Page 135 of Born for Silk

“You ran,” I grit out. “You ran in your condition.” Growling, I warn her. “Fuck, the colour I want to turn your arse for that behaviour.”

She steps backward, shaking her head over and over. “You took her baby…” Her words tumble through sad lips like immature fruit from a rattling tree. “You—” She hiccups a sob.

I hate that sound.

“I did not take anything,” I correct and claim another step toward her, only to watch her recoil. “Stop that now!”

She stiffens and digs her heels into the dirt. Jutting out her chin, she glares at me, flames of burning hatred targeting my soul.

Not love.

Not love…

I clench my teeth on a growl.

Sighing angrily, I strain to manage the rage building through my veins against the heated lick of her gaze. I have to stay in control.

Don’t scare her…

“What would you have me do?” I pose and take another step toward her. “Give me your orders, sweet creature. How would you rule The Cradle? Have infants born to women who cannot care for them, have them starving or worse? Have a lack of infrastructure, minerals, and Marshals because men do not want to work in their Trade anymore, seeking something brighter. Women want to stay at home with their children, and now we have starving citizens, laziness, under-nourished children, and men with far too much time on their hands creating havoc, aimless, without Purpose.”

Her lashes beat as she thinks; the question throws her and confuses her.

I take another step. “The silk gir?—”

“Ana!” she barks.

“Ana,” I comply, though I want that bark coming from her throat when I fuck her between these rose hedges. “Ana takes no ownership,” I continue, slowly edging closer to her. “The babe is the property of The Cradle. We do not operate in the best interest of the individual but of the Collective. Do you dispute that? Are we so unkind, little creature? So unfair.”

Another step.

Her eyes burn me.

“Don’t look at me like that. I will give you anything, everything. You once took a bloody heart from a box. It belonged to a usurper who tried to poison me. You claimed it. You became my personal brand of poison. My weakness. I am weak for you, Aster. Don’t do this.”

Another step.

I snatch her throat in one long movement, pulling a gasping little creature to my chest where I rock her against me as she struggles and hisses. “Stop fighting me.”

Sobbing, kitten-growling, punching, panting, she bashes my chest and kicks her little feet into my boots. “You took her baby!” she cries harder. “Rome,” she says my name, betrayal laced. “No. Why? Why?”

My heart squeezes. “Stop, little creature.”

She beats my chest and thrashes in my grip. “You took her baby!”

“Stop.”

“Are you going to take mine?” She gasps between words. “Are you going to… going to?—"

Her—my weakness—sinks in and nearly cripples me. I replace the pain, the hurt?—

With anger.

“Stop that! I will make amends,” I grit out, unleashed fury coiling around each syllable. Her sorrow grates strips from my veins, every inch of me that is human turning to bloody ribbons. “I will make amends.” It is all I have. A promise.

Desperate, she cries, “Am I yours?”

“Yes, dammit!”

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