The boisterous melody swells until it sounds like I’m caught in the midst of an angry storm. Without even a pause in tempo, my door bursts off its hinges and crashes into my laden bookshelf, sending most of my books thumping to the ground.
A foreboding shadow charges through my room like a wild animal, snarling, tossing things around, the smell of leather and a winter wind smacking my senses.
My heart slams to a stop.
“Where is it?” Rhordyn roars, his silhouette lugging a drawer out of its socket and tipping its contents all over the floor. A box of knickknacks is the next tribute to his unbridled chaos; precious pieces I’ve collected over the years scattering atop the pile of clothes like pepper garnishing a meal.
My eyes narrow ...
This bastard.
“Where’swhat?” I hiss, watching him tug another drawer free—his robust shape barely lit by the light leaking into my room from the stairwell.
A barrage of my underwear arcs through the air, and my cheeks blaze.
Here I am, clinging to a pillow slip bathed in his scent like it’s my most prized possession while he’s tossing my delicates as if he’s rooting around in a three-day-old pile of trash.
He strides toward the bed, dropping low and reaching under, before he pauses for a beat.
“Rhord—”
He leaps up and stabs his attention at my side table, the tense line of his shoulders seeming to soften as he snatches my necklace off the tray. Then, he’s grabbing my upper arms, pulling me forward with unforgiving hands and trussing the chain around my neck.
“What thehellare you doing?”
He’s never handled me like this before, like I’m nothing but a floppy doll.
The crystal bulb and conch shell land atop my chest, tinkling against each other while he manipulates the latch, fingers grazing my neck, sending shivers up and down my spine.
All over my skin.
He releases a deep sigh and pulls away, lumping onto the edge of my bed, elbows planting on his knees before his head falls into the scoop of his hands.
I can hear the trampling thud of his heart. Scent the deep, salty musk of his desperation.
There’s something so unsettling about seeing a man his size—a man who’s usually all hard edges and sturdy resolve—bent over himself like a felled tree.
I don’t recognize this male one bit.
“Rhordyn,” I whisper, reaching ...
The second my fingertips brush the brick of his shoulder, he jerks away, causing my hand to retract.
“There’s something I need to show you,” he rasps, the crumbled tenor of his voice lifting the hairs on the back of my neck.
Rhordyn doesn’t speak like that—like part of him is just as broken as I am.
Standing, he strides into the darkness, his heavy footsteps my only guide to his whereabouts. He strikes a match and lights a sconce near my vanity, bathing the room in a flickering light.
My eyes lap at his reflection in the mirror; his virile features pulled off an otherwise black canvas by the spill of golden light.
He drags a small, wooden stool out and gestures for me to sit.
My brow buckles.
“What are you doing?”
His gaze drops to the pillow slip I’m still clinging to, nostrils flaring, chest swelling. He exhales, his stare finding my own again—eyes hardened steel but slicing me in a gentle way, like the tapered edge of a shaving blade gliding across my skin.
