Chapter Thirteen #2
Drake grinned. “Are you going to repeat everything I say?” He crawled over to her, chuckling when she pressed deeper into the wall.
He stopped. “Like I said, we all have our secrets, but they must have tailed us since we left and finally gotten tired of waiting. Also, I’d recognize my brothers’ voices anywhere. Their steps. The way they move as one.”
She slapped his shoulder. “You could have led with that! Do you know how worried I was?”
“With me here?” he murmured.
“I know you have a serious bone in your body, so you should use it!”
Balanced on one hand, he lifted the other and pressed a finger to her lips. “You can scold me, but do it in a whisper.”
She slapped his finger away, lowering her voice. “Are you always this impossible?”
“I’m not sure,” Drake teased. “I don’t find myself impossible.”
Her gaze narrowed on him.
At least any worry had left their depths.
“Well, you are,” she said. “And why can’t your brothers know about this place? I mean, I understand we all have our secrets, but you are wounded. They could help.”
“With my wound? You already helped me.” Though he was pretty sure it had reopened.
“The men after you—”
“Should be gone since they are here.”
She stared at him for a heartbeat before puffing out a breath, shaking her head, reprimanding. “They must be worried about you and still you’d hide from them?”
“I wouldn’t call this hiding.”
“Oh, and what would you call it?”
His lips twitched. “Keeping my brothers from finding us in this compromising situation.”
“Is that so? We aren’t even touching.”
“But we were touching plenty moments ago.” He returned to his former position on his knees. “I imagine we both look well-spent.”
“You truly are a brute.”
His gaze traced the bright flush warming her features.
She looked alive, furious, bright-eyed, and entirely unafraid of him.
The thought pleased and unsettled him. Most men either feared or revered him.
The same with the opposite sex. It was rare for anyone outside his family to be this artless with him.
He liked that. However, he never wanted his presence to leave damage in its wake.
Wanting her was one thing. Ruining her would be unforgivable.
She might still be a foe.
He couldn’t forget that.
“I am,” he finally said. “But we’ve already established that, love. What about you? You seem to know a thing or two about brothers. Do you have them?”
All expression drained from her face.
There it is.
He expected her to deny it, to shrug his question off, but to his surprise, she nodded.
“I do have one.”
His brow furrowed at her tone. “You do not get along?”
She looked away. “That would be the understatement of my lifetime.”
Very well. “We all have our secrets, remember.”
She glanced back at him. “You’re not going to attempt to pry mine from me?”
Drake was in no hurry. “So long as they don’t cause me or mine harm, then no.”
“I see.” She averted her gaze again. “Is that why you don’t mind keeping this lair from your brothers? On the one hand, you remind me of a tiger, on the other, a brooding creature guarding its hoard.”
Drake’s gaze swept over his hoard, landing on the small oval portrait propped against the far shelf. A woman with sparkling eyes and half a smile stared back at him. He’d taken that first. Before anything else. “Most of the valuables down here I plundered from my mother’s family.”
Her gaze whipped back to him. “Plundered? You mean stole?”
Not exactly. He glanced back at Violet. “I mean I walked in and took what I wanted, and they didn’t dare stop me.”
“Why on earth would you do such a thing?” She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s personal.”
“No need to apologize.” He sneered. “That family abandoned my mother after she became a mistress to that man who sired me. A sordid tale. One my brothers and I all share, barring circumstance.”
She was quiet for a moment, her gaze moving slowly around the room as though seeing it differently now. A record of the past that could never properly be recorded. “And you took these things, avenging her?”
Avenging?
He supposed that word worked as well as any. He only recalled being furious and wanting them to feel the ache of having things taken from them, as they took from her, though the value of what his mother lost could never be calculated. Never be matched by trinkets.
This room served as a reminder that some ledgers could never be fully balanced and that some debts could never be repaid no matter what.
That taking from others does not restore what was stolen.
And ultimately, power couldn’t fix what love destroyed.
Just like procuring an old deed from his father’s widow that belonged to his mother.
Ah, well. He never believed it would fix things. He did it anyway.
“Does that seem foolish to you?” Drake asked, his eyes following the slight crease of her brow.
“On the contrary, they are evidence of your heart. I’m merely surprised you brought me to such a private place.”
Drake froze, her words striking with the force of two well-placed hits. That’s right. He had brought her here, his most private place, without a second thought. Allowed her into a place he’d never shared with anyone before. Time, however, didn’t allow him to dwell on either of the blows.
A door slammed open above them.
Ah, hell.
By the time he looked over, Maxen appeared in the threshold, darkening face livid.