Page 371 of Coal Hearts

No place with us.

No place ever.

Cursing my betraying body and the way he hunted me across the bedroom, I tipped up my chin and tried to hide everything. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“The fact that you acknowledge I even have feelings is an improvement, I suppose.”

I frowned. “Of course you have feelings. I never said you didn’t. I just...they’re not entirely normal, Henri.”

He nodded. “I see.”

Goosebumps shivered down my back. “You see what exactly?”

“You think I’m one of them.”

I scowled. “I’ve told you that. You are. As long as you turn your back on the jewels and are complicit in what the other Masters do, you are one of them.”

“Fine.” He shrugged. “In that case, it won’t matter what I do then, will it?”

I gulped. “W-What are you going to do?”

“Get rid of the towel.”

“What? No—”

“I wasn’t asking. Drop it, little nightmare. Now.”

My eyes flashed to the door.

“Run and see how that ends for you.” He shuddered and wrapped a hand around his hard length. “Actually, I’ll tell you how that ends for you.” Backing me closer to the bed, he whispered, “If you run, Ilyana, I will chase you. I will catch you, and I’ll slam you against a wall and fuck you until you scream.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, his fantasy playing out between us as if he’d projected it on a big screen. “I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I’m barely holding onto my sanity as it is. So please, if you want me to live up to the expectations you have of me—the expectations that I will hurt you, bruise you, and use you—then go right ahead.”

My breath caught.

I couldn’t stop the clench inside me. The sinful little flush. The awful, awful acknowledgement that the girl I’d been before...the nice girl...the kind, normal girl who didn’t punch rapists in the nose and didn’t trade her body for a friend’s life hadn’t died back there in the storm.

Whoever stood in her place, I didn’t know her.

But I did know she wasn’t nice.

She was dangerous and dirty and...

Stop it.

You’re still you.

Just...changed.

He smiled tightly. “By the way, while we’re on the topic of being used...” With speed too fast to stop, his hand lashed out and grabbed at the knot in my towel. With a fierce yank, he tore it off me, leaving me naked and shivering. “You used me at dinner. You’re right about that. You used me as if I were some vibrator stored away in your nightstand.”

His chin tipped down, darkening his eyes even more. “I was prepared to treat you like my wife tonight. The thought of another hurting you? Watching someone else put their hands on you? Fuck.” His fists balled, and his entire body flinched as if he suffered honest-to-God pain. “I can’t get the pictures out of my head. Him on top of you. You blank-eyed.” He shivered. “I thought you’d broken. I feared you’d snapped and left me. But...I should’ve known you were so fucking strong. So unbelievably, deliciously strong, and so...I’m going to treat you exactly as you expect to be treated. I will do it because I know you’ll curse me and hate me, and if those are the only two emotions I can earn from you, then...fine. I’ll take them because fuck knows you won’t give me anything else.”

“What are you saying?” I cupped my breasts, my entire nervous system on high alert.

Scalding heat simmered in my belly, catching fire to all my other cells.

Ever since we met.

Every second since we noticed each other, I’d been at the mercy of this...this unwanted affliction. He was a virus overtaking my system. An insidious illness turning my very wants and needs against me.