Fox bristled and seethed and stewed.
All the caring, stupid instincts swelled, hoping he’d crack, wishing he’d let his walls down. This man didn’t need a woman to warm his bed. He needed a psychiatrist. I didn’t want to be near someone so toxic, but I couldn’t walk away either. “You owe me to let me help you.”
Fear suffocated my throat as he seemed to grow larger, adopting an icy exterior that gave no hint of remorse or humanity.
I froze, locked in his ferocious stare. Trouble was I couldn’t read him in that moment. He’d shut down, so all I saw was a cold man with a vicious streak amplified by the wicked scar.
He shuddered as his entire body went into lockdown. Muscles bunched beneath his clothing, his aura trembled with aggression and rebellion. “I owe you nothing,” he spit.
My heart raced. Truth screamed loud and clear. Somehow he earned the facial scar thanks to a debt gone wrong. He wasn’t a free man. He was owned by someone who either kept him on a tight leash, or abused him so much it wouldn’t take much more for him to snap.
Hardly breathing, I dropped my eyes to his trembling body. I wanted to figure out the dark damage lurking in his eyes.
My God. What happened to him?
My gaze zeroed in on his as if I was a compass needle and he was my north. I’d never suffered a phenomenon such as this. Never been so tuned to another. Perhaps we were kindred souls—linked by something past the realm of understanding. Kismet.
It’s too much. Too intense. Too dangerous.
I had Clara to protect and save—I had no reserves left for someone so deeply broken. It was time to cut him loose and forget—not just for my sanity, but my future as well. I hated that for the first time in forever, I felt weak. Weak because no matter how much I wanted to help him, I wouldn’t be able to. He was unsaveable.
Exhaling heavily, I let it out—forcing all my questions and curiosity out of my mind. My life was already complicated enough. I didn’t need to think about adopting a lost stray with a bite that would undoubtedly leave me in pieces.
“Forget it.” Dropping my voice to a whisper, I said, “I’ll go. But you should know I came back to give you a piece of my mind, but also to continue our agreement. I refuse to stay here for a month, but I was willing to spend my days with you. To give you what you wanted. Despite what I said—I did want you. I felt the same pull.”
His back rippled with tension. The air seemed to crackle and weep around him with a mixture of regret and self-loathing. For a moment, I thought he would throttle me. Reach out and grab my throat in his large hands and wring the air from my body. But then his anger diminished, flickering out to be replaced with utter coldness. “I don’t care. I never wish to see you again.”
Fuck him. I was done.
Whirling around, I stalked to the door. My anger crashed over me in a wave. I gave him my passion and offered a lifeline, and he threw it in my face.
The moment I walked out the door I never wanted to see him again. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I needed to make sure the goodbye was final.
“Don’t ever come near me again, Fox. If I see, or hear, or find out you’ve come near, I won’t just hurt you.
“I’ll kill you.”
Chapter 10
The day I completed the final phase of training, two things happened. They tattooed me with the mark of the highest operative, and I was informed of my inheritance. For years I’d lived in a cell inside a giant manor; I’d been told what to eat, told who to kill, and when to speak. I lived in the same black clothes all the recruits lived in. I followed the code.
Then they told me who I’d been before they stole me on my sixth birthday.
I wasn’t a pauper or a bum off the street like some of the other kids. I wasn’t middle class from a generic family.
Oh, no.
Turned out, I was twenty-fourth in line to the throne. My ancestors had been kings and queens; my family God-fearing and respected.
They told me I was to inherit a multi-million dollar fortune of property, jewellery, and cash.
My real name was Roan Averin, but none of that mattered.
It didn’t matter as I was a royal heir to a succession that no longer existed because I’d killed every last person from my bloodline. No one knew I was alive. No one knew I existed.
There was no one left.
Just me.
And I belonged to them.
“I’ll kill you.”
“Do it or I’ll kill you.”
“Obey or I’ll kill you.”
“Slaughter them or I’ll kill you.”
“Kill and sever and decapitate or I’ll kill you.”
The threat resonated in my head over and over and over.
Zel’s parting comment threaded with my past. “I’ll kill you.”
The small hold I had on my conditioning disintegrated, hurling me head first into darkness. My brain swam with memories of my faceless handlers. All I saw were waterfalls of red and slicing blades through flesh.
The urges sucked me deep and dark until I forgot I no longer lived that life. I was theirs. A nobody with no feelings or hopes or dreams. Worthless.
I’d been able to control myself while arguing with Zel thanks to the pain in my joints. The beating Poison Oaks gave me kept me sane—barely. I’d kept my distance—hating her perception, her correct guesses all the while saving her from myself.
Her passion turned my c**k stiff as a f**king pole. My blood raced to take her again—to make promises—to swear I could do better. To promise the next time I took her I’d be strong enough to touch her sweetly. But the pain wasn’t enough and every lash of her voice made me tremble, fighting my past.
I screamed and cursed for her own protection. I wanted her gone forever so I never had to worry about harming her.
But then she used the one sentence guaranteed to hurl me back in time.
“I’ll kill you.”
I groaned as the room swirled like a black hurricane, propelling me from safety to horror. The aliveness in my blood switched from wanting to protect Zel to wanting to kill her, and I could no longer ignore the call. The conditioning was too strong, too ingrained, too deep to reject.
The rules I’d been made to live by compounded in my skull, pounding with an insane headache. She was a weakness. She was an enemy. She knew too much.
She has to die.
My jaw ached from clenching so hard, and I howled like the wolves who’d kept me company all those lonely nights. The last of my humanity filtered away. I was about to kill the only person who might’ve had a chance at saving me.