Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Imarched inside Torin’s apartment like I owned the place. Let’s give him a taste of his own medicine.
“I can give myself the grand tour,” I said, walking into the open living room and kitchen. “Did I mention I can be one very annoying human?”
The chuckle from behind told me that Torin was already familiar with this side of my charming personality.
The vast space was beautiful but cold as if Torin couldn’t be bothered to put some color or decor on the white, clinical walls. But the high ceilings and the floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the magnificent forest view, making up for the lack of warmth indoors.
“Aren’t you bothered by me invading your personal space?” I asked.
Just like he had with mine.
“Why would I be? I’d share everything with you,” he said in a low voice.
Torin’s hot breath tickled my neck, and my body jerked. He was going to make it very hard for me to stay here.
I continued my walk-through and headed for the bedroom doors. Torin sidestepped me and opened one of the doors for me.
“This is my bedroom,” he said.
This man’s favorite colors must’ve been white and gray. But the dark gray quilt made the four-poster bed stand out as a focal point in the ample space. How many women did Torin bring here?
It doesn’t matter.
My gaze fell on the picture behind the bed, and my body stilled. The calligraphy painting I did as a Christmas gift for my parents hung in Torin’s bedroom. I must have been sixteen or seventeen at that time. It was one of the first paintings I loved, but Layla had ruined it by spraying ink.
I walked next to the bed, staring at the painting, which now appeared beautiful and unique. Not ruined. I painted calligraphy strokes with black ink over a dark-red and orange background. It represented my love for my parents, and it had been the only gift I prepared for them that year.
I had dumped the canvas next to the small trash can in my bedroom in the kingdom, and after the painting disappeared, I assumed the housekeepers must have taken it to the trash.
I didn’t have proof that Layla messed with it, but I had no doubt about it.
I told Dad about suspecting Layla, and my father had only sighed and said, “It couldn’t be helped.
Both of you are giving me gray hair.” Dad must have also dealt with the overbearing guilt of sending his brother on a mission that had to do with me and ended up with his brother dead.
Abruptly, I turned to face Torin. “Did you take it from my bedroom?”
“Yes.”
The answer should have been a no because Torin had never shown me any attention except to glare at me.
I took a sharp breath. The first surprise had come when Torin admitted to dropping off the dress in my London apartment. But this surprise was beyond shocking. He’d invaded my personal space on several occasions, and now I wondered what else he’d done that I didn’t know about.
There was a lot I didn’t know about the Alpha.
“You have been in my childhood bedroom!” I squeaked. “How many times?”
The edges of Torin’s eyes softened, and he let out a loud sigh as if he couldn’t be bothered to answer.
“Too many times to count,” he said, and the air knocked from my lungs.
Every time I had built a new space as my home, this man trespassed.
“Does Dad know about it?”
“Not completely.”
“What is that supposed to mean, Torin?” I placed my hands on my waist and fought the urge to tap my foot on his white rug.
He shrugged, hard muscles bunching up, flexing in a way I didn’t want to notice. I took a deep breath and left his room before my blood pressure rose.
“I’ll explain everything one day.” He paused. “This way.” Torin stopped me by holding my hand and pointed to a door inside his bedroom. “It connects the two rooms.”
I ground my teeth at his dismissal of my question. It bothered me more when I was in the kingdom, and one of the Alphas ignored me or my words. It usually happened when Dad wasn’t around, of course.
I didn’t know if I would be around “one day” to hear Torin’s explanation.
I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m not sleeping in your room. You can dream about it, though.”
“I dream about it all the time. But you’re right. You won’t be sleeping with me.” He gently tugged me toward the second bedroom.
My mouth almost fell to the floor. Wait…Torin would so graciously allow me to sleep in a separate room after his mate speech of “I’d rather die than let you go?”
I mustered my most sarcastic tone. “So you won’t bulldoze your way and make me sleep in the same room with you since I’m your prisoner and all?”
“No, Princess. It wouldn’t work on you, although I want to pin you underneath me even at this very moment.” His eyes flashed, and he gave me his most devilish smile. “If I sleep next to you, I’ll kill you, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
I almost tripped on the rug underneath the king-size bed. My mate held a desire to hurt me? My dad taught me that mates cherished each other, but Torin and I were not so typical. Him—a bloodthirsty beast. Me—his food.
