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He held my gaze for only a few seconds before it was gone. He then shifted his gaze to the fire. It was the first time he broke contact first, the first time he severed that connection. “Eat.”
Three
Negotiate
Melanie
Raven was getting worse.
With every passing day, she grew weaker.
She struggled to carry the boxes to the table, starved until she turned white and weak, a translucent ghost.
And there was nothing I could do.
I was in my cabin, sitting in the dark and the cold, knowing the boss would visit me once more. He didn’t come yesterday or the day before. My food was brought by a faceless guard, and I shivered through the night because I still didn’t know how to make a fire. When I tried, I couldn’t get the flames to stick to the wood, not the way he could or the other girls in my old cabin had.
I knew when he arrived before the door even opened.
There were several sets of footsteps. They thudded against the wooden beams as they approached. The door was open, the tray was served, and then the guard took his post outside my room.
The boss entered, making the same quiet but powerful entrance as with any time he stepped into the vicinity of other people. His eyes went to the fire first, then shifted to me. He didn’t sink into his armchair.
The door shut behind him.
After several long seconds, he spoke. “Why do you not use the fireplace?”
I was a little less scared of him, so I spoke. “I…I don’t know how.” I was still in my work clothes because they were a lot warmer than my lounge clothes, and they were warm on the inside from my body heat through the day.
His stare lingered before he grabbed the lighter, kneeled, and did it for me. When the fire grew into flames, he rose to his feet and set the lighter on the stonework. “Light the deepest part of the logs. Not the corner.” He moved to his usual spot and sank into the armchair, the glow from the flames blanketing his face with golden light. It made his eyes a little brighter, like freshly tilled soil on a spring day. His gaze was reserved for my face. He always wore a stoic and intense expression, but whenever his eyes were on me, it was more pronounced. Slight, but deep.
He was in charge of this place, had the power to do anything, so if he said he had no bad intentions toward me, I believed him. There was no reason to give me a false sense of security, to make me drop my guard when he could just tear it down. I grabbed the tray and started to eat.
With his arms stretched out in front of him and his body still, he watched me eat the food the guard had provided. A lot of men weren’t talkative, but he took it to a new extreme. He seemed to enjoy silence more than a good conversation.
I didn’t know what else to do besides eat, so that’s what I did. I was starving after the long day. We didn’t get breakfast. We got two meals a day, and that was why the girls slept with the guards to get extra sustenance. I’d never had much of an appetite, so I didn’t need to go the extra mile.
The thought of the girls made me think of Raven.
She was being starved on purpose—so she would be the next candidate for the Red Snow.
I didn’t know what had caused the guard to focus on Raven, but knowing her, she probably refused a request or pissed him off, and now she was at his mercy. My mind suddenly became clear as a sunny day after a rain as I looked at him. “I have an offer.”
It seemed to be too much effort for him to react, and his face stayed the same.
“I’ll let you have me the way you want to have me…if you let my sister and me go.”
His face was a slab of gray concrete.
An eternity seemed to pass, and there was no response. A silent no.
“Okay…if you let Raven go.” If I could get her out of here, I would be able to live with myself again.
He didn’t even blink.
“Her guard is starving her—”
“I don’t negotiate.” The look on his face told me the conversation was over. The request had been denied. We were finished.
At least I tried. “You said you wanted me…”
“Still do.” A man had never looked at me like that before, like he could touch me with just his stare, wrap his fingers around my neck and slide his hand gently up my shirt over my soft belly—when there were twelve feet between us.
“I just offered you a way to make that happen—”
“That’s not how I want to have you.”
