Page 15 of His Sinner

“I’m impressed, muse.” I nod to the shooting range behind her. “You’re a quick learner.”

“Why are you so surprised I know how to handle a gun?” she purrs, picking up the pistol. “I want to shoot another magazine. The next time someone breaks into any house I’m in, they’re not making it out alive.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

BRIAR

When I stir awake, I’m greeted by darkness and the scent of old books.

I’m in Saint’s library. But something silky and cool shields my eyes.

Fuck.

The intruder.

I jerk against the restraints binding me to the chair, chest heaving rapidly as the air I attempt to suck down comes in shallow, staccato breaths.

I’m naked and tied to a chair.

How did the intruder get me here? How did they take my clothes off, carry me to the library, and tie me down without waking me? They must’ve drugged me somehow. Rendered me unconscious long enough to get me here.

And if I’m here, they must’ve done the same to Saint. Or worse.

I open my mouth to scream for Saint when the edge of a sharp blade skims my exposed collarbone.

I freeze, breath hitching as the threat of the knife immobilizes me.

“Shh.” A mask distorts the hush, curdles the sound of air through teeth into something far more sinister. “Quiet. This is a library.”

The murmured warning is familiar, relaxing my shoulders taut with tension. But only a little.

“What the hell are you doing, Saint?”

This is what I get for letting my stalker whisk me away to his Gothic manor. I couldn’t have been a woman with some shred of sense and stayed the fuck away from him after he broke into my house?

Maybe if I’d thought with my brain instead of my libido, I wouldn’t be strapped naked to a chair while my masked stalker trails the edge of a knife over my skin.

“You need to practice how to calm yourself when you’re afraid.” The knife leaves my collarbone in a fleeting moment of relief. Only to skim along the other, with the sharp edge this time. The blade threatens to slice me open any second. “How to breathe. How to manage your fear. Harness it.”

My heart is still thundering from the panicked moments I thought he was the intruder come to kill me. My breaths are still shallow, even as I remind myself that I’m safe. Even naked, tied to a chair, and blindfolded, I’m safer with Saint de Haas than an unknown assailant.

“I’m fucking calm,” I spit. “Now untie me.”

He chuckles, pulling the knife away. An all-too-familiar, hollow clink of metal follows.

His gun.

“Oh, muse. We’re just getting started.”

I thrash against the restraints, succeeding only in making my wrists and ankles ache. “At least remove my blindfold.”

“A man who wants to kill you won’t give you the gift of sight,” he bites, pacing around me.

He wants to force me to use my other senses. To track the sound of his steps, to scent our surroundings, to weigh my obstacles and weapons, to taste the fear on my tongue and harness it.

“What did you give me?”

“A small sedative in your dinner. Your full strength should return to you any minute.”

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