Chapter 8
Kaylee
He unlocked the door and gestured me inside, then paused to lock it behind us. If ever there was an exercise in futility…
“Why even bother locking the door? We both know I can climb out of the window.” I narrowed my eyes. “Unless you’re planning on locking that, too.”
“No need,” he grunted, pocketing the key. “It’s alarmed.”
He started down the hallway and I gaped at his back for a moment then hurried after him.
“Alarmed?” More technology? I probably shouldn’t be surprised by now, but…
“That’s what I said.”
“I didn’t hear an alarm.”
“You wouldn’t.” He took a left at the end of the ridiculously long corridor and led us into a lavishly furnished lounge.
Plush chairs that looked antique were carefully positioned, and large oil paintings that I suspected were originals hung from the paneled walls, with recessed lighting casting a gentle glow over them.
A single chandelier hung from the ceiling, draped in a couple of dust webs that didn’t detract from its obvious beauty—and value—in the slightest. It was almost enough to distract me. But not quite.
“Why alarm it and not bother to lock it?” Not that I wanted to give him any ideas, but it seemed like he wasn’t short in that department, anyway.
“You talk a lot.”
“Get used to it,” I retorted. “Should have abducted yourself some other girl.”
He exhaled heavily and sank into one of the chairs.
“Drinks cabinet is over there,” he said, gesturing with one hand to an expensive-looking mahogany stand set against one of the paneled walls. “Fetch me a whisky. Neat.”
“What did your last slave die of?”
His head snapped to me and his eyes glittered dangerously. “Carry on like that, and you’ll find out.”
I looked around at the grime building on the wood paneled walls. “Well, it wasn’t cleaning, that’s for sure.”
“Gods, woman, can you not follow a simple order?”
I beamed at him. “Nope. Sorry. You’d better just send me back.”
He made a sound that was too dark to be called a laugh, but I could see the amusement in his eyes. “Do you really think, little wolf, that there’s a place for you there any longer?”
“Don’t call me that,” I said. I wrapped my arms around myself, caught myself in the act, and dropped them back to my sides, then thrust my hands quickly into my pockets.
His brow knitted in interest. “Ah, a sore point, no doubt, for one who cannot shift. She does not speak to you, your wolf?”
I shook my head, my eyes resolutely avoiding him as I whispered my darkest secret. “I don’t think she even exists.”
His chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “Alright, little-not-wolf. The window isn’t locked because I don’t care if you want to climb out and go running round the grounds, so long as your work gets done.”
“You…don’t?” My confusion wrote itself on my face and I didn’t bother to try to hide it. “Then what was all that stuff out by the tree about?”
“While you were looking out of your window, plotting your escape, did you happen to look over the wall?”
“Uh…no.”
“And while we were flying back here?”
I shook my head. “Trying not to puke.”
“Naturally.”
“Do you have a point, or did you just want something else to gloat about? Because in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m having a pretty crappy day.”
“If you hadn’t been busy feeling sorry for yourself, you might have noticed we’re a little isolated. If you get over that wall, there’s nowhere to go. And if you try…”
“Yeah, yeah, let me guess. You’ll kill me.”
“No.” His ice cold voice stopped me in my tracks. “I’ll tie you to my bed and make you scream.”
I swallowed. That shouldn’t sound nearly as enticing as it did.
“Okay, well, going with the assumption that would be a bad thing…”
“You don’t seem entirely convinced, Dhoca.”
His eyes pinned me in place and the image of other parts of him pinning me on his bed flashed through my mind, and I was having a pretty hard time thinking of any reason that wouldn’t be a good thing. I turned away quickly.
“You know what you need? A drink. Let me get you that drink.”
His throaty chuckle as I hurried over to the cabinet was so low that I almost didn’t hear it.
I sloshed his whisky into a glass with shaking hands.
Ugh. I seriously needed to get a grip. He was my captor.