If I were a she-wolf, he wouldn’t desire my blood so much, would he?
But still, wouldn’t the mate bond between us lessen his blood lust? Or was it the opposite—the mate bond only intensified his thirst for me?
“Why would you want to hurt me?”
“I don’t want to, Anna. But my vampire wants to do more than taste you.” He looked around. “This will be your room.”
I just stood there gaping at the man. Some invisible force pulled me toward him, but it felt different from the pull I felt toward him in my dream realm. It went beyond the mate bond. His presence filled me with an overwhelming curiosity.
I should have been petrified that this man wanted me in a way that could hurt me, and yet, the fluttering behind my chest was my soul awakening.
I sighed and looked around at what was going to be my bedroom from now on.
“At least the dresser is a warm brown color, and the bedding is lavender, which I adore,” I muttered, more to myself.
“I’m glad you like it, Anna. Make yourself at home.”
“Home?”
Home was where my family was, but I couldn’t go there. I didn’t want to, not after I learned to live on my own for the past seven years. Torin wanted me to be here, but the people who attacked me at the airport didn’t.
“I’ll survive here.” I had no choice in the matter. “Although it was hard getting here from the airport.” I sat down on the soft mattress and looked up at Torin. “Who else from your pack knew I was coming here?”
Torin’s thick eyebrows furrowed into a V. “What do you mean?”
“I was chased at the airport. I couldn’t tell their intentions, but they probably weren’t good.”
“Can’t be my people. They’d never hurt you.”
I scoffed, and Torin frowned.
“Who else knew you took the flight?” he asked, clearly dismissing the possibility of a traitor in his pack.
“Tammy and Hayden. He must have figured out where I was going.”
Torin walked to the connecting door and turned. “I don’t trust him.”
“I do,” I deadpanned. “He won’t hurt me, Torin. You take pride in your pack and your people just like the King, but there could be a traitor.”
Unlike Torin, I let the possibility of a traitor exist because I’d lived with Layla for eighteen years in the kingdom, and she’d taken advantage of every opportunity to betray me every step of the way.
Torin looked at me, seeming deep in thought. At least he listened to me and wasn’t completely dismissing the possibility.
“But your Council knew I was coming?” I pressed.
Torin grimaced. Even if there were someone from his pack who came to do me harm at the LA airport, we couldn’t figure it out now, and I had no evidence of any sort.
“Why did you invite your Council to the boardroom just now?”
The men and Veronica hadn’t said anything to us.
“I thought you were going to meet them, but it didn’t go as planned.”
Torin had organized a meet-and-greet with his Council. Did he genuinely wish to introduce them to me? I let out a heavy sigh. “Where’s my book, Torin?”
“You really want the book?”
I crossed my hand around my torso. “I really want it. Yes. Because it’s mine, and you are a thief. Did you think I came here on vacation?”
He tilted his head to the side and smiled. “I will get it but not yet.”
I filled my cheeks with air and blew it all out loudly. His smirk caused my heart to skip a beat.
Torin started to walk away when I said, “Why keep me here, then? If my life is in danger when I’m around you?”
The intensity of his gaze raised goosebumps on my forearms.
“I can no longer stay away from you,” he said as a matter of fact.
I couldn’t swallow my scoff fast enough.
“I hardly believe that. It’s about Hayden, isn’t it?”
Crimson flashed and lingered in his eyes. I’d set off his vampire yet again.
Torin started toward me. He bent over and leveled his head at mine when he got in front of me. We stood only a breath away from each other.
“When your pretty lips utter the name of another man, my vampire wants to draw your blood so badly that I can barely restrain myself,” he said in an inhuman voice—deep and gruff.
The internal struggle of draining my blood and keeping me alive was written all over his vamp-ish face, and the realization that Torin had been struggling to keep away from me and keep me alive all these years was starting to sink in.
If it was true that he could no longer stay away from me, he would be in so much trouble.
He was subjecting himself to the worst punishment—torturing himself with guilt for desiring my blood.
He had kept his distance all these years, thinking he protected me from himself, but he only ended up bringing his vampire to the edge of insanity and alienating his mate.
Denying himself close contact with me only made him want me more. It was like dieting—it never worked. And now that Torin allowed himself to touch me and be close to me, I was on the menu.