by Maria Luis
“—that I can practically smell the brimstone off you.”
“Figures you’d recognize the scent, since you’re probably a repeat offender.” Eyes narrowing in my direction, her chin angles upward. “Does Satan still bother rolling out the red carpet for you or is it just limited to special occasions nowadays?”
I bare my teeth in a merciless grin. “I’ve my own key to the kingdom.”
“Funny,” she quips with mocking sweetness, “but I’m sensing an onslaught of predictability coming on.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, we’ve definitely already been here before. You’re the big, bad wolf on the hunt and I’m the innocent—”
“Not that innocent,” I mutter darkly, remembering her ass pressed against my cock.
“—prisoner intent on escape. Insert appropriate screaming from me and some unintelligible growling from you. And while we’re at it”—she throws me an arch glance—“ditch the handcuffs this time. Turns out I’m already over your high-handed, arrogant—”
“Who’s Ian Coney?”
The abruptly asked question renders her mute, just as I knew it would.
In an obvious attempt to buy herself time, she runs a finger over the back of her ear, like she didn’t hear the question. “I’m sorry . . . who?”
Oh, Rowena. Who’s predictable now?
Reclining backward, I angle my legs so that she’s good and stuck—my little captive audience. And, because I’m willing to wait all day if it means dragging the truth out of her, I draw a small, idle circle on the stolen paper from the Jewel Tower.
She lasts all of fifteen seconds.
“I think maybe . . .” Her fingers curl into fists that she sinks beneath the table. “I’ve heard the name.”
“I’m sure you have,” I murmur silkily, my finger still circling, round and round, my gaze still fixed on her face. On that full mouth of hers that whispers untruths like my very own Apate.
A goddess of lies who sits on her throne of deception.
I’ll enjoy breaking her.
Delicately, Rowena clears her throat. “Coney was a professor at Queen Mary, wasn’t he? At least, that’s what I saw on the news.” Her spine visibly straightens. “What does any of this have to do with me?”
That’s what I plan to find out.
I want to tuck my fingers into the collar of her shirt and drag her across the table, until her eyes are wide and her tongue is loose and all the truths come tumbling out into the open. But that would be . . . high-handed of me.
Arrogant.
Sweet, fucking temptation.
With effort, I stay sprawled on the wooden chair, my only movement the whispered staccato of my knuckles drumming against the table. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Rowena flinches.
And I strike: “He was strangled.”
“I heard.” Her black lashes sweep downward, shielding those violet eyes from view. “It seems a gruesome way to die.”
“Oh, it is.”
“Why are we talking about this? Whatever happened to that . . . man has nothing to do with me.”
“Have you ever fired a gun, Rowena?” Behind me, I hear Guy moving, rustling around. But my eyes never leave her face. I track the furrow of her dark brows and the way her bottom lip catches behind straight, white teeth. “No handcuffs on the line here,” I murmur, “just a yes or no answer.”
Her plush lip whitens under the pressure of her teeth, unease scripted into every line of her body. Finally, she blows out a short breath. “I’ve held one.”
“But did you fire it?”
A slow shake of her head brings me to my feet. Rounding the table, I skate my fingers over the chair separating mine from hers, making sure to jostle it as I pass.
The feet scrape the wood floor.
Her head jerks to the left, following the unhurried tread of my footsteps.
I stop directly behind her.
Time lulls, a moment frozen where my gaze drifts over the gentle curve of her skull to the bare skin of her nape. From this vantage point, there’s no mistaking the way her inner thighs kiss, like she’s prepared to bolt, and I almost tell Guy to get out.
To leave us alone.
But some secret corner of my soul, battered and bruised, screams that I can’t be trusted. A good man would soothe her worries. A better man would lead her to freedom. A bad man . . . Well, I don’t allow myself to think twice. Within the Garden of Eden—a place once dedicated to peace and book and prayer—I commit the biggest sin of all.
