Page 76 of These Tears

His gaze dips down at a stray strand of hair fallen across my forehead. Gently, almost believably, he tucks it behind my ear.

And smiles.

‘“Where living is an act of courage.”’

I nearly groan aloud when I recognise Seneca in the words. The usual retort rises to my tongue and dies there. I don’t have enough fight left to give it voice.

Every breath snags before it reaches the bottom of my lungs, but this time the question comes out firmer. ‘Where are you taking us, Elias?’

He inhales slowly and holds it, as though the next words have to be pulled out of a depth too dark to name.

‘Away,’ he exhales at last.

‘Why, for God’s sake? Why me?’ I whisper.

‘I told you. You made me a prisoner without bars.’ His voice roughens. ‘So I’m taking you down with me.’

Denial rushes in like bile. Isak. Melody. The fallout. The news.

‘I had nothing to do with their deaths,’ I breathe. ‘You can’t seriously believe this is my fault.’

His hand tightens in warning at the nape of my neck, the other on my thigh.

‘Will you fucking listen for one second?’ he growls beside my ear. ‘Are you listening?’

I nod jerkily.

‘When someone tells you to leave things be, it’s for a reason,’ he says darkly.

‘I didn’t help with your exoneration out of malice, Elias—’

‘The name’s Jakob, for now.’ His gaze cuts to the gate, then to the other side, checking the faces nearest us.

He shifts stiffly beneath me, the heat of his frame practically melting my skin.

‘Either way, you meddled.’

‘If you’d told me what was going on, I might not have done it, Jakob,’ I bite out.

His jaw flexes beside my cheek.

‘It was none of your business.’

‘Well,’ I shoot back, twisting at the waist to face him directly, heat rising to meet the chill in his eyes, ‘it is now. Clearly.’

To punctuate the point, I push into him again, digging my hips down hard.

His fingers clamp my thighs in retaliation.

‘Do that again, Leah,’ he rumbles into my neck, ‘and I’m taking you back into the lavatory.’

That growl. The way his black lashes suddenly lower halfway and make his eyes look damning…

He doesn’t elaborate on the threat.

Heat floods my face as the incident slams back into me: his body filling the space. His voice coiling around me while he stripped me. The exposure. The shame that followed. How I did what he said because the alternative felt worse. And I know he could have made it worse.

But as that sensation blooms hotter, it becomes something else. Something I don’t recognise.