“At ease. Where is the rendezvous point?”
Lucas followed the officer from the room as the man began his brief, but I couldn’t stop the fearful whimper that escaped me. Metal clanked as I struggled to free myself. “Let me go,” I whispered.
At the door, Lucas’s ocean eyes emptied of all emotion as he stared down at me. “Youdo notmake demands of a man. Your only value is in obedience. That’s your first lesson. When I return, I’ll teach you your second.”
With that, he disappeared.
18
Mercy
The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one Nation…
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Hours passed, and my arms ached with the effort to break the bed apart and free myself. The cuffs rubbed raw spots into my wrists, and my fingers had long since grown numb. Eventually, I curled into a ball at the head of the bed, trying to ignore the chill against my bare skin.
What if Lucas never came back? What if he died out there and I was left chained in his house?
With those thoughts, I’d redouble my efforts to break the bed frame, but it was antique cast iron, thick and strong. Why couldn’t it have been Ikea junk?
I drifted in and out of consciousness, dreaming fitfully of my capture—sometimes by Hunters who wanted to use my body as a toy, but other times by the man who’d chained me here. Those latter dreams were strange. Soft. Slow. In one, he released myarms only to draw them tight around his neck, then held me like he thought he’d never get the chance. In another, he left me handcuffed while he lectured me on my inability to escape.
I jolted awake at the telltale thunk of the front door closing. Dread bloomed, dampening my palms, speeding my pulse. I made myself small and quiet, but I couldn’t stop the images of that lieutenant returning with the heat blazing in his eyes, ready to punish me or rape me or do whatever the hell he wanted.
Light preceded a body into the room.
Lucas paused at the doorway, holding a lit candle and a pile of fabric. Tears filled my eyes again, this time from relief. My shivering frame jiggled my cuffs against the metal, the only sound between us. When I could hold back no longer, his name spilled from my lips on a sob.
He drew closer, and the candlelight shed a golden glow over dark spatters on his skin. His searching gaze darted over me.
“What if he comes back?” I asked, trying not to let my voice tremble.
“He won’t.” He set the candle on the bedside table and reached for my wrists.
“You don’t know that. He knows where we meet?—”
“He’s dead.”
One wrist released, and I was finally free to move my arms. I stared up at him, but his gaze was focused on my other wrist. My voice shrank. “You killed him?”
He nodded. “He was lying. I’ve never written this address anywhere. He’s clearly been spying on me. He knew this location when he should have never found it. He knew I’m keeping secrets.” His eyes touched mine, then dropped again. “He knew your face.”
My breath caught as I rubbed the ache from my wrists, free of the metal. “How do you know he didn’t tell anyone?”
His mouth twitched, and his hand spasmed into a fist. “I just know.”
Did hetorturethat man for information? “That’s the third person you’ve killed for me,” I said.
“I’m certain it won’t be the last.” He replaced the cuffs in the bedside drawer and handed me the items he brought—thin sweatpants and a hoodie. More of his clothes.
I pulled them on while my mind whirred. Why would Lucas assume he’d have to keep protecting me? More importantly, why would he bother?
Fully dressed, I sat at the edge of the bed, examining every plane of his blood-spattered face, scrutinizing his expression. He hadn’t even bothered to wash up before he returned to me. Had he been worried?
His gentle thumb wiped the moisture from beneath my eye, and something inside me reached for him. My hands found his shirt of their own accord, and I pulled myself closer to his safety, straight into his bloody embrace. “This is why you wanted a woman, isn’t it? You were prepared.”
His arms surrounded me like they had in my dream, forming a protective barrier, and I tried to nuzzle closer. “I should have warned you,” he murmured against my hair. “I’d planned for it, but I never thought anyone would find us here. You were just so scared of it I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
