His hand stilled on her skin, and his palm flattened on her. “Your rib is broken.”
“I know.”
He raised his head slowly; she could sense the question behind those dark lenses. She didn’t answer it, as far as she was concerned, he didn’t have to know how it happened. He already knew who, and why, and that was enough for her.
Instead, she stayed immobile, frozen beneath his touch. His hand remained against her as it cradled the broken bone beneath her skin. His touch was far kinder than she’d expected from him; he was the one who had allowed this to happen after all.
“And she did this to you?” he asked.
Aria remained silent, trying to keep the tears in her eyes back. She didn’t want him to see them, didn’t want him to know that his gentleness unsettled her more than Lauren’s abuse. Lauren’s behavior was expected; his was not.
She’d decided he was nothing but evil and she preferred having nothing to do with him. She would kill him if given a chance.
“Arianna?” he prodded.
She turned her head away. “Yes. She did this.”
She felt the tension that seized him, yet his hand against her ribs remained gentle. He leaned closer to her, his mouth momentarily pressing against her ear. She could feel the brush of his lips on her skin.
Though she was determined to hate him, her body betrayed her by pressing closer to him. Instinctively, she sought the strength radiating from him as her heart beat a little faster and her skin tingled for more of his touch.
“It won’t happen again,” he vowed.
A single tear slid free, and a shudder tore through her, neither of which she could hide from him. He wiped the tear away before sweeping her into his arms. Aria gasped, expecting new pain to explode through her, but the way he held her kept it from coming. It was so gentle, so sweet that she could only gaze up at him in surprise.
“Don’t,” she said.
He didn’t respond to her simple word or look at her again as he left the room. Aria tried to squirm against him, tried to feel some irritation, but she was so beat down she couldn’t muster much of a protest.
True panic ripped through her when he set her down in the middle of his room. She tried to jerk free, but he grasped her wrist and pulled her back.
“You should be watched over. Broken ribs can be dangerous,” he said as if this was enough of an explanation for everything happening now.
It wasn’t, but she didn’t argue. She longed to sleep again if she could.
They stared at each other before he released her wrist. He lifted her smoothly again and placed her on the softest, most fantastic thing she’d ever experienced. It was only after she sank into the mattress that she realized she was in his bed. Her hands stroked the thick blanket and silky sheets. It was a little bit of heaven here on earth.
Then, the apprehension kicked in. She was in his bed! She tried to sit up, but the pain lancing through her side caused an involuntary groan to escape her. He was beside her, his hands tender on her shoulders as he tried to push her back down. She attempted to strain against him, but there wasn’t much fight left in her.
“Rest, Arianna, relax, I won’t harm you.”
She eyed him warily, unable to believe him. He released a low, regretful sound as he shook his head at her.
“You can’t sleep alone tonight; you might puncture a lung. You should be watched over, and since I much prefer my bed, you will be staying here for the night,” he said.
She gawked at him. He was going to stay in here, with her? She thought her heart was going to leap out of her chest. “I can tape your ribs for you—”
“It’s okay, I’ll be fine,” she assured him quickly.
It would be a little too intimate if he did such a thing; it was bad enough he expected them to sleep beside each other tonight. Plus, she preferred not to have her ribs taped, especially before going to sleep.
Rolling it up within his grasp, he held the nightgown out to her. “Put your arms up.”
She frowned at him before gingerly lifting her arms. She strained to keep her face blank as her body screamed in protest. He studied her before rolling the nightgown over her head with subtle ease.
When he finished, she lowered her arms and relaxed a little. He adjusted the gown, pulling the material down her legs. Heat flooded her face; she ducked her head as his hand brushed her thigh. He quirked an eyebrow at her but refrained from commenting on her reaction to his touch.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked.
“Why would I?”
Frustration darkened his face; his square jaw clenched. “You are to tell me whenever someone mistreats you.”
“Don’t like it when your property gets bruised?” she retorted.
She didn’t know why she baited him or was being so rude when he’d been nothing but kind to her tonight, but she couldn’t stop herself. There was something about him, and this whole situation, that caused a volatile reaction from her.
Apparently, he hadn’t known what Lauren was doing to her, and hadn’t condoned the girl’s violent actions, but she still couldn’t stop the bitterness she felt from surging toward him.
He’d been rude to her when his brother was here, but she couldn’t expect him to be kind to her in public, could she? Aria shook her head; she was too tired and too battered to try to wade through the conundrum that was him.
“No, I don’t,” he replied icily.
She scrutinized him from beneath her lashes. Her question had truly aggravated him. “I didn’t mean...” her voice trailed off; she didn’t know what to say to him.
“Didn’t you?”
Aria shook her head, but there were no more words within her. Mainly because Aria was sure she owed him an apology, and she hated being wrong almost as much as she hated saying sorry. Especially to someone who was her enemy, wasn’t he?
“Come on,” he said. “You need to rest.”
She moved back to lay woodenly on the bed; her fingers dug into the blanket when he put it on her. He didn’t lie down beside her but stood up, pulled off his coat, and disappeared into the bathroom she’d used upon first arriving. She listened to the water as he washed before returning.
“You will have to eat tomorrow.”
Though it was a command, his voice was nowhere near as gruff as before. She didn’t take offense to the order; in fact, she sensed a hint of worry in his tone and demeanor. It warmed her further.
Maybe she was far more bewildered and exhausted than she realized she thought dimly. Especially if Aria was already feeling as if she could trust him again when she had so firmly decided it was the last thing she was ever going to do.
“I will,” she said.
She closed her eyes and settled in beneath the thick comforter. She had never been in someone else’s bed before, let alone a man’s, but for some reason, this didn’t feel wrong.
The mattress sank beneath his weight. Aria didn’t open her eyes again, despite her determination to stay vigilant, she was already falling asleep. Strangely secure in the bed of a vampire.
Chapter Nine
“Lauren?” Braith asked.
The small blonde rose to her feet, a bright smile lit her pretty features.
“Yes, Your Highness?” Hope sprang over the girl's pretty features as she looked eagerly at him.
Leaning against the doorway, he studied the girl as he fought the antipathy surging through him. Other than the few times she’d arrived to tend to Arianna, he’d seen her only a handful of times before. He may have fed off her in the past, he didn’t recall doing so, but her reaction to Arianna’s presence here led him to believe he had.
“I’d like to know why you think you have the right to lay your hands on my blood slave, for anything other than to help her in the way I told you to?” he asked.
She looked confused as she frowned at him, but alarm filled her eyes.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“Don’t pla
y with me,” he growled, losing patience with the girl. “I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
She stepped back and glanced at the door as her fight or flight instinct kicked into gear.
“Now tell me, why did you feel you had the right to damage her?” Braith inquired.
Her mouth opened and closed; he could almost see the wheels in her mind spinning as she tried to think of an answer. “Your Highness, I uh... I uh...”
“Have we encountered each other before you were summoned here?”
Tears bloomed in her eyes as her lower lip trembled. Her reaction gave him the answer to his question. He didn’t feel sorry the encounter obviously meant more to her than to him. What he did feel bad about was that Arianna suffered abuse because of his forgetfulness and extreme lack of caring about the girl before him.
Her head fell back as he strolled across the room to stand before her. Fear radiated from her, but beneath it all, he sensed the distress his disregard for her caused.
“Why do you feel you had the right to treat my property poorly?” he grated.
A single tear slid down her face; her lip trembled more. He was indifferent to her obvious distress, her species meant little to him, and she meant even less.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are. You are not to return here.” He grabbed her chin, drawing her attention back to him when her gaze darted to the doorway behind him. He knew Arianna had entered the room because her presence caused it to brighten considerably.
“Don’t look at her,” he commanded. Apprehension radiated from Lauren as she shook within his grasp. “You are to leave here and never return, if you step foot in this palace again, you forfeit your life.”
The color drained from her already pale face as she swayed unsteadily. Being barred from the palace was a social punishment that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Not only that, but she’d just lost the wages and prestige this job awarded her.
“Do you understand me?” he inquired.
She managed a small nod as she blinked back the tears swarming her eyes. He released her, disgusted by the feel of her skin beneath his hand.
“Get out,” he commanded.
The girl scurried away, shooting only a brief, hate-filled glance at Arianna before fleeing his apartment. Braith turned toward Arianna and was surprised by the severe frown marring her features, and the hostility simmering in her eyes.
Was this the same girl he’d woken up to find half sprawled over him with her hair spread across him?
The awkward position had made it difficult to extricate himself without waking her. He’d been half afraid if she woke he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from easing the frustration finding her body pressed against his had aroused.
She’d been so peaceful and trusting in her sleep that he’d almost forgotten she could be as prickly as a cactus. It was impossible to forget it now.
“You didn’t have to be so cruel to her,” she admonished.
“Are you defending the girl?” He had to fight to keep the disbelief from his voice.
Arianna tilted her head. The radiance streaming through the windows accentuated the deep red of her hair. She still wore the nightgown, but in the sunlight, he could see through some areas of it. He didn’t think she was aware of the effect the light had on it, if she had been, he was sure she wouldn’t be wearing it right now.
Something new rose out of the hopeless pit that had been his soul for so long. Something that had nothing to do with his unfulfilled desire from this morning or his increased craving for her blood.
He didn’t know what was going on with this strange girl, why she affected him as she did, but he admitted to himself that whatever she did to him was deep and profound. It was also something he’d never experienced before.
He knew she was special and that she caused a strange reaction in him, but looking at her now, he realized he wasn’t going to let her go. He’d been keeping her here, under the delusional assumption he would one day trade her off, but that would not happen. He may not be using her in the way a blood slave was supposed to be used, but he wasn’t going to allow someone else to use her in that way either.
