Chapter 18 #2
“Yes?” he growled into the device. His eyes flicked to me briefly and then the door in what was clearly a dismissal, because gods forbid he actually try using his words to ask for privacy. But then, since when did Rook ask for anything? He just demanded, and took. Asshole.
I grabbed the plates and stalked from the room, acutely aware of his eyes boring into my back the whole time.
When I reached the kitchen, I dumped them on the counter and leaned over the sink, rinsing out my mouth, which did absolutely nothing to clear the vile taste.
I was pretty sure I was going to be tasting that in my sleep.
And smelling it, too. I reached over and shoved the window open, but I had a feeling that stench was going to be lingering a while.
With a sigh, I set about cleaning up the chaos I’d left down here, starting with scraping his plate into the waste disposal. I peered into the pans I’d left on the hob, wondering if I could chuck any more of them without him noticing.
Deciding even he would probably notice if I eventually ran out of pans, or the pile reached a window, I relented and chucked them into the sink, and set about scrubbing, cursing Lord High-and-Mighty Asshole under my breath the entire time.
I’d charred the pans badly enough that I’d run out of insults before I was even a quarter way through getting them clean, grown bored of inventing new ones by the time I was halfway, and started to seriously regret my decisions not long after that.
I was pretty sure my hands were going to be cramping in my damned sleep tonight. Stupid asshole dragon.
I turned abruptly at the sound of footsteps, then glowered when I saw Rook in the doorway. Not that I should have been surprised: who else was I expecting to be walking round the completely isolated mansion other than the asshole who’d dragged me here?
“I have to leave,” he said curtly. My heart squeezed—what the fuck, heart?—but I forced myself to shrug.
“So?”
“So,” he snapped, stalking into the kitchen, “I don’t expect any more tantrums, or whatever the fuck this was—” he gestured sharply to the remaining pile of dishes in the sink, “—when I get back.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said, ignoring the flicker of panic in my throat, the need to avoid conflict that made it hard to keep from ducking my head, and settling for turning my eyes on the dishes. “I’m just a shit cook, you know that.”
He caught my chin and forced my eyes back to his. “What I know is that I won’t see another tantrum like that.”
“Is that so?”
“It is so,” he said, his voice infuriatingly calm, “unless you wish to be punished.”
His voice dropped an octave on the last word, and my stomach went into freefall, right the way down to meet my ovaries, which were doing some sort of tap dance. Fuck’s sake, body. Men threatening you should not turn you on.
It never had before.
“Do you wish to be punished, little mouse?” he murmured.
“I’m not a mouse,” I ground out.
“No.” His lips curved coldly. “Mice know how to bite.”
I stared at him, shock warring with hatred and something that was definitely…not hatred.
He released my chin abruptly, but I could still feel every tingling spot his fingers had touched.
“You will go to your room and remain there. We’ll discuss this further when I return.”
“The hell I will,” I said, gaping at him. “I’m not a child. You can’t just…just send me to my room.”
“I am a dragon lord. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“No, you ca— Hey, what are you doing?”
His hand wrapped around my arm made it perfectly clear what he was doing, and I tried to yank it back, earning nothing but a sharp pain for my effort. He stalked out of the kitchen, dragging me with him, my feet scrabbling uselessly on the stone floors as I tried to resist.
“Get off of me!”
“No. If you cannot obey, I will make you obey.”
He didn’t even sound out of breath, and I was pulling back with everything I had. Fuck. I was so outmatched it was laughable, or would have been if it wasn’t so gut-twistingly terrifying.
By the time we reached the stairs, I’d given up trying to free myself, since it was clearly pointless and fighting back would have been suicidally stupid.
The only one getting hurt in that scenario would be me—which didn’t make it any less humiliating to be towed meekly to my room, but between humiliated and dead, I knew which I was choosing.
He shoved open my door, and then pushed me through it.
“Ow! Watch it.”
“You better not even think about trying to leave this room until I come to get you,” he warned me, then pulled the door shut before I could retort, leaving me gaping after him. And then I heard a key turn in the lock.
I lurched forward, grabbing at the handle and rattling it, but he’d done it. He’d locked me in.
“Rook!” I lifted one hand and pounded on the door furiously. “Rook!”
Un-fucking-believable. He’d locked me in.
I kicked the door in frustration, earning myself a sharp pain in my foot, then stalked around my room, fuming.
He couldn’t just lock me in here. I didn’t give a shit who the hell he thought he was, dragon lord or not, he didn’t have the right to just lock me in a cage. He couldn’t treat me like this!
Fucking psychopath.
My eyes fell on something sitting by the wall. A bag. The one he’d brought in here this morning, then abandoned, when he’d decided to kick me out, right before he’d decided I was too weak and pathetic to survive on my own. That he’d be stuck with me here for the rest of my life. An unwanted burden.
Well he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want this, which he’d know if he actually listened to me.
About anything. And sure, maybe wolves weren’t meant to be on their own, maybe they were meant to run in packs, but as Rook had taken great pleasure in reminding me, I wasn’t a wolf.
And if I wasn’t a wolf, then it didn’t matter that I didn’t have a pack.
I glanced over at the window, watching Rook’s form slowly shrinking into the distance. The door wasn’t the only way out of this room.
He wanted me gone?
Fine.