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The length of her backside slammed into the doorway. His clamps on her wrists tightened and he knocked her right hand against the door. The knife dropped from her fingers, clattering to the floor by her feet.
He leaned down over her, his fuming breath in her face. “You left me.”
“I did.” Her arms twisted under his fingers. Iron grips she wasn’t about to escape. “You said I could leave at any time.”
“And I never said I wouldn’t follow.” A savage growl vibrated his chest and he knocked her uplifted arms into the door again. His knuckles took the bruise of the blow more than her arms did. “You made Vicky cry—hysterically. And the look she gave me—she hates me—hates that I drove you away.”
Sloane gasped. “But I—I left her a note—”
His lips covered hers, cutting her words.
Angry. Raw. Hard.
His mouth took hers in a kiss that demanded her silence. A kiss that she could feel him fight against, even as he took her very essence from her. A kiss that unleashed such harbored rage she was both lost and found as she drowned in it.
A snarl bubbled in his throat and he ripped his mouth from hers, then slammed her arms into the door above her head again. “And you stole from me.”
“What?” Her eyes dazed, her gaze lifted, trying to focus on the split second change from him kissing her to his full fury showering down upon her. The rage in his eyes hadn’t dissipated—if anything, it was more alive, more focused—pinpoints fixated on her.
“What?” She blinked hard.
“You stole from me, Sloane. No one steals from me.”
“I stole from you?” Her own rage bubbled, exploding in hot droplets that seared up through her chest. “You dare to say that to me? When you stole from me, you bastard—you stole everything—everything—from me.”
His head snapped back. “I what?”
She twisted, trying to free her wrists of his grasp.
He yanked her arms upward, lifting her off her toes.
She stilled, glaring up at him.
“What are you talking about, Sloane?” The slightest measure of restraint appeared in his voice as he leaned in, his breath mingling with hers.
“You stole my brother from me, you bloody ogre—you killed my brother, you killed my cousin’s family.” The words spit from her mouth. “You’re the one that set us aflame—my arm, Torrie’s leg—you left our bodies in ravaged, scarred shells. You did this, not by your hand but by your order. You.”
“I what?” He let her slide down the door until her feet touched the floor, but he kept her hands clamped above her head.
Smart bastard, for she was already eyeing her dagger on the floor.
“What in the hell are you saying, Sloane?”
“It was your land, Reiner. Your blasted land.”
His head instantly flickered back and forth. “Whatever you’re thinking, Sloane, you have it all wrong.”
Her head shook between her upstretched arms. “I don’t have anything wrong—don’t try and deny you own that swathe of Swallowford land and that you ordered it cleared of tenants. I’ve seen the papers. You may not have been the one to light the torches, Reiner, but they were lit by your command. It was you. You killed them all—you killed an entire family. You killed my brother.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I—what are you speaking of, Swallowford land?”
A hissing screech left her lips. “You don’t even remember the terror you unleashed?”
His head dropped forward for a long second. A breath passed and his look snapped up to her, recognition reaching his eyes. “Swallowford? The land in Stirlingshire?”
“You bloody bastard—yes, that land.” Her voice shrilled to a rage. “My brother’s life and that’s all it means to you—a tepid guess of some blasted land you may or may not remember?”
Reiner leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers as his voice dropped into a deep growl. “I never ordered anything—I just purchased it, Sloane. Or rather, my solicitor handled it so I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
