He tilts his head, eyes drinking me in with a flicker of curiosity, like he’s observing a rare animal that just bared its teeth. In that same, detached tone, he says, “The kitten has claws. More like a tiger.” A pause. His gaze holds mine, unwavering. “Do you want to live, Tiger?”
I freeze, for a moment wondering if he can read minds, like he’d seen the dark thoughts inside me. The fantasies of falling off cliffs, drowning in the ocean, hanging from a rope.
Silence stretches out as I consider his question. It’s the image of my dad, lying in a pool of his own vomit, that makes me nod my head yes.
Yes. Idowant to live.
Carrson searches my face with his dead eyes for a long time before he turns back to the crowd.
“I will not kill her,” hetells them. “I will bond her.”
Chaos erupts.
They’re furious, all the men around me. They throw up their hands, shout, and argue with each other. Carrson stands in the middle of it all, calm like he’s in the eye of a hurricane.
“You can’t,” they cry. “She’s an outsider. An interloper. An abomination.”
His lips twitch with a tiny frown at that last one.
When their temper tantrums have run out of steam, he speaks, “I have made my decision, and it is final.” Like a king, he turns and sweeps out of the circle, heading for the house without a single backward glance at me.
I have a brief second where hope soars, making my heart beat with wild abandon. He’s forgotten about me. This was all a mistake, a bad dream I can wake up from. I tense my legs, ready to run for it again, but before I can take a single step, Jackson’s back. His hand curls around my upper arm and tightens, bruising. His breath’s hot in my ear. “You’ll pay for my face, brat. I don’t care who’s bonded you. In the end, you’ll be mine.” I shiver at the hatred that curls through his words, poisoning each syllable.
I trip over my own feet as he shoves me into the house and propels me up the grand curving staircase. Carrson’s dark head, with his phone pressed to his ear, disappears around the corner just in front of us.
I barely have a chance to glance at the heavy brocade curtains that line the stairwell, the plush maroon carpet under my feet, and the dark wooden banisters before I’m shoved through a set of tall double doors. They slam shut behind me, and there’s the distinctive sound of a lock clicking into place. Jackson’s laughter is muffled on the other side of the door. “Enjoy your evening, little girl. Carrson’s a savage when he fucks. I’ve seen it myself.”
His words send fear trickling into every pore.
Please, God. No.
I pound on the door for several minutes, demanding to be let out, but all I hear from the other side is laughter. Eventually, my hand starts to hurt. Defeated, I cradle it to my chest and look at my new surroundings.
The room I’m in looks like something out of a Victorian museum. There’s an enormous four-poster bed made of dark mahogany wood. The headboard iselaborately carved. When I inspect it further, a gasp of revulsion escapes me. It depicts a scene of war. Men murder each other with their bare hands, swords, and knives in the most brutal ways. Faces contort in agony, and intestines spill to the ground. Horses rear in terror, eyes rolling, hooves slashing through the air. They fling screaming riders from their backs in a frenzy of panic and blood.
The worst part are the women. Buxom, beautiful women in various states of undress lay beneath or on top of some of the men. The expressions on the women’s faces are inscrutable, somewhere between pleasure and pain. I shudder, backing away.
What kind of person could sleep in a bed like this and not have nightmares?
Besides the bed, there’re matching nightstands, a sitting area with a couch, small table, and chairs, and an unlit fireplace with a wrought-iron screen across its opening. Two doors are visible. The one I walked in and one more, this one with a light shining through a crack in the bottom. The sound of a shower running tells me it’s a bathroom, presumably where Carrson is. Since he’s occupied, there’s no one to stop me as I run to the door that leads out, back into the hallway. I twist the knob. Locked. Just as I suspected. Next, I jiggle the large windows that look over the backyard, but they don’t budge. They’re sealed tight, like everything else in this place. I peer through the clear glass to see the backyard is now empty.
The shower shuts off, and unhurried footsteps sound, heading my way. Carrson emerges wearing nothing but a towel tied low on his narrow waist. My breath catches in my throat with fear to be trapped in a room with him, but also with something else. Some primitive part of my brain, probably left over from caveman days, registers that he’s attractive. Dangerously so. Lean, corded muscles make up his chest and arms. Powerful, they ripple with his every movement. He has a tattoo, a band of vines with sharp-tipped thorns that circles one bicep. Perched on it is a single rose, its petals expanded like it’s just bloomed. As I watch, he brushes his fingers over it, absentmindedly, like it’s a gesture repeated so often he no longer notices.
His face is handsome in a hard kind of way. Sharp square jaw, prominent cheekbones, full lips. In the brighter light of the room, his hair is dark brown, like I thought, but threaded with ribbons of auburn in subtle highlights that shimmerwhen he moves. His eyes are the darkest brown I’ve ever seen, so deep they bleed into black, almost indistinguishable from his pupils.
Ignoring me, he rummages through a tall wardrobe set against the far wall.
I start to babble. “I—I need to go. People will notice I’m gone. My shift’s not over. My boss, he’ll call the cops if I don’t show up. So will my dad.”
That last part’s a lie. My father was already passed out when I left. He won’t stir until tomorrow afternoon, if I’m lucky.
Carrson doesn’t look up. Doesn’t pause. Just calmly keeps sifting through folded stacks of clothes like he’s picking out pajamas for a sleepover and not holding me hostage.
“You just quit,” he says flatly. “I told Gino myself.”
I gasp, the sound sharp in my throat. That’s who he called, I realize now, when he walked up the stairs, phone in hand.
“Wait...” I blink at him. “How do you—”