And the fact that he was hotter than Hell itself was completely and utterly irrelevant because I was absolutely not interested in going there. At all. Ever.
He took the glass from me without a word and I backed away quickly before he could smell how het up he had me. The amused look on his face told me I hadn’t moved fast enough. That, or his senses were far superior to any wolf’s. Either way, it sucked. Big time.
“So, um, what’s the deal here?” I said, peering resolutely at one of the old oil paintings.
“The deal?” He sounded amused, which made exactly one of us. I battled the urge to turn around.
“Yeah. Like, am I supposed to be hovering around waiting on you hand and foot all day?”
“If I desire it.”
“Well, that sucks.” I trailed one finger through the dust on the bottom of the frame. “What about days off?”
“Days off?” He sounded like the concept was completely alien to him. That didn’t bode well for me.
“Yeah. Like if I wanna chill, spend the day in bed.”
“Oh?”
The unintended double entendre of my words hit me all at once and I spun around, my face burning. “Alone. Sleeping. Definitely alone.”
“There are no days off.”
“Dear gods. Did you last slave turn suicidal?”
Before I could so much as yelp, his palms slammed into the wall on either side of my face, trapping me with his body.
“You will not speak disrespectfully about Alina again, is that clear?”
His eyes bored into mine and my mouth went so dry I couldn’t have spoken if he’d offered me my freedom in exchange for a whisper. I nodded.
“Good. Now, while we’re here, let’s set some ground rules.
You will work whichever days I dictate. Your duties will include whatever I decide.
And yes, that does extend to cleaning and cooking, so you’d best learn, and fast. And if you continue to disrespect me, I’ll spank that pert little ass of yours until you beg for mercy. Is that clear?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat that may have been my heart. “Yes.”
“Excellent.” He stared at me for a long moment, then dropped his arms and stepped back. “You’ll find the kitchen at the bottom of the first corridor. You can go and make a start.”
Asshole.
Hot, intoxicating asshole, but asshole nonetheless.
*
Surprising no-one, dinner was awful. Surprising me, it didn’t actually kill anyone. Shifter resilience, I guess. Although, now that I thought about it…
“If you’re thinking about poisoning me,” Rook said, pushing his not quite empty plate away, “don’t. I’m immune to every type of poison known to man. Quirk of my sub-species.”
“Do you actually read minds?” I demanded with a scowl, gathering up the plates. And then I colored. “Er, I mean, I wasn’t thinking about poisoning you. I’d never do something like that.”
He rumbled a laugh that seemed to turn every muscle in my body to jelly, and I almost spilled something that had been meant to be a sauce off the edge of the plate.
“I enjoy your spirit.” He caught my wrist as I made to hurry past him. “Just remember, you share every meal with me, and your kind aren’t nearly as resilient as mine.”
Yeah, there was that.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I grumbled. “It’s not like I could get out of this stupid place without you.”
“Try to kill me,” he corrected, a dark gleam in his eye. “Because believe me, tougher creatures than you have failed, Dhoca.”
A shiver ran through me at the ancient sounding word.
“Why do you keep calling me that? What does it mean?”
“It’s old Draconic. Roughly translated, it means Fiery One.” He smirked. “But perhaps Tiny Flame would have been more appropriate. Sadly, no such translation exists.”
“Gee, and why am I not surprised that you haven’t done a good job of making friends?”
I tugged my wrist loose from his and straightened the plates before taking them away, my heart hammering in my throat the entire time.
And as much as I wanted to believe it was from his thinly veiled death threat, it was most definitely from the heat of his hand on my arm.
Maybe I needed to put something in my own food to get my irrational horniness under control.
Because if there was one guy I wasn’t interested in falling for, it was the one who was currently holding me captive with his massive…
walls. Too bad my body didn’t get that memo.
I cleaned the dishes and then hurried to my room, and when Rook didn’t call for me again, I was relieved and disappointed in equal measure.