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“Hey!” I yank back from him, and he looks at Thing.
“It’s the obvious solution to our dilemma. A consort to not only slake our sexual thirsts but bear us offspring as well.”
My mouth drops open. “Women aren’t just pieces of meat, pal. We’re not just here to, to, to be”—I sputter, my hands waving—“solutions to your dilemmas, sexual or otherwise!”
Remus merely peers at me peculiarly for a moment then turns back to Thing. “I want one.”
“Did you hear a thing I just said?” I sputter.
“Well you can’t have this one,” comes a sudden response from the corridor, and I spin just in time to see Abaddon’s hulking shape as he enters the room. The gold in his eyes is all but gone as the pitch-black slits of his pupils are so large, they absorb his eyes as he stares Remus down.
My chest clenches with rage at the sight of him. I’m so infuriated by what he did earlier. Too many emotions are choking me. I was starting to— And then for him to betray my trust like that—
“Why not?” Remus circles me. “I like the smell of her, and she doesn’t seem very fond of you at the moment.”
“Back off. She made a deal with me. She’s mine. For forever.”
His words only send the red-hot anger inside me burning white.
“I belong to no one.” I push past Remus so I can barge up to Abaddon. Thing steps between us at the last minute, and I try to push him away, too. He doesn’t budge.
Which makes Abaddon start to do the throat-growl thing he so loves to do. Except unlike when he’s making love to me, this sounds like he’s about three seconds from tearing off one of Thing’s arms.
“Stop it!” I yell, if only because the pressure valve inside me needs some sort of relief. At the silence that ensues, all I want to do is yell some more. And actually, now that I’ve finally let up a little of the roar that’s been building up inside me all this time, I want to scream and scream and maybe never stop. Because it’s not just these three infuriating idiots who are lighting my wick on fire.
I point my index finger in Abaddon’s face. Even though he’s a full four feet taller than me, I don’t back down. “My whole life people took one look at me and thought they could tell me how to live. They assumed they knew what I could, and more importantly, what I couldn’t do. Along with who I was allowed to be and what I was worth. So don’t you think for one goddamn minute that just because I made a deal with you for my health and my life that I ever agreed to exchange myself or my freedom. You do not and you will not ever own me.”
His mouth drops open, lion’s teeth glistening, but I cut him off before he can get a word out. “And if you think different, you might as well have killed me the day you met me because I was already living a life of hellish captivity. I refuse to exchange one cage for another.”
Abaddon lowers himself to his forearms, crouching as he sometimes does to come down to my level—or when he’s feeling especially dangerous. “So you mean to leave me? You never intended to honor the contract? Is that what you are saying? You plan to leave me with my kit in your belly?”
“I’m saying exactly the opposite.” I throw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “I won’t leave unless you make it impossible for me to stay.”
Abaddon pulls back from me with a roar. “Stop speaking in riddles!” He turns and bashes the wall with his fist.
Thing immediately leaps between us again, but I stand my ground and glare past him at Abaddon, who scowls at Thing.
“There’s a child between us now,” I say, my back stiff as I glare him down, “And regardless of what came before—your deal or contract or whatever, I don’t care if I made it with the devil himself—if you ever lay a hand on me again, I’ll have Thing saw it off, and leave you for good.”
The shame hits him at my reminder. Good.
Then I turn away because I can’t look at him anymore. Also, am I a fool for not leaving now? A man lifts you up by the throat, you leave. Even if that “man” is a demonic monster creature who doesn’t exactly know his own strength? Do the extenuating circumstances count enough in this case to make an exception?
Fool me once, shame on you. I look over my shoulder at Abaddon as he stands, guilt warring with confusion on his face. Fool me twice…
But it hasn’t been twice. He’s only broken my trust once.
