Page 63 of A Vicious Love

“Or perhaps Harrington.” Damius looked toward the rain-dark window as if considering seating at dinner. “She might enjoy the nightlife there. Music. Theatre. Pretty things for a pretty girl.”

My chest hardened.

“No.”

His eyes returned to me.

One word, said too fast. I felt it the second it left my mouth. Damius did too. The room went quiet around it.

“No?” he asked.

“I’m not giving her to a cousin.” I set the bottle down.

“You have not taken her yourself.”

“She is mine.”

The words came out before strategy could catch them. Raw, territorial and very fucking true.

Damius’s face changed by a fraction. There it is, his expression said. There was the monster under the neglect.

I hated him for finding it.

I hated myself more.

“Yours,” he repeated.

I stared at him, breathing hard through my nose.

Sienna’s face flickered through my mind. Just nodding at me in a champagne dress. I was a stranger she had learned to survive.

Mine.

Damius stepped closer.

“If she is yours, why does she wear a handler’s ring?”

I said nothing.

“If she is yours, why does Harlan see her arrive alone?”

Silence.

“If she is yours, why did she spend your birthday absent?”

My jaw tightened.

“She was injured.”

“She gave you what you wanted.”

The sentence struck too clean. I looked at him.

“A night without needing to deal with her.” Damius’s voice stayed calm.

My chest locked. I had said that once.

Or something close. Fuck. No. Maybe more than once.