Chapter Five Hot House #3
"This isn't work related." She seethed. "What I do with my private time is just that, Private." She tried to enunciate the last word, but it came out more slurred than she meant.
"Wrong!" He was standing now, towering over her. "The moment the King made you my responsibility you lost all independence that he allows you."
This male is a fucking pig. Adan silently seethed as she looked up to glared at the lord. She didn't even notice that her fire had bloomed in her hands. Lennox's eyes dropping towards it and laughed. She snapped her hands off his desk, and two small hand imprints were left burned into the stone.
Adan instantly smothered her fire that she never meant to let out.
This man made her lose all control. She looked up to the painting above his head, behind his desk.
Looking at him only made her blood boil.
She tilted her head, studying the abstract swaths of paint splattered on canvas.
His large hand grabbed onto her chin, pulling her focus away from the painting and towards his vibrant green eyes.
For a moment she let him, the alcohol slowing her reflexes. Her head caught up with her body and she wrenched it out of his grasp.
"I'm not your fucking pet to be caged. You do not own me." It was technically true, only the king could command her. He owned her. But the smirk on Lennox's face made her pause. "What did you do?" Her heart stopped in her chest.
He wouldn't dare.
"I bought you." The words pelted her, she swayed and fell back into the chair behind her.
Lennox remained standing, pulling a rolled parchment from his dark blue jacket.
She knew what it was. Her indenture papers.
"The king has graciously loaned you out to me, until we are done with his orders."
Adan curled her fists as her fire roared inside her, begging to be set free.
This man—this fucking prick of a man owned her now, in every way.
Her hands shook as she tried to level them out, resting them on her thighs.
He saw it all, the effect he had on her, the anger that roared in her blood, and he smirked.
The side of his mouth tilting slightly. "So, once again, I will repeat myself."
He leered over his desk, grabbing her chin again, holding firm.
"You will obey." This time she didn't rip herself away.
She knew it would be a cataclysmic mistake.
He smiled wider, he knew for certain that this time, he had won.
He let go of her and slowly sat back into his chair.
"So no more nights like these. You will stay in the castle, in case the king has need of you. But," he paused, his voice laced with deadly darkness.
"When I call, you come." Adan ground her teeth to keep from saying something that she would most definitely regret.
I'll kill you for this.
He seemed to read that in her eyes, and it only made him grin wider. "I appreciate your spark, love, but it will only get you killed—not me."
"Why?" She managed to grit out.
"If you had shown up on the pier on time like a good girl, I wouldn't have to resort to such measures. But you can't be trusted to simply obey. So, now you only have yourself to blame."
"You're a fucking pig." She couldn't hold back anymore, the alcohol loosening her tongue.
His dark chuckle filled the room, "be that as it may, you can kick and scream all you want, love. But ultimately, you will come to heal." His green eyes simmered as they stared her down.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you'll be returned to the king in Irons, and he can decide what to do with you."
Adan knew what that meant. At best, it was being thrown into the dungeons and at worst, returned to the Gladiator Pits.
Which she promised herself never to return to.
Steam billowed off her entire body and she silently seethed in her seat.
"That's better." He smirked in victory as his venomous eyes swept over her, "I have heard that Jax will be at my other club; Sanctum, this weekend, and you will come with me."
She had never been to Sanctum, it was a well-known sex club. Unlike Hot House, it only allowed in the very elite of the City of Bones. It seemed that this male did, in fact, have his fingers in multiple cookies jars scattered across the city.
"Since it appears that I have no choice in the matter, I can hardly decline the offer." Sarcasm and anger laced her every word. Her muscles coiled and tensed in Hollow's presence, he, however, looked completely at ease. Like a mountain lion dripping blood and sinew from its maw after a fresh kill.
"I'll send my carriage to pick you up on Saturday."
Adan was already standing to leave, even though she had not been dismissed.
She needed fresh night air to clear her mind.
To get away from Lennox and his controlling presence.
He reached out, grabbing her wrist, holding firm.
"You will behave until then and if I have need of you, you will answer. You know the consequences if you don't."
He let go of her arm, and she felt the burn of his touch like a new scar.
Adan said nothing as she stormed out of his suffocating room and into the loud club and out into the cold night air. She was two blocks away before she started hyperventilating.
Lord Lennox Hollow officially owned her.
She was beyond fucked.