What good did that do?
“You’re wrong,” I said. My words would fall on deaf ears the way they always did, but I couldn’t give up yet. Not without saying one last thing. “Anwen doesn’t deserve consequences. That woman deserves mercy.”
26
My first scream was tentative,weak, and buried in my pillow.
For once in my life, why couldn’t things be simple?
My second scream was a release, venting twenty-one years of anger and frustration.
I don’t know why I bothered with the pillow. I was a hostage, after all. Hostages probably screamed all the time.
After my argument with Rían, I’d escaped to my room, hiding away from everything and everyone. I could shout and rail about the unfairness of what had happened all bloody day, but when it came down to it, I was a human living in a world where I didn’t belong.
More than that, I was a woman, and Rían was a man.
And men did as they pleased.
My third scream was cut short when the door burst open.
Rían appeared in an untucked white shirt and loose black trousers. His hair stuck up at the back like he’d been snoozing away without a care in the world.
“It’s the middle of the feckin’ night. If you don’t stop roaring, you’ll be sleeping in the oubliette.”
Was that supposed to scare me? Rían’s threats were as empty as his soul. “And if you don’t get out of my room, I’m going to stab you again.”
Instead of leaving, he dropped onto the foot of my bed. The curved dagger appeared in his outstretched palm. “Go on then. Stab me if it’ll make you feel better.”
I should stab him. It was the least he deserved for making me feel so torn up inside. How could I care for someone like him? A man without mercy. A villain. A liar. What was wrong with me? “I don’t want your blood soiling my sheets.”
He chuckled, sending the dagger back to wherever such things were kept. “Why were you screaming? Not that I care.”
“That’s what hostages do, isn’t it? They scream.”
“Hostages only scream for a short while.” The mattress dipped when he fell onto his back. Heat from his body warmed my cold toes where they hid beneath the covers. I pushed myself against the headboard to get away.
“Then they cry and beg,” he said, glancing sidelong at me, his eyes sparkling. “Will I make you cry and beg, human?”
Dark heat pooled in my stomach. How could I still be attracted to him at his worst?
I pulled my knees into my chest, holding them close. Another barrier between us.
As if he knew the way my body reacted to his threats, his lips lifted.
“I was screaming because I hate you,” I told him.
He inhaled deeply through his nose, his smile growing. “No, you weren’t.”
Stupid man with his stupid ability to smell lies. “I was screaming because I am sick and tired of being held hostage by someone as evil and merciless as you.”
He flicked his wrist. The tost’s air thickened in my throat. Raising to his elbows, he fixed me with a withering look. “Am I holding you hostage? Most of my hostages do not live in my home, eat my food, or stroll through my gardens. I haven’t even gotten around to torturing you—and that’s my favorite part.”
Listen with your eyes and your heart.
What if I chose to put all rational thought aside and believe him?
“In Graystones, you are dead,” he went on. “You have no place to go and no means to support yourself. I’m not holding you hostage, Aveen. I’m giving you sanctuary.”