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Bloodless fists released the railing, Caspian turning to face her full on. And God, seeing her in such a state outright gutted him. “There is a bounty worth a fucking mint on your head. The Syndicate has been combing the Warrens for days!”
So, you’re going to kill me. Instantly deflated, she sagged. A despondent pretty lavender gaze slipped from him to find the floor. I had hoped… Never mind. Just do it. Get it over with.
Before her eyes might grow any redder, they darted back up to Caspian’s, one last request on her unmoving lips. Please don’t hurt my boys.
“Goddamn it, Caspian! I can’t hear her say this shit!” Toby bellowed, “Tell her that you fucking love her already!”
Men like him didn’t love, that was for the weak and the mental. Toby, for example. But that did not stop the merciless twisting dagger in his chest when she snorted at the very thought.
Sobered, she fisted and unfisted clearly aching fingers, then flourished them in her special language. But Toby did not translate.
Hissing at Toby over his shoulder, Caspian demanded an explanation. “What did she say?”
Growling under his breath, Toby snarled, “You don’t want to know, boss.”
“THE FUCK I DON’T!”
The little mouse jumped, loudly swallowed, and moved in the same pattern. Repeating herself.
Toby took a step closer. “It’s not what you think, sunshine. He didn’t mean it.”
The look on her face was the most blatant kind of incredulous, the kind of look that couldn’t be faked. Fingers flying she dashed out a fountain of meaning, all of it directed at Toby, who tried to follow and failed.
“You’re going too fast, I can’t—”
That didn’t stop her. Marching right up to them, her lip curled, throat growling through the slapping violence of her unspoken words.
“Tell me what she’s saying,” Caspian barked, causing both frazzled Toby and the furious mouse to startle.
“I can’t fucking tell you what she’s saying,” Toby, hissed. “She’s talking too fast!”
With an animal growl, the mouse shoved past and went to their table. Taking up paper and pen, she wrote down, and violently underlined, exactly what she wanted to say. A second later it was held right up to Caspian’s face.
You owe me a years’ worth of water and pockets full of credits!
“After the ground shook, I went to your house. My men have been digging ever since.”
The paper slipped from suddenly slack fingers, the mouse’s expression transforming from determination to disquiet.
Toby, the madman and the killer, shook his head and translated her stupefied signs.
Why would you go there? Horror was there all over her face, as if the very thought was the reason her breath hitched. Are you crazy? You could have been killed! Don’t you know how dangerous that was?
Voice almost gentle, Caspian asked, “Is that why you left?”
You shouldn’t have gone there! It wasn’t safe!
“I thought you were dead…”
The pain in his voice, the fact he’d actually allowed even a modicum of vulnerability in, she flat out ignored. Her eyes went to the fallen paper.
As she stared down, so much crossed her face, the mouse never having been skilled at concealing a single thought. More so, Caspian could feel the myriad troubles that weighed her down.
A deep sense of betrayal.
The total lack of hope.
Her disgust with him.
So much sadness.
All he could manage to say was, “Are you hungry? Do you want water?”
Lavender eyes shot up, aflame with indignation.
“We’re not going to let you leave,” Toby murmured, easing ever closer. “No one is going to hurt you either.”
Bending down she picked up her paper, ignoring Toby entirely and held it up to Caspian’s face.
Just like the letters she’d handed him weeks ago, he snatched the paper from her fingers, tore it, and tossed it over the edge.
The bits fluttered down, some sticking to concrete walkways, some drowning in the rushing river.
The look on her face…
It didn’t so much as alter when Caspian collared her neck with his grip. There was so much he wanted to say, days’ worth of sick feeling that lanced him internally even now, even feeling her soft throat under his fingers.
Unrelenting in her demand, she stood under the intimidation of his scowl—not so much as flinching when a roughened palm slipped from cupping her throat to caressing her nape.
Unaware when his second hand had come to play in the mud-packed strands of her hair, when he held them to his nose for a sniff, Caspian groaned.
It was the sound of despair.
“I’ll pay whatever you want if you stay. Right now. I’ll fill up your pockets and give you more water than you’d drink in a lifetime. But you are not allowed to leave again. Ever.”
Chapter 16
The rich overbearing Alpha scent called to his marked female, cutting through the mud crusting up her nose and the Warrens’ stink she’d dragged in with her.
With Caspian pressed so close, Wren staggered and took a graceless step back.