I fold my body forward, hunching my shoulders to avoid hitting the sloped wall, and slip one hand around the front of Rowena’s throat.
Her shoulders heave with a sudden gasp. “Godwin—”
“Damien.”
I feel her hard swallow against the heel of my palm. “Damien,” she breathes, both hands darting north to clutch the table. “What are you . . . what are you doing?”
“Demonstrating.”
Ignoring Guy’s steely glare, I plant my free hand on the table next to hers then lower my face so that we’re cheek to cheek. I surround her on all sides, my chest to her back, my arms keeping her enclosed. An embrace of power; a prison of human flesh. Her shaky breath echoes in my ear, a sound that shouldn’t feel like an invitation to edge closer but somehow does, and I almost circle her tighter, just to hear her make it again.
“It takes less effort to strangle someone than it does to pull the trigger on a handgun,” I tell her, voice low. “Cut off the carotid artery and you have ten seconds, maybe twenty, before bliss hits and reality disappears.”
My thumb grazes the length of her throat, soft flesh interrupted by fragile blisters that are an instant reminder that the woman seated before me isn’t some helpless victim. She bartered with me when she was handcuffed, and she used her sexuality to prove that I’m a man like any other. A man who wants, a man who succumbs. And so, I tighten my grip, just enough to keep the upper hand, only to feel inexplicable heat flood my veins when she doesn’t claw at my fingers.
No.
She fucking blooms like the flowers painted on the archway of the alcove.
Her shoulders drop and her head falls back, against my collarbone, and she releases a noise that’s as tangible, as erotic, as if she wrapped her hand around my cock and squeezed. Hard. My heart hammers ruthlessly against my ribcage.
“Why are you telling me this?” she whispers.
Turning my head, I allow my lips to graze the sharp cut of her cheekbone. Whimper for me again. The demand dances on the tip of my tongue, ready to be unleashed—to hell with the consequences. And the consequences . . .
“There’s something on the table for you.”
“Is this when I’m supposed to scream?”
“If it is,” I utter for her alone, “then this is when I promise to fill your mouth and shut you up.”
“Predictable,” she rasps. “The world would be disappointed to know that the Mad Priest is nothing but a B-grade villain.”
“The world? Or just you?”
“I rated you a four, remember?”
My lip curls. “You gave me a five, at first.”
“Clearly, a miscalculation.”
“Reach forward, Rowena.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, your hand is at my jugular.”
I tsk under my breath. “All I hear are excuses.”
With an irritated growl, that feels like a purr against the clasp of my palm, she stretches out an arm.
“To the left,” I instruct, whispering the command against her ear.
Her fingers dance across the wood, searching, seeking, before finally making contact with the slip of paper. Instead of picking it up, she pins it to the table with her forefinger and drags it close. I hear her teeth grinding, the uneven pitch of her breathing that she can’t mask, just before she bites off, “I have no idea what I’m holding.”
Your destruction.
“I’ll summarize.” With one hand still clasped around her thr
oat, I fold my other around hers. Broad fingers slipping between slender. Calloused flesh meeting soft wounds. My hand spans twice the size of hers, and her pulse leaps beneath my touch. “It’s a bank wire transfer to Ian Coney for fifty-thousand pounds. Dated to a month ago.”
She inhales sharply.
I lift my gaze to find Guy watching us, unblinking. He mouths something that looks suspiciously like, “What the hell are you doing?” but I don’t answer.
We all have a method to our madness.
Saxon with his rough brutality.
Guy with his mind games.
And me, somewhere in the middle, a seamless blend of the two that strikes at the vulnerable underbelly of my opponent and destroys any chance of escape. Humans aren’t unlike the coding that I manipulate and bend to my will. We’re conditioned to fear the unknown, to shirk away from danger. And when the fear does take hold, it’s too late to pretend that we haven’t already entered the realm of the inevitable.
I know that better than anyone.
