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“Kat,” he says, my name sounding caught in his throat. He reaches out and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze before quickly dropping it. “I don’t think you should be here.”
“Why not?” I ask. “I need to talk to you.”
It’s then that I notice his face looks a little beat up, a bruise at his jaw and his cheekbone. “What happened to you, are you okay?”
I reach up to touch him but he moves his face out of the way.
“Clearly I’m fine,” he says, giving me a quick smile. “Just a little scuffle with Brom, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Is Brom okay?”
“He’s more than fine,” he says with a private smile.
“Well, I still need to talk to you.”
He looks around him, even though the hall is empty. “And I need to talk to you but now is not the time.” He pauses. “At the moment, for now, I can’t be seen with you.”
It feels like he’s kicked me in the ribs and my breath hitches. “Why not?”
“Because I’ll get fired if I’m with you Kat,” he says and the admission stuns me. “And while I’m prepared to lose my job for you, just…I need time to figure this out.”
“Fired? What happened?” Oh god. “Do you not want to be with me anymore?”
I hate how pathetic I sound, how quickly my lip pouts, how the tears rush to my eyes without warning.
“Oh, heavens, my vlinder,” he says, his expression crumbling as he cups my face in his warm hands, a single tear rolling down my cheek. He stares down at me with burning intensity that I feel in my toes. “I want to be with you every single moment of every day. You’re all I think about, all I dream about, all I want and I promise you, I promise you, nothing is going to stand in the way of that. Everything I am doing, I am doing for you, Kat. I’m doing it for us.”
He slowly runs his thumb over my cheek, wiping away the tear as his eyes trail over my face. “But for now, we need to meet in secret. Just like before. We were getting careless and now we can’t afford to be.”
I feel slightly more assured, enough to let out a deep breath. “Who told you they would fire you?”
“Your aunt Leona.”
“Really? Because I just saw Sister Sophie here. She was knocking on your door. Wanted to talk to you about something.”
He sighs, letting go of my face and it feels so cold without his contact. He runs a hand through his hair. “She probably wanted to tell me the same thing that Leona did.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so. She knew I was going to see you and she didn’t seem to care. But she did tell me I needed to be careful or I would face repercussions.”
“And that’s what I’m talking about,” he says in gruff annoyance.
“Then she told me that she’s a Van Brunt.”
Crane does a double take. “Come again?”
I’m nodding. “Sister Sophie is related to Brom. She wouldn’t say how. Which, I suppose, that means Sister Margaret is too. And she said that my mother was supposed to marry Brom’s father Liam but obviously that never happened. And now I’m supposed to marry Brom because…because…”
“Because Goruun said so,” he says.
“I didn’t get that far,” I say warily.
“But I did.” He gives his head a shake and then looks off with a pained expression. “We need to talk. But not here. Not tonight when I know they’ll be watching closely.”
“So then you’re going to leave Brom on his own tonight?”
“No. He’ll be with me. They never said I had to stay away from Brom, only you, and if they make me explain why I have Brom chained up in my room, then I’ll be quick to tell them it’s either that or he’s going to be reenacting the headless horseman on campus.”
“Chains?”
He looks chagrined as he brushes a strand of his hair behind his ear. “The custodian lent me some.”
Why does the idea of Brom in chains make my core grow hot?
“So what am I supposed to do?” I say, trying not to whine but failing, hating how powerless I feel. I’m seconds away from stomping my foot like a child. “You can’t just leave me.”
“My, you’re stunning when you’re being a brat,” Crane muses.
“A brat?” I repeat in shock.
He grins at me. “Yes. Impatient and petulant. Not used to it when things don’t go your way.”
I glare at him. “I don’t think I deserve that.”
“You deserve my ruler on your pretty pink cunt, that’s what you deserve,” he murmurs, his eyes darkening. “Spanking you until you come so hard you’re spraying me with it.”
Heat floods through me, flaming my cheeks and gathering between my legs. “You’re not being fair,” I manage to say.
