22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
“Hey!” I shouted as I caught up with Sin.
He ignored me and hooked a left down a dimly lit hallway, not pausing until he reached the door at the end.
“What?” he snapped, finally acknowledging me.
“Do you have to be so rude?” I panted, out of breath from chasing after him. “It’s not like I signed up for any of this.”
He folded his arms over his broad chest, the movement pulling his black tunic even tighter. “You agreed to fulfill the prophecy, didn’t you? Kind of sounds like signing up if you ask me, Fea Remia.”
“Stop calling me that,” I demanded, pushing my wild hair out of my face in frustration. “My name is Rain. Not Raynella. Not princess. Not princepa. And definitely not whatever the hell ‘Fea Remia’ is. Why is it so fucking hard for people here to get that? And for the record, you guys brought me here against my will and basically forced my hand with all this prophecy crap. So back. The fuck. Off.” I jabbed his chest hard on the last words to ensure I got my point across. His boorish behavior was getting really old, really fast.
His scathing glare bounced right off me as I waited for him to decide on whatever snarky comeback he’d go with this time. He must have been tired because he just yanked the door open and disappeared down a steep staircase that led into a suffocating, inky darkness.
I only hesitated a moment before plunging in after him.
Once we hit the bottom of the stairs, flickering wall sconces every few yards illuminated the space, and I could make out an old tunnel with a mild downward slope.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“This leads to the arena,” he replied without stopping. “You slipped on several steps yesterday so I figured you’d prefer this route. Though if you’re scared of a few cobwebs we can turn around.”
I didn’t know which surprised me more. The fact that he noticed my struggles, or the fact that he even cared enough to go a different way.
“No,” I said quickly. “This is better.” I watched his retreating back for a second then raced after him. “Thanks,” I said, matching his stride as best I could. “I appreciate it.”
Sin scoffed. “Don’t go thinking any pretty thoughts about me, Fea Remia. I’m still the same asshole.”
I groaned internally. It felt like every time he did something nice, he had to immediately act like a jerk to counteract it. I just wished he would pick a personality and stick with it.
I nearly crashed into Sin’s back as I found him standing just inside the weapons room, unmoving. He growled something in Rivellan and moved to stand in front of a rack of weapons at the back wall. The assortment of plain swords hung in their usual place, but it was the empty wall mount above them that Sin was staring at.
“Examenti!” he cursed, whipping his head around to scan the room frantically.
I took a step back. “Um, what’s wrong?” I asked, innocently.
“My sword is missing,” he growled, kicking a rack of maces and sending them scattering across the floor. I jumped back before one of the pointy weapons hit my foot. “Sorry,” he bit out, running a hand angrily through his hair. “I just need to find it. It was supposed to be cleaned yesterday, and I assumed the soldier would return it here after.”
Panic contorted his face in an all too familiar expression, and an arrow of guilt struck me hard. I had thought it would be funny stealing his sword. I’d watch as he got all red-faced and grumbly, maybe stomp around a bit. But this? He seemed genuinely worried, and I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.
“It’s probably just still being cleaned,” I suggested.
“No, if that were the case then it would be here.” He pointed at a cabinet in the corner of the room. “That’s where we keep all the supplies. I should have made sure it was returned last night but I was…”
His voice cut off, and I filled in the blank. Distracted. He was distracted because of me.
“Maybe they left it in your room? I’m sure it’ll turn up. Plus we don’t need swords anyways. I was thinking we could focus on self-defense today.”
“No,” he muttered, brushing past me as he exited the room. “I need to find it now. Training can wait.”
I saw my opportunity to actually learn anything slipping away, and before I could stop myself I blurted out, “Sin, wait. I might know where it is.”
Every muscle in his body went rigid. Slower than I had ever seen him move, he turned around.
“What did you say?” he asked, his face scarily neutral.
I gulped. I had wanted this, to punish him for thinking he could push me around. I couldn’t show weakness.
“Nothing,” I said coyly, pretending to examine a shelf of wicked-looking daggers.
“Rain…” he warned, and I could see him out of the corner of my eye moving closer, like a tiger stalking its prey.
I couldn’t help the sharp laugh that escaped. “Now you use my name? I didn’t know all it took was your toy going missing to knock some sense into you.”
He didn’t stop his forward progression. “Where is my sword,” he demanded in a low tone that promised violence, pain, and other dark things I shouldn't be thinking about.
I wiped every trace of emotion from my face and tossed my messy hair behind my shoulder. “How would I know? I can barely lift it, remember?”
