“Omission is lying in a different form,” I growl. “About Santiago being your brother. About Kayla?—”
He’s on me in a heartbeat, grabbing my throat—not squeezing hard—but holding me there and lifting me just enough that my toes scrape the ground. His face is inches from mine, pupils blown wide, breath harsh against my mouth.
Desire coils tight inside me. I can’t stop it. His aggression drags me back to the night he pinned me against the tree, all force and heat and barely restrained hunger. I crave that again, the edge of pain, the way it burned through me. But even then, he’d been holding back. Now, like this, feral and unraveling, I want what he’s refusing to give. I want him to stop restraining himself at all.
“You don’t get to demand anything from me,” he says. “Not when you don’t understand what you’re dealing with.”
“I understand enough,” I snarl back, even as my body betrays me, leaning into the heat of him, into the violence. “Enough to know that Santiago wants me to join him at Sanguine. He sees my potential, and he’d never stop me from hunting. He wouldn’t force me to eat fucking protein bars.”
I forcefully kick my leg out.
He drops me in shock, and I hit the ground hard. When I look up, my stomach twists. My spike heel has punctured his chest; it’s embedded in his flesh, his shirt already darkening with blood.
Oh shit.
I’ve gone too far.
I scramble to my feet, hopping on one bare foot as Lucian reaches down, grips the shoe, and rips it free like it’s nothing. He tosses it aside, blood streaking his fingers.
Panic crashes into me. “Lucian, I’m sorry. I didn’t?—”
The slap comes fast and sharp.
Not enough to knock me down, but enough to snap my head to the side, enough to leave my skin burning where his hand struck. The sound of it cracks through the air.
For a moment, everything goes silent.
Lucian’s chest heaves, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscles jump. Whatever restraint he had left is gone.
“Don’t,” he snarls, voice shaking with something ugly and barely contained, “ever do that again.”
My cheek throbs. My pulse screams. But my regret quickly flips into untamed fury again. And this time I’m not holding back.
I hate him.
Gathering my strength, I clench my fist and lash out. The punch connects with Lucian’s face. His head is thrown back, and he’s forced back a few steps, holding his jaw and blinking rapidly.
“Fuck you, Lucy,” I rasp.
When he peers up at me again, a bruise of the darkest purple starts to bloom across his chin, just under his mouth.
Something inside him snaps.
I don’t see him move. Everything happens too fast to track. The air seems to warp around him, and suddenly I’m not upright anymore.
My stomach hits the hard ground with a dull thud, and all I can do is gasp.
Lucian is over me, every inch of his heavy body pressing into my back and ass. And his erection isthere,hard and huge, poking against me to let me know his intentions. His hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back, baring my throat. The charged moment stretches. I think he might bite me.
I think I might beg him to.
His head lowers to my ear. “Santiago isn’t my brother. We share a master, and unfortunately a past. But that’s it,” he says, voice rough with restraint. “And I told you a million times I don’t know where your friend is.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care that you don’t. But know this, you aren’t allowed to even talk to Santiago. Do you understand?”
I’m shaking. My pussy—the traitorous bitch—clenches with anticipation. “You don’t get to decide that.”
