
“Then…why are you doing this?”
“I told you. They hurt my sister.”
My throat thickened, and tears burned behind my eyes. It would be so easy to trust him, and yet, “I—I just don’t believe you.”
His gaze grew distant. “That’s good. You should never take someone’s words at face value.”
My stomach dropped. “Are you saying you’re lying?”
“No.” He held an arm out as an invitation to leave. “I’m not.”
The following week,we sparred as usual, but his concentration lingered more on the walls and windows than on me. After almost an hour of struggling to best him despite his distraction, I snapped. “What’s with you tonight?”
“Mmm?” He’d been gazing out the window, but his attention drifted to me.
“You got something on your mind?”
He took a silent moment to examine my face, thoughts whirring behind his eyes. The flicker of two candles accentuated the amber freckles hiding in the blue of his irises. So pretty, those eyes. The man was lightning—dazzling, but deadly.
“What sorts of things do sixteen-year-old girls think about?” he asked.
My lips parted. Uh… “What?”
“Lily Wyatt. I’m not sure she’s a normal sixteen-year-old.”
“Why?”
A subtle flush of color appeared over his sharp cheekbones, and ravenous curiosity attacked me. What horrible thoughts could be happening in that jaded, murderous mind to make himblush?
He cleared his throat. “I think maybe they…groomed her.”
“Groomed? Like they brushed her hair?” My thoughts, however, lingered much further south than the girl’s head.
