Page 100 of A Dawn Of Blood

Sadness?

“Nothing,” she replies, no joy in her voice whatsoever.

It all makes bitterness flood me. Here I am, getting caught up in it again and giving her all the reason to laugh at me behind my back.

Just leave, I urge myself, but she’s planted the seed in my mind and now all I can think about is exactly what I know will never be. “Must have made you happy,” I fail to stop myself from prodding, “seeing me finally go down because of the injuries I took for you.”

She frowns. “It didn’t, seeing you in pain made me feel pain.”

“Ah, of course, it made you want to hug me tight and never let go, right?” I remember the coldness that stirred me out of sleep when she left to go sit next to the asshole. “Except you did, first chance you got.”

She inhales deeply, as if summoning patience. “Laugh all you want, but no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, I care about you, Cain.”

But she’s still being uncharacteristically cold. “Tell me, if I actually believed you, which I never will, how would the loving girlfriend act progress?”

She rolls her eyes at me, which counts as some kind of reaction at least. As if it’s out of my control, I chase after it. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?” I demand.

“Well if you never would believe the act, why do you even care?” she asks.

I clench my jaw. “I don’t, I’m just being curious.”

She folds her arms. “Isn’t curiosity a feeling?” she asks with mocking sweetness. “Thought you didn’t have those.”

The defiance in her eyes, her tone and her stance makes my blood rush around. Before I know it, I’m grabbing the armrest of her chair and pulling her closer to me.

The breath I hear her suck in only stokes the fire in my veins. “Such a smartass, aren’t you?” I lean to whisper. My eyes dart to her lips. “I don’t need your answers after all, I know how you’d treat me.”

“Yeah, you do,” she drawls, using that velvety voice for the first time in forever, “better than you could ever imagine.”

This intense, thrilling warmth explodes in my core. Gritting my teeth, I shake my head, determined to get more of what she’s giving me right now. I throw my arm around the backrest of her chair and lean to whisper in her ear, this urgency in my voice, “No. You’d boss me around a lot, wouldn’t you?” I pull away to look at her again. “Even worse, you’d think you could just do whatever you wanted with me, isn’t that right?”

To my surprise, this makes her turn cold. “Real-life relationships aren’t that straightforward, Cain.”

For a second, I just stare at her stupidly. Then I pull away. “You know what? Forget about it, I just remembered I don’t care.”

“Fine, I’ll forget about it,” she says in a voice that’s serious but gentle. “Why don’t you eat something and go get some rest, Cain?

The show of concern gets me fuming. “It’s extremely annoying, you know,” I say without looking her in the eye, “how you really seem to think you know everything.”

“Know what?”

I turn to look at her again. I get in her face. “Who I am and what I need, when I made it abundantly clear I don’t care about all the stupid shit the rest of you seem to care so much about.”

“Everything alright, Anna?” I hear that stupid asshole ask.

She only glances in his direction. “It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

I close my eyes to try to ignore the interruption. I fail miserably. “In case you haven’t noticed,” I turn to snap at him, “this is a private conversation.”

He shrugs. “Just trying to help out here.”

I glance around the room, catching everyone staring. “Is that something you all really believe? That you’re just being good people?”

I hear her get up. “Stop it, Cain,” she says in a voice brimming with disapproval.

I get out of my chair, locking eyes with her. “What, am I finally making you change your mind about me?”

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