Listening for the telltale hitch in Rowena’s breath, I revel in the way her body strains closer, her cheek running against the grain of my stubble, her fingers flexing against the table. She’s desperate for something she won’t dare admit out loud, the dents and holes in her armor knitting closed to keep me out.
No mercy.
“Coney would have been fully aware of everything until those last few seconds,” I say, drawing a tiny circle over her racing pulse. “Every kick of his feet as he tried to work himself free; every breath he took that got him nowhere. He was dying, and he knew it, and it makes me wonder . . . in those moments, just before darkness fell, what would a man like Ian Coney think of?”
I’d thought of vengeance.
As my body lay prone on that dirty street, unable to move, there’d been no thought of lost love or last regrets or hope that I might see my brothers one final time.
I’d been rage.
Seven months has changed nothing.
“Damien, I—”
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I tell her softly. “Who was Ian Coney to you?”
Finally, at this, she jerks wildly in my grip. “Nothing, okay? He was nothing to me.”
Another lie.
I shouldn’t be surprised. And, hell, maybe I’m even a little . . . relieved. Because if she’ll lie about this, then I don’t need to feel any remorse for what I do next. With one last stroke of my fingers over her quivering throat, I step away, taking the paper with me. “Your father had him killed.”
“What?”
I stop beside Guy, making sure to look him in the eye when I mouth, “Play along.” To Rowena, I pretend to clear my throat. A pitiful offer of condolences for the goddess of deceit herself. “The wire transfer,” I say, noting the way she turns in her chair to follow my voice. “Fifty-thousand pounds to have Ian Coney murdered.”
“But the news . . . the news said that—”
“My brother was cleared as a suspect, if that’s what you mean.” I pause, letting that sink in. Then, “You seem awfully worked up. I thought Ian Coney was nothing to you?”
Her lips press firmly shut.
And I smile, slowly.
Oh, Rowena. I have you.
Cornered.
Squirming.
Ruined.
Folding the slip of paper crisply in half, I hand it to Guy, who immediately takes it.
Rowena pushes to her feet, stumbling a little. “I’m tired of interrogations, Godw—Damien.” Her naturally husky voice carries a touch of unease. “Every part of me is hurting and I’m ready to go home. Your brother said I could leave.”
Still scanning Carrigan’s email, Guy shifts his weight beside me. “I did promise her.”
I tuck my fingers into the front pockets of my trousers. “I think interrogations are over, anyway.”
Clearly unconvinced, Rowena’s brows lift. “You’re going to let me go . . . just like that?”
Not a chance.
But I know when I’ve pushed an interrogation as far as it’ll go without resorting to violence. Snug in her home, with her guard down and her hackles lowered, it’ll only be a matter of time before Rowena lets her secrets slip—and I’ll be waiting to collect each and every one.
“I’m going to let you go,” I lie smoothly, “just like that. Unless you have something else to tell us?”
“I’m pretty sure that I’ve said more than enough.” Her violet eyes swing in my direction, stopping just short of my body. “But I want to see you.”
Startled by the unexpected request, my lungs constrict. “What?”
“Before I leave,” she murmurs, taking one step toward me, “I want to see you.”
A deafening roar silences everything but my heartbeat. “You’re blind.”
“Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean anything. Isn’t that what you told me?” She takes another step, this one a bit wobbly, and then yet another. Until she’s standing an arm’s length away and staring up at me with those violet eyes that can’t possibly be real. Too otherworldly, too feminine for a woman more likely to shoot a man than nap in a field of heather like some fairytale princess. “Come here.”
It’s not a request, not quite a command.
I swing my gaze over to my brother, who stands like stone beside me. He’s studying Rowena with an expression that I can’t nail down, and I have this . . . Fucking hell, I don’t know what it is. A want. A desire. An urge to step between them, so that he can’t see her.
Can’t see this, whatever the bloody hell this even is.
