“Revenge?” He glances back at me. “Revenge for what?”
“For when we were kids.” I clear my throat. “You always threatened to gut me if I was a rat.”
He laughs, unhinged in the silent room. “I did say that.” Holding the knife up, he grabs my hair yanking me back. The blade touches my Adam’s apple with the slightest prick of pain and I still. “Are you a rat, Hayes?”
“Fuck you,” I snap, smirking. “We both know that’s not who I am.”
He pivots, cutting the blade into my still sore arm. Growling, I try to rip away but the restraints hold firm.
“That’s true. You might not be a rat.” He tsks, watching the blood well up. “But now that I have you as a captive audience, I can ask you anything I want.”
Exhaling the agony, I glare at the bastard. He’s enjoying this a little too much. “Fine. Ask away.”
He licks his blade, tasting my blood.That’s nasty.“When I was gone, and it was just you and Maeve,” he begins, drawing the tip over my knuckles, “did you ever sleep with her?”
Barking out a laugh, I roll my eyes. “You have me strapped down, a prisoner with a knife to my body, and you’re askingthis?”
He slices the back of my palm—spots with minimum blood loss but maximum hurt.Fucking jerk knows what he’s doing.
I cough, fighting against the pain, stomping my feet. I’ve had worse but damn, if the reaper isn’t fucking terrifying with a blade and that sinister glow in his eyes from the potential blood. He’s a rabid dog, willing his prey to die so he can gnaw on the bones.
“Call me curious.”
“You’re a sadist.”
He winks. “That too.”
The blade draws along my opposite hand, blood falling from my body. “I won’t ask again, Prince. So you better answer.”
Scoffing, I look away. I’m not giving into his depravity.
More slices to my arm and shoulder for my trouble, has me cursing him out, foot kicking the dirt ground in pain. “Christ, reaper.”
“Want to talk now?” His smile is bright and cheery.
“I never fucked Maeve,” I spit. “Hell, that girl is so traumatized, any time someone got too close, she’d try to stab them. No one is stupid enough to try. I’m not sure howyoumanaged it.”
“Maybe she’s worth getting stabbed over,” he comments, shrugging. He twirls the knife, and quickly jabs it into my shoulder joint and I bellow out a shout. “Codeword.”
“Dropdead.”
He nods, appreciatively.
The next three hours go like this. Killian asks something completely off topic—if I’ve ever seen Maeve naked, do I knowher dress size, if I’ve ever spoken to Reese—and when I don’t answer, I’m cut, sliced, stabbed. When I do answer, the same.
I don’t break. I don’t give him my codeword.
But fuck if I don’t want to kill him for this shit.
Wiping his hands on a rag, the reaper nods at me, my body slumped, chest heaving. I’m bloody, tired, and depleted. It’s taking everything in me to not lose consciousness. “You’ve lasted longer than I thought you would.”
Wincing, I lick my parched lips. “I could go all night, reaper.”
“Maybe some other time.”
He douses me with old water and I gasp against the shock.
“Now that we have a minute,” I pant, doubled over. “I have a question.”
