Page 47 of Escape From Me

“Like you go with so they can control you?” I asked.

That got the smile on Cali’s face to fall fast and hard. “Uh, no. Control me? What the fuck? That is never happening. It’s more like there is power in numbers. Plus, we’re all family. A chosen family. Although I would say that if you had any ideas of grandeur like daddy dearest does? