AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And it did. I have all the tracking information to prove that every last dollar of that two hundred and fifty million came frommyaccounts. I was left all the money from the Hester and Williams lines, everything from my mother’s family and everything my father owned. I can think of no better way to spend it then buying and ensuring my own freedom.”
Lorien spoke, his voice weak, his expression dark as though he couldn’t figure this out, like he tried desperately to make sense of it and couldn’t. “You can’t do that. You can’t just buy yourself.”
“Why not? I agreed with Bradley that the proceeds from my sale would go to the auction house to pay for the continued protection of that asset, given the likelihood of people interfering. The money has already been paid, it’s been proven that the money and winning bid came from me and my funds—through my proxy. It’s done.”
“It’s notdone,”Lorien said, his voice low and angry. “You aremine.You are my soulmate, and you will always be mine. Tricks like this don’t change that, won’t save you.”
I leaned forward, putting my hand flat on the table, staring hard at him. Every other time, I’d cowered away from him, afraid, uneasy. He’d stalked me, terrorized me, tried to take everything I cared about away, and I’d just given in over and over again.
I refused to do that anymore, so I faced off against him, refusing to give a single inch.
“It’s already done,” I told him. “You went up against me and you lost.”
“You aremine,” he repeated. “They think you belong to them, you think you belong to yourself, but you’re all wrong. You have always been mine—you just need to realize it.”
I leaned forward farther so I could look right into his eyes, ensuring nothing was between us, nothing that would soften my words or allow him to misunderstand just how serious I was. “Do you have any idea how often I’ve heard that in my life? That I belonged to my father, to my mother’s line, to the men who wanted to own me? I believed it for a long time, that I had no future except the one created for me by others. I’m done with this. I don’t belong to them”—I gestured toward Hayden, Tor, Vance and Char—“and I don’t belong to my parents, or my sister, or the Quad, or Bradley, or Jarrod or you. I belong only to myself, and if two hundred and fifty million is what I have to pay to ensure it remains that way—well, I’m happy to pay it. I do not now, have not ever and willneverbelong to you.”
He pressed his lips together and I had only a split second to recognize the signs. It was a shift of his weight in the chair, a jerk of his gaze, a twitch of his muscles. Those occurred to me just before he moved, lunging forward at me.
A guard reached out, but Lorien twisted, slicing a blade in a wide arc through the air, cutting deep into the man’s throat. This time, he didn’t seem focused on killing him, which meant when the guard staggered back, there was a good chance he’d make it.
Lorien didn’t slow in the least, closing the short distance between us, wrapping his hand around my throat and shoving me down, pinning me against the table. He held the same blade to my throat, just above his grip, his eyes full of mindless anger.
It seemed as though no one moved, no one even breathed. One twitch of that hand and he could kill me, slicing so deep that nothing could save me.
It meant despite Jarrod in the room, despite Hayden and Tor and Char—some exceedingly capable and dangerous men—none of them could make a move. He could kill me before they could intervene.
He stared down at me, his hand around my throat shaking. “You were supposed to be mine,” he said. “I spent my life alone, thrown away by the people who were supposed to care about me, but when I saw that first painting of yours, Iknewyou were my other half. You saw the pain in the world, suffered the horrors of it, but you still found beauty. You and me? We’re the same.”
“You can’t own another person.” I forced the words out even though the press of his hand made it difficult. He hadn’t cut off my air, but he’d restricted it slightly. “You can’t love someone if you try to own them, to force them.”
“It’s the only way to get something,” he said. “I’ve had everything taken from me, forced to watch as others get the things I should have. If I didn’t take the initiative, I’d have nothing at all.”
“That’s not true. If you hadn’t looked at me like something you could manipulate, if you hadn’t done all this, how do you know what could have happened?”
He narrowed his eyes until he stared at me through small slits. “You’re saying that if that hadn’t happened, you’d have accepted me? You really expect me to believe that? Because people like me, we don’t get what we want, not unless we’re willing to take it. You should know that—you’re the same. Both of us were underestimated, were hurt by the people who were supposed to love us. You would have never accepted me no matter what.”
I wrapped my hand around his wrist, trying to get him to loosen the graspjusta little, to give me the space to breathe a bit easier. “You don’t know that! I thought for a long time that no one could really love me, that I wasn’t strong enough to stand on my own, to survive, but I was wrong. If you hadn’t done what you did, could things have been different? Maybe. All I know is that I can’t love someone who treats me like this.”
“Why them?” That question came out a small whisper, a tremble to the words. “Why not me?”
“Because they’d do anything for me. They’ve risked their lives for me, they were willing to give me up to save me and they trusted me when I asked them to. Are you really asking me why not you?Lookat what you’re doing to me.”
He dropped his gaze to his hand, wrapped around my throat, as though it were the first time he’d recognized it was there. What flashed through his eyes was a muddied mess of emotions. Anger, regret, horror, but they switched so fast that it seemed as though he couldn’t truly experience any of them.
His hand loosened just a bit, letting me pull in a deeper breath. However, as quickly as it happened, as that hope sprang up inside me, it disappeared. He tightened his hand even more, cutting off my air entirely. “I do love you, but love isn’t always the pretty thing you think it is. If you don’t understand that now, it’s fine. Maybe in our next life you’ll figure it out and we can find some happiness then. The sooner we get there, the better.” He whispered the last part just before he lifted his hand, sliding the dagger in his palm so he held it with the blade pointed down, toward me then lifted it up.
It seemed that somewhere in his rage-addled mind, he’d decided that burying that blade into my heart was the right choice. Was that some weird matter of romance?
I had no idea, but whereas I had been willing to accept such things before, I no longer was. Too many times in my life I’d given in, but that was over. I had things I was willing to fight for.
So I curled my hand into a fist and lifted my arm as he swung the knife down. I struck his forearm with the brass knuckles Rune had given me, the sharp edges digging into his muscles. It altered his swing, causing the dagger to strike the table just beside my face.
He was off me just that fast, and I rolled to the side, gasping air into my burning lungs, each breath painful after his tight grasp. I pushed myself upright and turned to find Jarrod there, his arm around Lorien’s throat, holding him still with ease.
Andboydid Jarrod look like one pissed-off father. In fact, it was astounding Lorien still lived, but I had a feeling he’d done that for me.
I walked toward a struggling Lorien, his face bright red, a sure sign that Jarrod pressed on his airway.
