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CHAPTER15
CHRISTY
“My father was right to fear you,” Leon says, as he stares out of the window a couple of days later watching a storm gather over the mountains in the distance. It’s raining heavily, thunder rumbling as lightning forks across the darkening sky.
“You regret pulling me from the fire?” I ask, resting on the chair beside the fireplace, acutely aware that keeping him talking is the only option I have until Thirteen returns from her visit to Three and Nala.
Turning around, he leans against the window frame, his fingers curling around the ledge. “Not now. No.”
“But you did once?”
“Yes,” he admits, swiping a hand over his face as another fork of lightning illuminates him in bright, white light. “Saving you resulted in Malik shooting Jakub’s dog dead as punishment. He also beat me so badly that without Renard’s care I might’ve died.”
His words hum with honesty, and a cloying feeling of pity churns my stomach. I shouldn’t be surprised he was punished by his father or even care for that matter, but despite everything, I have empathy for the boy hewas.
“Renard was a good man to you, to Nala,” I observe.
“When he could be, yes.” Leon, noticing my expression, swipes his tattooed hand through his hair. “He took care of all of us when he could, but aside from that one time when he stepped in to save Nala and spare Jakub another beating, he never stopped Malik from hurting us or any of the women he brought home.”
“That must have been difficult to understand. Confusing,” I concede.
“Renard was Malik’s most loyal employee, but he did what he could for us. Our relationship with him is…wascomplicated. Besides, Nala was the one he cared about the most. Going against Malik would’ve put her in harm’s way.”
I nod, shivering as a cool breeze passes over my skin through the gaps around the window frame.
“You’re cold?” Leon asks, striding across the room and grabbing some logs from the basket beside the fireplace.
“A little,” I admit.
“You should’ve said something,” he admonishes.
“We haven’t really been in a position where I can ask things of you and you’re willing to give them to me,” I say, watching Leon as he arranges the logs, then reaches for some kindling and newspaper from another basket, placing them in the gaps between the wood. “You’ve only ever taken from me before.”
“Things are different now, I had hoped you’d realise that,” he replies, grabbing a box of matches from the mantle and lighting the stack of wood.
“How?” I ask, tucking my hair behind my ears as he shifts position, using an iron poker to ensure all the wood catches fire.
The warm glow flickers in his eyes as he turns to look at me. There’s a softness to his gaze that just wasn’t there before. It unnerves me. I’m not certain how to deal with this version of him.
“I thought I made that obvious. Don’t I seem different to you?”
“If by different you mean you’re not actively trying to hurt me, kill me, or fuck me, then I suppose, yes, you’re different.”
“You don’t believe it will last?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” I say truthfully.
Even now when I look into his eyes, I feel the connection between us, some cosmic force that binds me to him even when all I want is to be free of it, unshackled from these chains that weigh so heavily on my heart. I just have to keep reminding myself that it will happen. That I’ll be the one to sever those chains when the timing is right.
“And the legend, what Renard said? Do you believe in that?”
“My mother clearly believed we were destined for each other...” I say, my voice trailing off as I focus on the fire crackling in the hearth and not the dull ache in my chest at the thought of her.
“She was a seer,” Leon states, watching me closely.
“Yes.”
“And you?”
