Page 73 of Silk and Sirens

It took me a moment to hear his words. “No, I’m not.” I needed to get to Atlantis and figure out if my secret compartment had been compromised.

Caden’s head cocked to the side, part of his hair sweeping down to cover his eye. “Renley Elkins is waiting for you at home.”

My stomach twisted, so cold it was as if I’d swallowed ice. “How did he get in? I changed the locks and⁠—”

“Did you change the back door?”

My breath caught somewhere in my chest. Shit. How long had he been using my back door to get inside? “How do you even know he⁠—”

“Until I can get the lock replaced, you’ll stay here,” Caden continued, interrupting me entirely.

“If I don’t go home I’ll⁠—”

“This isn’t up for discussion.”

“Fuck you!”

Caden stared at me, his expression blank, the lines in his neck corded with tension.

“I’m doing everything I can to survive,” I choked out, voice shaking with fury and fear, “but you’re going to get me killed before I ever see the end of this!”

Caden’s eyes flashed. “What do you want from me, Aeris? Want me to feel sorry for you?”

I shoved at him, hard. My first push managed to stagger him back a single step, but then he grabbed both of my wrists in one of his hands and pinned them to his chest.

“Want me to apologise to the cold, little killer who seems to be drowning?” he sneered, voice low and venomous, but his eyes burned with something far more dangerous than anger.

I twisted violently, trying to rip free, but his hold was merciless. “You have no fucking idea what I’ve had to do!”

“No? Then tell me,” he growled, yanking me closer until our faces were inches apart. “The great Aeris Merrin: seductress, siren, and fucking assassin. You kill for her without hesitation. So why the fuck haven’t you poisoned Selene yourself? End her and your family is safe. You are safe.”

“Because I can’t!” The scream tore out of me, raw and broken, as everything I’d buried for years came flooding up at once.

Sorrow. Guilt. So much fucking rage.

“I can’t, because she has stuff on me just as she has on you. I can’t because she holds my nephews lives in her hands if I make one wrong move.” My voice cracked, the words scraping out like shards of glass. “She owns me, Caden. Irrevocably.”

The silence that followed was deafening. His grip on my wrists tightened almost painfully, but his eyes … his eyes had shifted. The mocking fury was still there, but beneath it lurked something darker. Hungrier. Almost possessive.

“Why didn’t you come to us sooner?” he demanded, voice rough.

“So I could sell myself to you instead?” I pushed out a laugh, the sound hollow. “My life has always been in the control of someone else. First my father, who told me what to do, what to say, whether I was even allowed to speak at all!”

Caden’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenching.

“Now it’s Selene,” I whispered bitterly. “She tells me what to wear. How to look. Who to fuck.”

He stilled, anger sweeping over his expression. “What does she have on you?”

“Why?” Tears burned hot down my cheeks, and I couldn’t even wipe them away. Not when he still held both my hands firmly against his chest, right over the heavy, relentless thud of his heart. “So you can swoop in and fix it? Play the big, bad saviour? I don’t need a hero. I need⁠—”

“A monster,” he finished for me, voice low.

“I need a monster,” I agreed, the vulnerability of the moment leaving me fucking empty.

Finally pulling free of his arms, I turned towards the tall windows, staring out at the glittering city that had become my cage.

“She’ll never willingly let me go,” I whispered, feeling Caden’s presence behind me. “A few years after I was kidnapped, Mira was still missing and everyone had given up looking for her. I never stopped searching, getting myself into some dangerous situations.”