He leapt onto the couch and shoved his nose right in my face. Panther spittle landed on my black shirt as he growled.
“I’m not going.” I crossed my arms, fighting the trembling in my legs demanding I go immediately. “She means nothing.”
My pulse violently disagreed.
My hands balled into white-knuckled fists. “I have no intention of getting tangled in their games. I was only using her to combat my pain. Her suffering has nothing to do with me.”
A wrenching somewhere in my soul—
Whisper roared right in my ear, making my skull throb.
“Fuck you too,” I shouted right back. “Even if Idogo, I’m just running into Marcus’s trap. Do you think he’ll stop hurting her if he knows how quickly I’ll give in?” I shoved the cat away from me, hating the judgement in his stare. “I go now and he’s won, do you hear me? I go and I condemn both of us to a lifetime of yetmorepain.”
Whisper hung his head and whimpered.
I didn’t know how much he understood but he definitely recognised my tone. With a flick of his long tail, he dropped to the floor and charged toward the door.
He didn’t look back as he vanished.
In the silence left behind, I glowered at the coffee table and how clean everything was. Not a speck of dust, not a piece of lint. I’d always kept this part of the palace tidy because my days were long and insufferably boring but...somehow, she’d transformed my home from a prison cell into somethingmore.
Memories of her in the window seat—curled up in a patch of sunlight, dozing when she thought I wasn’t watching. Images of her moving around my space—her gaze flicking to study me every couple of minutes as if she was highly aware of me, just like I was highly aware of her.
I’d pretended to read a book—hiding how ridiculously addicted I’d become to watching her move about my quarters, her cooling presence muting my pain so I could breathe again.
If Marcus trulywashurting her, then...she’d never share this space with me again.
I’d return to being alone and hurting and—
Safe from being manipulated.
Gritting my teeth, I nodded.
“He won’t kill her. This is just a test. A little experiment to see if he can use her against me.” My voice dropped like stones. “A little pain will be fine. The minute he realises he can’t use her against me, he’ll leave her alone.”
Fury grew hotter, sharper—
“She’s not my responsibility.”
Ferocious rage seized my muscles—
“Not my problem.”
Flames erupted in my blood—
“Fuck.”
Chapter Forty-Six
“I TOLD YOU! I TRULY DON’T HAVE any more!”
Evelyn dug the tip of the dagger into my chest for the fourth time. Each time she raised the knife and acted as if she’d plunge it deep into my heart, she paused, laughed, and demanded I tell her where Lucien’s blood was.
“I don’t believe you,” she hissed. “Tell me where it is, and I’ll make it quick.”
“Ihavetold you! I’ve told you as many times as you’ve asked!” My vision flickered as my migraine became unbearable. “Why do you even want it? It’s not like it will do you any good in here!”
“You don’t get to ask questions,” she hissed. “Tell me who the fuck you are! Why has he accepted you and none of us? Whoareyou?”