“I’m not defending her,” she murmured. “But you didn’t have to be so mean to her. You were the one who forgot about her, and then you brought her here to take care of what she mistook as her replacement. You hurt her.”
His eyes narrowed at her. Was she scolding him? Was she really questioning his way of life and the things he did?
She was a child for crying out loud, a human child. His hands fisted at his side, he fought the urge to go to her and shake some fear into her because he was beginning to realize she didn’t have a healthy enough dose of it for him.
“Am I supposed to care?” he grated.
She blinked in surprise, and her crystalline sapphire eyes darkened in disbelief. Then, she shook her head, and her face went blank. Her hands clasped demurely before her, but he was beginning to realize it was an act. There was nothing demure or weak about this girl; she may play the part well, but there were many layers beneath her docile exterior.
“I suppose not,” she responded.
Even her voice had taken on a decorous tone.
“She also harmed you,” he reminded her.
Arianna shifted subtly; though she remained outwardly meek, he sensed the raw loathing spiking through her.
“That doesn’t make what you just did right. You took her job and her pride away. Two wrongs don’t make a right, or at least that’s what my dad always told my brothers and me.”
Despite his frustration with her, and his growing urge to shake her, her words piqued his interest. It was the most she’d talked about her family since arriving. “How many brothers?”
Her fingers fidgeted with the sleeves of her nightgown. Her gaze was sad and distant as her thoughts turned toward her family. Finally, she didn’t look frustrated with him as she had all morning. He found he preferred her animosity to the sorrow engulfing her now.
“Two,” she replied. “Anyway, you didn’t have to frighten her. She was simply jealous because she thought I was a threat to her when it came to you.”
“And why would she think that?”
She rolled her eyes at him as she folded her arms over her chest. He didn’t miss the subtle wince of soreness the action caused her.
“I don’t know. She was wrong, of course; I mean I’m most certainly not a threat to her or anyone else. Especially when you were feeding on her—”
“I was what?” he interrupted her rush of words.
Arianna fiddled with her nightgown sleeves again, obviously uncomfortable with this topic. “Feeding on her,” she said.
“I don’t know where you got your information, but it is wrong.”
“Oh,” she said faintly, her forehead furrowed in consternation. “Oh, I see. I thought...” her voice trailed off. “I must have misunderstood her, or you. I simply assumed the bites on her were from you.”
“You think I would forget her that quickly?”
She shrugged, but there was a hint of remorse in the set of her shoulders.
“You think that little of me?” he asked.
She observed him with a keen new interest. “I don’t know what to think of you,” she admitted. “I really don’t. This whole situation...”
She held her hands out before her; her gaze darted over the room before turning back to him. “I don’t know what to make of any of it. It’s scary, and it’s disconcerting, and I’m so far out of my league here that I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know if you’re playing with me while plotting my death. I don’t know if this is the calm before you drain me dry. I don’t know what is going on here, and it’s tearing me up inside! I’ve heard the stories, and I’ve seen the damage your kind can do. I don’t know how to play these games; I don’t understand the hatred and resentment festering here! How the hell am I supposed to know what to think, or what to do, when I don’t even
know how much longer I’ll be allowed to live?”
Her voice was ragged and filled with raw emotion by the time she stopped speaking. Her shoulders heaved; her eyes were earnest and pleading. For the first time, her façade crumbled, and he saw the terrified, irate girl beneath the timid exterior. She took a ragged breath as her shoulders bowed again. She clasped her hands before her and tried to appear sedate once more, but they both knew she couldn’t un-ring that bell.
He began to understand how she felt. She had kept so much of it hidden from him, but now she’d laid it all bare. He’d known something more lay beneath her docile exterior, but he began to see the pride and heart of this trapped, cornered girl.
He felt the stirrings of a new emotion and was surprised to realize it was sympathy. He’d never felt sympathy for anyone before and assumed he’d never be able to experience it or care to.
“Well, anyway, she thought more of what transpired between the two of you,” Arianna said.
Braith clenched his fists against the strange feelings within him; feelings that would only make him weak.
“I don’t care what she thought.” The words were sharper than he intended, but he didn’t like that the girl had mentioned such a thing to Arianna, and he didn’t like that it bothered him.
Her words also served to remind him of the fact he was hungry. There were a few different women he would visit when the thirst came on him, but he found the idea of feeding on them wasn’t appealing at the moment; especially not when he had Arianna standing across from him looking unbelievably striking and smelling delicious.
His veins thrummed with hunger, his hands fisted at his sides. He recalled her words about having to take anything from her by force; he wondered if she still felt the same, or if maybe, just maybe, she would allow him to feed on her.
He didn’t think that was likely, not when she still looked at him with distrust most of the time. And not when she believed he tossed women, especially human women, aside like they were nothing. Though, if he were honest with himself, he usually did.
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