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Everything is wrong.I’mwrong. Faulty. Tainted.
So, I scrub, to get the wrongness out of me, but it’s not working.
Exhausted, scalded, and coming down from my unwelcome buzz, I dry myself in a towel and walk numbly toward the bed. The sheets are frigid against my naked skin and match the growing iciness inside of me.
Ice queen. That’s who I need to be. Impenetrable. Unscathable. Calculating. E
This is a game of survival. And that’s what I’ve been. A survivor.
I’ve known my whole life these moments were coming. Now I have to withstand. Prevail. If there’s any chance of winning—or even keeping my sanity—I have to harden myself.
Kieran’s words and touch can’t affect me. There’s no place for soft in the kingdom of killers and thieves.
Seven years ago, he showed me what it is like to be loved. Cherished.
Tonight. I was claimed. Branded.
I loved him once. I hated him once. Both sides of the same coin.
Whatever I feel now, it’s still too much. Too deep. Too strong.
And when the coin is flipped next, I don’t know which side will come on top.
Ice queens don’t feel. They can’t. So, I need to work on that. On not feeling him.
Whether I succeed or fail, one thing is sure. I can never let him own me.
That’s the last thought I have before drowning beneath an oily black sea into a dreamless state.
* * *
It feelslike I’ve been asleep for a year when I’m startled awake.
A frisson of fear slips under my skin, making it buzz. Someone’s in the room with me. The shadow in the door shifts. The sound of a deeply drawn breath follows. My brain finally registers that it’s Kieran’s broad shoulders filling the frame.
I roll away from him. Tucking myself into a ball. I can’t face the man right now. The raw emotions from those moments in the bathroom are too close to the surface.
When his footsteps approach the bed, I tense.
Without warning, he flips on a light.
“Ouch.” Startling, I shield my eyes from the glare. Through the shadow of my hand, I watch him take the chair in front of me.
Dread and fear speed my heart rate.
He’s tense. But the worst of the anger seems to be gone. I kick myself for knowing him well enough to see this. Have I studied him so much now that I’m reading his moods with a mere flick of a glance?
“Have you eaten?” he asks.
A strange question, but I guess this is his way of showing he’s sorry. He cares. And it shouldn’t affect me this much. “No.”
“I’ll get you something.”
“No.I’m not hungry.”
He stands to his full height. Looks down at me with glittering blue eyes for a moment. Then disappears through the doorway into the main area of the suite.
Rattled, I sit up in the bed.
