“If I intended to take your body, you’d already be in my bed.”
Color climbed along her collarbone, adelicate flush that betrayed the direction of her thoughts despite the steadiness of her expression. She didn’t step back. She didn’t drop hergaze.“You haven’t answered directly,” she said, and there was a faint tremor beneath the composure now, not of fear but of proximity.
He tilted his head slightly, studying her with open intensity. “What answer do you want?”
“Am I expected to share your bed at some point? To help pay off my debt?”
There it was.
He didn’t smile. “You won’t be touched without your consent.”The promise unsettled her more than a demand would’ve.“You don’t serve here,” he added. “And I don’t pay women to fuck me.”
He reached up before she could react and adjusted the collar of her uniform. His knuckles brushed the side of her throat, the heat of her skin startling in its immediacy. He didn’t linger, yet the contact altered the air completely.
“You won’t wear this again,” hesaid.
The uniform suddenly looked like alie.
It flattened her. Hid her. Reduced her to service when every line of her body suggested something far more dangerous.
He let his gaze travel intentionally this time, slower than before. Over the elegant swell of her breasts straining lightly against fabric not cut to honor them. Down the narrow line of her waist. Across the subtle flare of her hips that promised softness beneath discipline.
The knowledge that no one had claimed that softnessyet did something primal to his restraint.
“When you stand in this house,” he said gently, “you won’t resemble something that can be ordered.”
Her breath changed.
“But… It’s what I own.” Her fingers brushed the edge of the black fabric at her waist as she said it, not defensively but with resolve, as though the uniform were the last boundary she still oversaw.
“You’ll be provided with what you require.”His voice remained even, but his gaze moved over her again, measuring the line of her shoulders, the disciplined way she held herself inside clothing meant to diminishher.
“And if I prefer this?”She lifted her chin slightly, daring him to dismiss her choice.
“Then you’re choosing to present yourself as something you’re not.”He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The certainty in it altered theair.
She searched his face, as if trying to decide whether he saw through her or into her. “And what am I?”
Chapter 4
“WHAT ARE YOU?”Magnus mused. “Let’s say... undetermined.”
The word didn’t belittle. It unsettled. Her lips parted slightly atthat.
“Rare enough to keep?” she asked, repeating his earlier description of her.The vulnerability beneath the question was fleeting but unmistakable.
He placed his hand against the wall beside her shoulder, not touching her but governing the space between them. The proximity forced awareness. She had to tilt her head to maintain eye contact, and the movement exposed the slender line of her throat.
“Rare enough not to discard,” he replied.
Her pulse fluttered, but she held her ground.“And what does Severin protection entail?”
“It entails that no one will speak of you as property again.”
He watched the words register, watched the faint tension leave her shoulders before she caught herself and straightened.“And if they do?”
“They’ll answer to me.”There was no threat in his tone. It was statement of fact. Final.
She held his gaze without wavering. “You didn’t remove me for leverage.”It wasn’t a question. It was an assessment.
