Page 44 of Captive Souls

Me. I was one of his needs.

I felt somewhat powerful that this seemingly controlled man was beginning to unravel out of want for me. Or perhaps that was a story I was telling myself.

“You have too much sympathy for assholes,” he said matter-of-factly. Coldly. “They don’t deserve it.”

I tilted my head to regard him. “Or maybe they need it most of all.”

He didn’t reply. I didn’t expect him to.

“What prompted you to work for Stone?” I repeated my question, a daring thing to do as I felt myself dancing with his cruelty, bracing for the verbal snap of it. I waited for a threat, a reminder of my place in the world as his helpless captive.

I watched him consume a mouthful of food. He was polite in how he ate, had good table manners. Chewed with a closed mouth, the column of his throat moving pleasingly as he swallowed. My gaze dipped down to his chest, following the movement.

“I went to work for Stone because I wanted to.” At the sound of his words, my eyes snapped up to his. Dark, endless. “He didn’t trick me, blackmail me or control me into my role. Nor am I a mindless goon following orders out of fear. I’ll work for him for as long as this role aligns with my needs.”

“What are your needs?” I asked without thinking. An innate instinct in me wanted to know them so I could meet them. I wanted to take care of this man. Save him. No reason for this existed beyond the inescapable thread tightening between us. He was giving me proverbial crumbs to prove it existed, yet I was feasting on them.

His gaze never let go of mine. “Death,” he said simply. “I need to kill people, Piper, in order to survive. There is no justifying my acts. And despite what your armchair analysis says, I am my acts. I kill because I am a killer. There is nothing deeper than that.”

He was trying to scare me.

And it was working.

But I’d known he was a killer for a long time. It was impossible not to know that after just gazing upon the man. Something instinctual told you what he was.

Yes, hearing him say it out loud was unnerving, but not as much as it should’ve been.

He’d said it in large part because he believed it. He was sure of what he was. There was conviction in his tone, grim resignation etched into every one of his features. But he also wanted to push me backward, back into our defined roles of captor and captive.

Instead, I pressed on.

“I think there is a lot more depth to you than just that,” I countered, my voice quiet, almost a whisper.

I held my breath, waiting for him to breathe fire. But he leaned forward imperceptivity. In our dynamic, the simple change in his posture was as mighty as a mountain moving.

“Why?” he asked, his low tone mirroring mine.

When I chewed my lip, his gaze followed the motion, hunger clouding his vision, pupils dilating slightly.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Because I can see it.”

The air between us changed. I swore it did. I could feel our roles warping, transforming. I was no longer his captor, a job, some abstract person that he was to break then deliver to his boss for a lifetime of torture.

I was a person to him. And maybe … I was something more. Of that I was certain.

He grasped my wrist.

The speed in which his hand moved was almost unnatural. I hadn’t been prepared for it. The conversation had been intense, but he was guarded, keeping his distance.

The man from moments ago was gone.

“You think you can unnerve me with a pretty cunt, Piper?” Despite the obvious violence of his grip and the crass words, his tone remained measured. His thumb stroked my wrist, right above my thundering pulse point. “You think that’ll save you? Throwing yourself at me? It won’t. This is the only warning you get. The next time you flash that at me, I won’t be restrained. I’lltake you in all the ways you’re begging for, and you’ll be so far beyond saving you’ll regret it.”

When he let my hand go, it felt so heavy it clanked onto my plate with the clutter of my silverware.

He went back to eating as if he hadn’t just said all of those earth-shattering, threatening, despisable yet somehow intensely delicious things.

There wasn’t a tremble to a single one of his fingers. Whereas my entire hand fumbled as I tried to mimic him by going back to my meal to prove that he hadn’t unnerved me.

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