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His face is unreadable. He’s not exactly smiling anymore, but all his teeth are still all bared. “Do not question my honor. I am not like Creator-Father.” He bends so his face is in mine. Invading personal space seems to be a favorite pastime of his. But I don’t move back or let him know he intimidates me. “I do not lie.”
Well now I’m currently losing my momentary inoculation against his size. Jesus he’s a large… whatever he is. He’s almost twice as tall as me.
“You don’t lie?” I scoff. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Deal is deal. You will bow on your knees out of respect. For I am worthy of your respect. I am the being that restored your legs. And so you will bend them to bow to me now.”
“You aren’t a god,” I bark at him, not quite sure where I’m getting my bravado.
“I may as well be yours”—he glares right back—“for I will give you freedom only when you bow before me and acknowledge me as your master.”
I just stare at him. “What the hell does that mean? You’ll take this stupid thing off?” I rattle the heavy chained collar around my neck.
He pulls back, a motion so fast it’s absolutely inhuman. Another reminder, as if I need any, that he is anything but a normal man.
“The ways of angels are above the ways of men,” he says in a rote manner, like he’s quoting some sort of scripture.
I tilt my head and frown.
His grin is back. “Now.” Again, his sharp claw finger points toward the cushion on the floor beside his chair. “On your knees.”
A shiver starts in my legs, but I force my spine straighter. It still feels strange to stand straight so comfortably.
“No.” My voice only shakes a little as I say it.
His cat’s eyes flare and blink rapidly a few times, and his hand tightens around the chain he’s allowed to go slack for several minutes.
I arch my eyebrow at him. “Are you a coward? Only cowards use force.”
His eyes flare again, and then, hand by hand, he draws me closer with the chain. But he does it slowly so that I’m not yanked, just urged, inch by inch. And then he grins again. “On that we agree. So you will bow before me because it is your desire.”
I laugh in his terrifying face. “Fat chance.”
He yanks me the last inch forward until he is gripping the large metal collar around my neck. “Fine,” he growls.
I yelp a little as his knuckles graze against the tender flesh of my neck, right at my pulse point.
He reaches down, and I blink. Jesus, is he reaching for his— Are we about to… again—?
My pulse starts to speed up, and oh shit, he can feel it with his hand at my throat. Because I’ve just drawn a line in the sand about bowing down to him, but what about—
What about sex?
Why didn’t I get this feisty and defiant last night? Does some part of me really want… Oh shit, I can’t breathe—
And then he produces a key and unlocks the neck-collar with a metallic click. It springs open at a tiny latch, and I stumble backward, massaging my neck after being encased in the chaffing metal for I don’t know how long.
I look up at him, confused.
“Only cowards use force,” he growls. “Follow me.”
He turns and heads across the large antechamber.
I immediately check for all the other exits. A doorway is situated opposite where he’s going.
“Please—do it. Run,” he growls. “I will delight in chasing you. And then it will be you who is the liar. You promised forever.”
He pauses and looks back at me, where I feel trapped in his sharp gaze like a rabbit in a hunter’s sights. “I despise deceivers.”
By his emphasis and the way he spits the words, I do believe him. Quite a lot.
I scurry forward to follow at his heels.
Well, I’m not on my knees.
But my confidence grows a little dimmer when we descend another set of spiral stairs that goes down.
And down.
And down.
And down.
For a while, windows allow daylight in, but the further we descend the steep staircase, we finally hit a layer where there is no more daylight. We must be underground.
In fact, there’s no light here at all.
And we just keep going down.
So many levels down that the daylight from the many stories above now only casts a mere memory of light.
I quickly reach out to hold onto the walls. The stone becomes more rough-hewn the further down we go. And it’s so, so cold, though I wouldn’t have thought it possible to get colder than it is above.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
And that’s when I hear it.
The much-louder version of the distant echo I thought I heard this morning—a gut-wrenching scream so piercing the hairs on my arms immediately rise.
