He shakes his head slowly from side to side, his eyes on me never wavering. “Tell me,” he says, an unmistakable note of authority in his voice I’ve heard several times now. “I won’t allow you to defy me.”
I swallow hard.
I can’t tell you.
If I could, I would.
He shakes his head again. “Defying me is a mistake, lass. I won’t give you another warning. If you don’t tell me your name, you’ll be punished.”
At his words, the tempo of my heartbeat comes to a stuttering halt, and anything that resembled tenderness or hope quenches.
I’ve been punished before.
I’ll be punished again.
I should be afraid, but all I feel right now is a mild sense of curiosity as I steel myself for whatever will come. His words are already cold and distant, and he may as well be touching the body of another woman.
I’m not here anymore.
I’ve never been confined to the earth like a mortal anyway.
CHAPTER FIVE
Leith
I watchthe way her eyes grow distant and wonder briefly if the woman’s brain’s fucking addled. Is she here with me now, or somewhere else? She’s got a faraway look in her eyes.
Though I hold her face between my hands, her gaze isn’t focused on mine. It’s fucking disturbing.
She responded to my touch. She responded to my kiss even more. I swear to God if I hadn’t held her in my arms her knees would’ve buckled and she’d have fallen to the floor.
Has the woman ever been kissed before? Her wide-eyed look shows either surprise or innocence. Time will tell which it is.
Perhaps both?
Why won’t the lass tell me her name?
She saw me murder a man with my bare hands in the graveyard. Is she ignorant to the ways of my men? Does she have any idea who we are?
“I asked you a question,” I say again, my words laced with anger fueled by her defiance. Doesn’t she know I have the power to hurt her? She’s smaller than I am, and in my home. I took her from a graveyard and could’ve left her for dead.
I shake her shoulders. “Tell me your fucking name.”
She shakes her head, her eyes unfocused as if she’s not even paying attention. I spin her around, swing her out, and smack my palm against her arse.
Not a sound.
Not a squeal or yelp or even a gasp. Her whole body flinches, and her back arcs like a bowstring, but she doesn’t make a sound.
“Your name.”
Silence.
I smack her again, my palm stinging from the punishing spank. It’s the type of punishment one might give an errant child, not a woman, and certainly not a prisoner or enemy. She deserves at the very least the wicked tawse that hangs in my closet, and goddammit, the very thought of taking the leather to her makes my mouth go dry.
How would she respond to being punished?
How is she responding now?
