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Yes, I could tear you to pieces, I tell her silently when the slight quirk of her lips wavers. She knows. The girl knows I could rip her apart limb from limb—and this is the most exciting thought I’ve had in weeks. I could. I should. And maybe, maybe I will. Perhaps it will be the highlight of my father’s wake.
“Come here, girl,” I order, sitting back in my chair while she continues gawping with wide eyes.
The white-knuckled grip on her violin and bow shakes while she debates her move. She’s fresh within these walls. Innocence glimmers in her eyes as she glances at Percival for approval.
“Don’t look at him for permission.” My bark brings her eyes back to me. “He’s here to serve and please, just as you are.”
“Go easy.” Simon stands, a hand squeezing my shoulder in silent caution before he leaves.
He knows me better than anyone in this room. Simon knows how far I can go beyond any conscionable limits. And he knows when to walk away for his own good. Our loyalties may be tied to one another by the Wolfsden oath, but nothing will hold me back when I snap.
The pianist starts playing another of the classics that my father used to love. Clearly he didn’t get the memo before, but he gets it instantly when the almost empty decanter of scotch shatters beside his fingers. The sound of the crystal smashing cuts through the dark haze clouding my senses, slowly eating away at my sanity. Finally, he stops.
God, I don’t know what’s worse. The wailing of the music or the stark silence that’s followed it. Now, there are more eyes on me. Fear and curiosity mix together. The smell of the first would’ve been sweeter from the girl, but she’s watching me as though she can see the chaos inside me, and it doesn’t faze her. Meanwhile, her grown piano companion looks set to shit himself.
“Leave,” I instruct him, focusing back on the girl.
She’s holding on to the violin tightly, like a shield of sorts. Although she’s not affected by what she sees in me, she’s got enough sense to know that she’s not safe. But to think that anything or anyone could protect her from me shows just how novel she is here.
“Now, girl, put the violin down and come here.”
Percival levels me with a silent warning. When I ignore his unspoken caution, he stands and leans across the table to ensure I acknowledge him. “Henry…”
“I’m not my father,” I retort. They were thick as thieves, to the point that Percival was his eyes and ears. “Warn me again and I’ll cut out your tongue.” Pulling the flick knife from the pocket of my suit trousers, I drop it on the table beside the ring.
“She doesn’t belong to the club, Henry,” he continues through gritted teeth when the girl finally comes close.
Pushing back in my seat, I coax her closer with a crook of my finger, gesturing for her to present herself in front of me. When she’s standing between me and the table, I ask, “What’s your name, girl?”
In the golden glow of the chandelier above us, the lustre of her skin is hypnotic. The only thoughts in my mind are of what I could do with such supple flesh. How it would feel beneath my hands and how easily it would marl with my rough touch.
Taking a deep breath, she replies, “Eve, your grace.”
Eve. Such a worldly name for such a seemingly innocent thing.
Honeyed eyes hold my stare as I watch her brush her hair over her slender shoulder.
“Tell me something, Eve.”
“Yes,” she murmurs, her voice breathy but steady.
“Did you sign the nondisclosure?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Percival stands abruptly, his mouth gaping, about to intervene, when I silence him with the raise of my hand. Looking around her, straight at him, I say, “Well then, it doesn’t matter who you belong to. Does it? This pretty little mouth has no choice but to stay silent.”
Eve’s audible swallow draws my attention to her throat. The hollow is sucked in with her first noticeable shudder, the first murmur of her fear calling to the monster inside me. Every one of my muscles is clenching, burning and aching to let loose.
“You can fuck off now,” I tell him while I observe the way her body tenses at my perusal. The discomfort she feels awakens an intense thrill deep inside me—predator and prey breathing the same air. “Your job’s done here, old man.”
Arthur flips my glass over, bringing my attention back to him as Percival walks out. “A man is only as good as his word.”
The gold wolf’s head glitters in the light, with its ruby eye glinting at me when he holds my father’s ring back out to me.
“It was always going to come to this,” he reminds me, sounding like my mother. “There’s no use trying to put it off or overthinking it. Our fates were long written before we were ever imagined or conceived. You know that as well as I know that one day the fucking crown will be on my head.”
“He’s not even cold yet.”