“You owe me, Damien,” she says. “You cuffed me. You dangled me in the air. You put your hand on my throat like you were five seconds away from strangling me to—”
I’m not aware of my feet moving, of destroying the distance between us in two powerful strides. I look down at her shaved skull and the fresh scars gleaming an angry red under the soft, overhead lights. She tips her head back, as if assessing the size of me—how the top of her crown only comes up to my chest—and then she lifts her hand, fingers loosely curled.
The request doesn’t need explanation.
This is insane.
Utter madness.
And yet I touch her wrist, gently circling the delicate bone. Place her fingers on the scruff of my jaw and suck a harsh breath deep into my lungs when the heat of her palm cups the side of my face.
Ten minutes ago, I had her at my mercy and now . . .
Her forefinger traces the shadow of my stubble, the bridge of my nose. She skims the crest of my cheekbone, pausing to discover the tiny scar that creates a shallow groove just below my left eyebrow. And then that one finger sweeps downward, taking a direct path south, until her thumb brushes my lower lip. She tugs on the flesh, gently.
My cock hardens to the point of pain.
“And?” I demand on a husky rasp. “Am I what you expected?”
“No horns,” she whispers, “no elongated incisors. Turns out that you’re human, after all, Damien Priest.”
“Monsters hide in us all.”
“That might be the only thing you’ve said that we can agree on.”
A small smile quirks her lips, and I can almost picture her . . . before. The sweet mouth. The flirtatious laughter. The long, flowing hair that would no doubt feel like silk wrapped around my fist. She had the face of an angel and now she’s something entirely different.
Fallen.
Cast down from the heavens to unleash destruction on the rest of us mere mortals.
And none of that explains why I’m desperate to grasp her hand in mine and nip at her fingers. To draw them into my mouth, one by one, until she’s whimpering again—a sound meant only for me—and I’m showing her all the ways that we monsters know how to make a woman beg.
I’d drive her to her knees. Spread her legs wide. Run my tongue over the curve of her ass and circle my fingers over her clit while her forehead kisses the floor and her hands curl into trembling fists. She’d beg
for me to stop, she’d beg for me to make her come, and if she was good, maybe I’d—
The curve of her smile deepens, one corner hitching slightly higher than the other. Dropping her hand away from my face, she traces the seam of her lips with the same finger that she used on me.
It’s deliberate. A challenge.
Men are easy to break—her words, not mine. Fucking hell. In this moment, with my cock throbbing in my trousers and my heart racing in my chest, I feel unmoored.
Unchained.
Forcefully, I step back and plant a hand on Guy’s shoulder, so that he has no choice but to follow me.
“We’ll have Hamish bring you home,” I tell her, needing to . . . Jesus, I need away. Out of this room. Off this bloody estate. As far as I can go because I can still feel her throat under my palm and her thumb dancing across my lips and the hitched pressure seated on my chest that’s yet to ease.
I want to throw her on the closest flat surface and fuck her raw.
Her, the liar.
Her, the enemy’s daughter.
Her, the woman who sees nothing and too much of everything, all at once.
Before I can escape the room, though, her voice stops me in my tracks:
“What color eyes do you have?”
I glance over my shoulder, rejecting the relentless tug in my gut that urges me forward to where she waits, outlined by the alcove of the Garden of Eden.
I should lie and tell her that they’re an unearthly green like Saxon’s or as black as the devil’s—as black as my soul, even. But the truth slips out on a rasp that I wish I could snatch back: “Blue, like the water in Cornwall.” The same color that I share with Guy, and with my mum. For whatever that’s worth. I fall back another step. “Goodbye, Rowena.”
Her head tips to the side. Then, low and soft, she replies, “Goodbye for now, Damien.”
13
Rowena
I’ve barely closed the door to my flat when a voice from within remarks, “So you’re alive.”
Four nights.
It’s been nearly ninety-six hours of fear and hate and heat, and I—
I slam my eyes shut, despising the way my fingers instinctively creep up to my throat. He held me, he threatened me, and I have no idea what it says about me that all I felt was relief in that moment. Freedom. A dark desperation that curled in my veins and tasted unmistakably like desire.