He waits as I compose myself.
“Do you know how violated I feel?” I say.
As he presses his lips together, I note the glint of satisfaction in his eyes, the delight he’s taken from this.
“I’ve only done what you asked. In that very first dream, you took the lead, angel. You told me what you wanted, and I gave it to you. I’ve touched you like no one else has, worshipped you inthe way you deserve. You can’t sit there and tell me you haven’t enjoyed it.”
“You fucking….” I close my eyes, reining in my anger. I can’t lose my temper here. I’ll get kicked out. Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes. “I don’t want you to touch me again. You don’t have my permission. Do you understand?” He doesn’t respond, isn’t even looking at me, and my blood boils. “Are you even listening to me?”
His eyes have wandered, focussing somewhere over my shoulder, and for a second, I wonder if Ed is here. I pray to God he isn’t. This is embarrassing enough without having my dead brother present.
Following his gaze, I glance over my shoulder to see two men sitting opposite each other. I’ve seen the inmate—a bald guy, lean cut and clean-shaven—before, but his visitor—a man with dark features, broad shoulders, and a scar running down the side of his face—is new.
They look hostile, and I wonder how different their argument must be to mine and Valdemar’s.
I turn my attention back to Valdemar, whose gaze is still on the men behind us.
He speaks, but his voice has changed; it’s cold, efficient. Not the usual tone he takes with me. “Put your hand on the table.”
“What?”
“Just do it,” he insists.
His eyes never leave the men, and I feel a drop in the atmosphere, the churn of something that Valdemar senses like the darkening of the sky and the eerie silence before a storm.
Sliding my hand over the table, I lay it flat in the middle as my stomach rolls.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve grown complacent, forgetting that this is a prison containing some of the most ruthless men to have walked this earth—one of whom is sitting opposite me.
“Valdemar.” His name barely leaves my mouth as he grabs my hand and pulls me up from my seat at the same time as what I can only describe as a bloodthirsty cry erupts behind me.
I’m pulled across the room and pressed into a corner, Valdemar’s body against mine, shielding me from whatever is going down behind him.
I’ve never been in a warzone, never reported from a rally gone wrong or about angry protestors, but that’s what it feels like as I hear the shouts from the guards, swearing from inmates, raucous war cries, the sound of fists pounding flesh, the thud of kicks hitting stomachs, and the guards ordering people to get back, to get down, to stop.
From my vantage point, I can only see the large form of Valdemar as he huddles around me in the corner. Taking my head in his hands, he moves my gaze to his.
“You’re okay,” he tells me. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
I find myself nodding. He doesn’t look away from me, never even glances over his shoulder to see what’s happening.
“I need you to get on the floor,” he instructs.
“Why?”
“Please, just do it,” he insists.
I hold on to his forearms as we slide to the floor, Valdemar still keeping me protected from the riot behind him, and even amongst the carnage, I can’t help but notice how natural it feels to touch him, how familiar.
“That’s it. Now take this.” Letting go of me, he pulls his T-shirt over his head and presses it into my hands. Reading my puzzled expression, he says, “They’re going to let off tear gas. It’s what they do when a fight breaks out. I need you to put my shirt over your face. If we stay low, we should be okay, but I need you to do as I say.”
I grab his T-shirt and hold the soft material over my mouth and nose.
The smell of warm spice and damp oak fills my nose as the shirt swallows me.
“Put your head against my chest,” he tells me. “We need to block out as much of the gas as we can.”
His chest, now bare, looms over me, and I want nothing more than to gaze at the perfection of his skin, to take in the artwork of his tattoos, the intricacy of the designs, to examine the large raven whose wings are spread across his pecs.
