“You’re beautiful.” His eyes traced down her body, lingering on her breasts straining against the bodice of her dress.
Lust joined his affection, and she scoffed. “You have got to be kidding me. What is wrong with you? You can’t go around kidnapping people!”
Amos tilted his head to the side with the ghost of a smile on his face. “Yes, I can.” He motioned to her. “So can Rainer.”
“This isn’t funny.” She tried a different tactic. Could she cry on command? No time like the present to try. Clover thought of the last book that made her cry, replaying the ending where her favorite side character died, and felt her eyes burn. “Please,” she croaked. “Let me go.”
Amos’ eyes filled with awe and he leaned forward. “Your eyes are pretty when you cry.” He swiped at a tear with his thumb and brought it to his mouth. “Even if your tears are bullshit.” Pointing at his chest, he reminded her, “I can feel your emotions, wife.”
Clover huffed. “I’m not your wife, and no sane woman would marry a man who had her kidnapped andtied to a chair.” She glared at the ropes holding her down.
Standing, Amos removed a dagger from his belt and knelt at her feet to slice through the restraints. He straightened and sliced through them.
Before he could step out of the way, she shoved him hard. “You fuckingasshole.”
He stumbled a few steps back dramatically and laughed like she’d told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. Clover’s anger built to unfathomable levels, and he placed a hand over his chest, closed his eyes, and moaned. “Gods, you feel good when you’re angry.”
“You think it’s funny to kidnap someone in the middle of the night?” She whipped out her own dagger from the sheath sewn into the pocket of her dress and threw it at him.
His eyes widened and he jerked out of the way. Looking behind him where the dagger bounced off the stone wall, his jaw fell open. “Did you just try to kill me?”
No, I was aiming for your shoulder.“You deserve to be thrown to the dragons for what you’ve done.”
“I don’t think having you kidnapped warrants death,” he argued, hanging his hands on his hips. “I’d love it if you kidnapped me.”
Gods, if she’d known ignoring him would literally make him crazy, she would have at least wrote him back afuck youletter. “You need to see a healer.” Clover waved at her head. “Something’s wrong up here.”
Amos’ face darkened and he stalked toward her. Refusing to back down, she stood her ground. “You’re right, I’m not right in the head because four years without you would do that to any man.” He grabbed her chin in a tight grip. “You took yourself from me, and it felt like I’d been left in the desert with no water. First, I wanted you, then I needed you, then I shut down.” His lips hovered above hers. “And when I thought I’d die, thedelusions started, driving me mad, but instead of dying, I fought. I survived like you told me to, and I found a way to get you back.”
Clover tried to jerk out of his hold, but his other hand grabbed the back of her head, holding her in place. He tutted. “You’re not going anywhere, baby.” His tongue darted out and licked into her parted lips.
She tried to bite him, but he crushed their mouths together, forcing her to taste him. Right as her resolve started to crumble, he pulled back, and his face brightened. “I brought you a gift.”
It took her a minute to come to from the kiss and process what he’d said.Wait. “I don’t want a fucking gift,” she snapped.
Amos pecked her lips, strode to the table across the room to retrieve a wooden box, and held it out expectantly. “Open it.”
Clover knew he wouldn’t relent, so she reluctantly took the box and lifted the lid, blinking to make sense of what she saw. A heart with dried flowers sticking out of the top like a godsdamned bouquet stared back at her.
It took approximately three seconds before she screamed and tossed the box at him. Amos caught it, brows bent as he looked down at the heart. “You don’t like it?” He pulled it out and examined it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she yelled. “You’re holding a person’s heart in your hands. Why are there flowers?”
Disappointment trickled down the bond. He lowered the gift. “It’s Merrick Hammond’s heart, and I put flowers because I wanted it to look nice for you.”
Clover’s ears rang, trying to process. “Merrick Hammond?” The man who killed her mother.
Amos nodded slowly. “I took your father and sister to kill him, and since you couldn’t be there, I saved his heart for you.” He held it up like a trophy. “I dried the flowers myself.”
Her lips parted. “You brought me Merrick’s heart?” she whispered, unsure how his gift had gone from grotesque to the best thing she’d ever received.
Feeling her change of heart, Amos smirked. “I’d have brought you his head, too, but he was an ugly fucker, and this was easier to preserve.”
Clover lunged forward and flung her arms around his middle, sniffling as real tears dripped down her face. “I love it.”
Amos carefully put the heart bouquet back in the box and tossed it to the floor. “I knew you would.” His strong arms encircled her, and he kissed the top of her head. “But as much as I enjoy seeing you happy, I’d also like to see a little fear in your eyes too.”
She pulled back. “What do you mean?”
