“I can’t leave you alone for one fucking second, Elliot,” he says, fury rippling out of him as his body grinds me into the dirt. “Not one second.”
The words hit harder than the impact.
This asshole wants to talk about trust?
The irony is bitter enough to make me want to laugh. He’s the one who kept the truth about Santiago from me. Not to mention everything about his life and VMR. He may not lie outright, but he omits the truth and that’s just as bad.
I shove all my power into bucking him off, and to my surprise it works. He’s thrown sideways, landing on his knees beside me.
I barely get my footing before he’s on me again.
He moves like a force of nature—too fast, too strong—and grabs me and slams me into the ground hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. Pain blooms bright and sharp, but it only feeds the fury boiling in my veins. I claw at him, strike wherever I can reach, nails scraping skin, fists landing uselessly againsthis chest.
He throws me aside like I weigh nothing.
I roll, scramble, lunge again, and he catches me mid-motion, spinning and hurling me into a nearby bush. Wood splinters and pokes into my sides. Fabric rips as my dress is caught on the bush’s sharp branches.
“You bastard!” I stand again, feeling blood start to trickle from the deep scratches across my waist. Because the shimmery drape of my dress has been torn almost all the way through, my right breast and most of my torso are now exposed.
Pain and rage tangle together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. I’m going to kill him.
He stalks toward me, eyes wild, jaw tight, every inch of him vibrating like he’s barely holding himself back.
“You talk about trust,” I spit, forcing myself upright, “but you’ve been keeping things from me since I first walked into your office.”
That stops him.
Not because he’s surprised. Because it infuriates him. “I’ve never lied.”
“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.