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.
He surged forward, pressing me back against the shelf of knives, his hands braced against the wood structure on either side of my face.
It felt like I was now trapped in a cage with the tiger.
His eyes scanned my face and he smiled. “You’re scared of me, Fea Remia,” he accused, his voice low and gravelly. “And you should be. Now tell me where my sword is before I prove to you just how much of a monster I can be.”
His turbulent ocean scent washed over me. Sin was dangerous, and right now I was the object of his rage. I should just tell him where it was and pray he decided not to take it out on me.
I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, though. I didn’t want him to let me out of the cage. I wanted to keep the tiger angry. I wanted to keep him pacing and snarling. I wanted to see what he might do, how far he would go, because I honestly believed that he wouldn’t hurt me. Not really. But maybe that was what every victim thought just before they died—that the wild beast could surely be tamed.
“And what happens if I don’t tell you?” I asked, keeping my voice level, not willing to show him any of the fear I felt racing through my body. Fear and… something else.
I allowed myself to breathe him in deeply and watched his eyes flare as I did so. Arousal stronger than I ever expected to feel for this male filled me, the heated pulse in my low abdomen catching me so off guard that my knees wobbled. It might be twisted, but right then, I didn’t want Sin to fight off his urge to hurt me.
Maybe there was something wrong with me. Scratch that, of course there was something wrong with me, but it didn't stop the surge of desire I felt. I wanted to fall prey to his violence and passion because I knew if he let go, it would be all consuming. I wanted to feel that kind of intensity, if only once before he decided to hate me again.
Without thinking, I closed the gap between us and pressed my lips against his.
My entire body lit up at the contact, the slight roughness from his stubble more delicious than I imagined.
Sin tensed, and for a second I thought he would push me away, curse my name, and storm off.
He didn’t do any of those things.
Before I even knew what was happening, his hands were no longer on the shelf, but instead were wrapped around me as he returned the kiss with every bit of passion I had hoped for.
I melted in his arms as one of his hands snaked upward into my hair, clutching my loose strands tightly while the other moved low to wrap around my back, pressing me against his body. If I had any reservations about his desire, they disappeared the moment his hard length pressed into my stomach.
I met his fervor with my own, prodding my tongue at the seam of his lips. He opened to me, and I moaned softly into his mouth, desperate to taste him fully.
Daggers fell to the ground around us as he pushed me harder into the shelf, and a pained gasp escaped as one of the remaining knives stabbed into my shoulder blade.
The pain of the physical wound was nothing compared to the pain of Sin releasing me and turning away. My body mourned the loss of his heat and that perfect pressure.
I stood there panting, breathlessly waiting for him to say something. Preferably he would say nothing, and instead take me back into his arms. It was stupid to kiss him, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stop. I had a taste of his violence, and I wanted more.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, refusing to even look back at me. I reached behind my shoulder and saw the blood on my hand as I pulled it away. It wasn’t much but enough to warrant a bandage.
“I’m fine. Just a flesh wound,” I joked. If he got the reference it didn’t show.
“You should have Dey heal you,” he mumbled.
“I don’t want Dey to heal me,” I responded, wishing he would turn around and look at me. I needed to know what he was thinking.
“He’s very skilled, and it won’t scar if he does it,” Sin continued, still ignoring me.
“I said that I don’t want Dey,” I reiterated.
“I doubt you know what you want these days, Fea Remia.” Any softness in his voice was gone. He turned to look at me, and there was no emotion, no passion in his eyes. Just the cold hard reality that he didn’t want anything to do with me.
“I don’t think I’m the one who doesn’t know what they want, Sin.” I was proud of the unwavering strength in my voice.
He took a step toward me and growled in Rivellan. Just as I was hoping that he would grab me and we could pick up where we left off, his face closed off again.
“Get someone to heal that wound and bring my sword back here within the hour, or there won’t be any training today,” he said, his voice tight.
“Fine,” I snapped, heading toward the door.
“And Rain?” he called out behind me.
“What?” I asked, whipping back around and smacking myself in the face with my unruly hair, losing any sense of the upperhand in the situation.
Sin eyed me for a moment, his stone cold eyes a contrast to my fiery ones. “Don’t ever do that again.”
I ground my teeth together at his statement. I had gotten my wish to feel Sin’s intensity, but it clearly came at a price.
Fine. If he wanted to pretend that he didn’t feel anything I could do the same.
“Not a problem,” I tossed out as I stormed off to find a healer for my shoulder.
The wound to my pride, however, would not be so easy to fix.