My chair scrapes against the floor.
"I don't want your protection. I don't want anything from you."
"Sit down, Eden."
"No."
"Sit. Down."
There's steel in his voice now. Command.
Every instinct from the Sanctuary screams at me to obey.
I sit.
Hate myself for it.
"Good," he says softly.
I glare at him. "Don't?—"
"Here's what's going to happen," he interrupts. "You're going to stay here. You're going to eat. You're going to sleep. You're going to accept that this is your reality now."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you'll be miserable. But you'll still be here."
My hands curl into fists under the table.
"I have been thinking," he continues, "about what you said. About the contract not specifying the nature of our relationship."
My heart starts pounding.
"You're right. It doesn't. Which means we get to define it ourselves."
"What does that mean?"
He stands and comes around the table.
I want to bolt, but I can't move.
He stops next to my chair.
Doesn't touch me.
Just stands there, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him.
"It means," he says quietly, "that I'm going to give you a choice."
"What choice?"
"I could keep you here as a prisoner. Locked in your room. No books. No freedom. Just walls and silence until you break."
My breath catches.
"Or," he continues, "you could have what you have now. Access to the house. The library. The grounds. Food. Comfort. Company."
"In exchange for what?"
