“Let’s go.” Thane shifts out of the doorway and motions for me to pass through.
“Excuse me?” I plant my feet and cross my arms defiantly.
“The shower. Go,” Thane orders with a point.
“Not with you!” I spit, taking a step back.
His scowl deepens as he stalks closer to me, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch Kole move closer too. Almost like he’s readying to pull Thane away from me at any moment.
I lurch back, but Thane grabs me and throws me over his shoulder. “Put me down!” I thrash and kick, but it does nothing to free me.
“There,” Thane snarls, setting me down in the shower and closing the door behind him.
I attempt to push him away from me, but it’s like pushing a marble statue.
“Get out!” I demand, pressing my back against the wall in an effort to get as far away from him as possible.
“I can’t,” he grunts, almost as if he’s in pain. “Ihaveto do this.”
“Do what?” My voice shakes, fearful of what the answer might be as he presses his palms against the wall behind me, caging me in.
I watch his chest rise and fall in front of me, wondering what pain I’ll endure next when I’m hit with ice cold water as it rains down from the showerhead above us.
“Turn around,” he orders with a threatening look that tells me not to put up a fight.
I swallow hard before reluctantly turning my back to him. The heavy sigh he exhales into the back of my neck sends a shiver down my spine, but I try not to let it show. Instead, I fixate on the drain beneath me, watching the blood run into the water as the shower begins to wash away the remnants of the horrible night.
“Take out your braid.”
I do as he says, removing the few extensions Sienna had added for length and tossing them over the glass wall. There’s a feeling of relief as I work my fingers through my scalp, massaging out the mild headache the braid had been causing all night. By now, the water has warmed, and I find my head falling back as the water lightly pelts my face clean.
“Stop.” Thane’s hands wrap around my wrists, pulling them down to my sides. “I need to do it.”
“Do what?” I ask again, whirling around to look at him.
His raven hair has fallen over his eyes, water dripping from the tips. “I have to clean you.”
I shake my head. “No. You don’t get to do this again. You don’t get to be the cause of my torment and then act like the mark is somehow forcing you to undo the damage thatyoucaused.”
“It’s not an act!”
“Yes, it is!” I slam my fists against his chest, but he doesn’t budge. “You act like the mark controls you, but it doesn’t. And your desire to wash away the proof of what you’ve done has nothing to do with the mark! It’s just another way for you to control me. For you to torture me! Because as much as I hated suffocating in that vat of blood, I’d rather endure that a hundred times over than have your hands on me!”
A violent growl tears through him, and I recoil against the shower wall, waiting for the wrath of his fury. But it never comes. Kole already has one arm locked around Thane’s throat, pulling him from the shower.
The two of them struggle against one another, but I can tell Thane is too strong for Kole to hold him back for long. Eventually, Thane breaks free and whirls around, pushing Kole so hard that he goes flying into the mirror above the sink, shattering it into a million pieces. Kole quickly recovers, but Thane is already gone.
“Are you okay?” Kole asks, stepping into the shower.
“You were just thrown into a mirror and are bleeding, and you’re askingmeifI’mokay?”
Kole shrugs. “I’ll heal.” He takes a step forward into the falling water and runs the back of his hand down my cheek. “So, are you okay?”
There’s so much worry on his face, and for a moment, I don’t understand why, but then I realize I’m shaking. I clench my fists in an effort to gain control of it, but Kole pulls me into him, wrapping me in a tight hug. I melt into him, allowing myself to feel safe in his hold. It’s a feeling that is so foreign, and yet in this moment, it feels completely natural. I only allow myself to embrace it for a few seconds before I pull away to look up at him.
“What’s going on with you two? You’ve been on edge since we got back.” I ignore his question, because we both know I’m not okay.
Kole nods to the broken mirror. “Because of that. I get that you think Thane is just using the mark as an excuse, but he’s not. I know my brother, and I can see his control slipping when it comes to you.” He shakes his head, raking his eyes down my body. I’m still dressed in the slave costume, and though most of the blood has washed away, bits of it still remain. Kole runs a hand through his wet hair, pushing it back out of his face. “I haven’t seen him lose control in a very long time, and after seeing the way he reacted when he pulled you out of that tank, I didn’t want to take any chances.”
