"Silas, don't," she whimpers. "Please unlock me."
"Beg me," I whisper.
"Silas..."
"Beg me properly."
She stays silent, biting her lip, her pride warring with her helplessness.
"Fine," I say, pulling back. "Stay there."
I walk to the bathroom. I strip off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. I step into the shower.
I wash the blood away. But I don't wash away the intent.
When I walk back into the bedroom, naked, wet, and hard, she is still there. She hasn't moved. Her eyes go to my body, widening.
Tonight, the slow burn ends. Tonight, the fire consumes us both.
Because tonight, she can't run.
And I am done waiting.
CHAPTER 15
THE SURRENDER
POV: IVY
The silence in the room is heavy, weighted with the humidity of the coming storm inside these walls.
I am alone, but I am not free.
My left wrist is chafed against the cold steel of the handcuff. I’ve stopped pulling at it. I learned an hour ago—or was it minutes? Time feels elastic, distorted by adrenaline—that struggling only makes the metal bite deeper.
I am tethered to the mahogany bedpost like a sacrifice left for a dragon.
The bathroom door is closed, but I can hear him. The hiss of the shower is a constant white noise, masking the sound of my own shallow, ragged breathing.
Silas.
The name tastes like copper on my tongue. I can still see him standing over me, his hands stained with the blood of the man he killed. He killed a man for looking at me. He walked into the woods, dismantled a human being, and came back to me as if he’d simply gone out to check the mail.
I should be terrified.
Iamterrified. My heart is hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, a bird trying to batter its way out of a cage. But beneath the fear, beneath the horror of what he is... there is something else.
Something dark. Something shameful.
It’s a heat that coils in my belly, heavy and molten. It’s the memory of his eyes when he looked at me—possessive, unhinged, absolute. He didn't look at me like a victim. He looked at me like I was the only thing in the world worth killing for.
I shift my legs restlessly against the black silk sheets. The fabric is cool, sliding against my skin, but I feel feverish.
The water stops.
The sudden silence is deafening.
I freeze, my eyes fixed on the bathroom door. My pulse jumps into my throat, choking me. He’s coming.
