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I want to shove the fountain pen a few feet away from me into his eyeball, but I keep that to myself too. “I’ll behave,” I say instead.
“Mmm…” He arches again, and I whimper. Ashamed of the noise, I clamp my mouth shut.
So fast that it takes a moment to register, he flips me over, bringing us face to face. His hips press into me much more intimately now, and I have to fight to keep myself from wrapping my legs around his hips to bring him closer.
“A moment more of your time, and I’ll let you get back to your chores,” he says, glancing down between us at my puckered nipples against the fabric of his shirt.
Then I hear a sound I don’t recognize, a small snick. When he brings a shiny blade to the side of my cheek, I flinch away from him.
“Ah ah ah, little one. Careful, one touch, and this will cut your pretty skin so easily.” He traces the point down my scar, slow and steady, until he reaches my lips.
The fire in my veins turns to ice. Terror washes away the lust in a crystal-clear fog. “You won’t kill me.”
He continues tracing the contours of my face with his knife. The sharp edge pierces my skin the tiniest bit, and one drop of blood slides down the side of my cheek. He lifts the knife and surveys his work. It’s barely a paper cut, but he seems satisfied by it.
His eyes lock on mine, and I try to wiggle away. “I don’t have to kill you to keep you in line. Remember that. Pain is a powerful motivator for anyone, especially a princess who has never had a real taste of it.”
He leans in, so he’s almost touching my mouth with his. If I lift up an inch, I’d be tracing the words with my own lips as he says them. “If you want me to be the one to show you the true depth of pain, then keep acting like a spoiled brat. Otherwise, do your chores, follow my orders, and you’ll be just fine.”
I don’t know what to say so he won’t hurt me, nor do I know what to say to get him off me, so I remain silent this time. All the fight in me is tempered for the moment. It isn’t as if he’d make it a fair fight, anyway.
“I think we understand each other,” he finally says and shoves away from me.
Sucking a full breath into my lungs, I try to calm my erratic heartbeat. A chill washes over me at his absence. When I look up, he’s already walking out the door, buttoning his suit jacket like he didn’t just threaten me.
“Clean up this mess,” he calls back.
With my face flushed, tears trailing down my cheeks, stinging along the slight cut, I climb off the desk. At first, my legs wobble until I stand tall and get my bearings again. I want to rush back into my room, to hide there for the rest of the day, but I’m stronger than that. I won’t let him push me into a corner.
Quickly, I clean up the mess on the floor, even scooping up the tiny bits of wood which the stack shed when I’d sat it on the floor originally. Once everything looks immaculate again, I glance over at his desk.
On the edge, it’s sharp point gleaming in the morning sunlight, is the fountain pen he abandoned when he got angry. I quickly snatch it up, cap the end, and shove it into one of the gloves I’d been using to handle the firewood.
Before I can betray myself, I rush out of the room and hide it between the mattress of my bed and the bed frame. It’s not a great weapon, but it’s something. And even if the last thing I do is drive it into Nicolo’s eyes, I’d die happy.
16
Nic
The sound of Beethoven blasting at a ridiculous volume tells me exactly where Soo is hiding out. He’s been conspicuously absent for the last couple of days, and it grates on my ever-unraveling patience that I have to hunt him down to work out plans.
As my biggest warehouse, and where most of Lucas’s trade goods are kept, it’s a place Soo frequents. His studio apartment is set up in the back of the warehouse, near the loading dock that leads out to the river. He enjoys seeing the water through his windows at night.
Unlike most warehouses, this one is lined in concrete and steel with rich rough cedar lining the floors and some walls used to separate holding areas. It makes the entire building smell like a forest, and the entire place echoes the moment anyone so much as breathes inside it.
I march across the planks to Soo’s little holding. He’s already lowering the volume on Symphony Number Five in C Minor as I approach.
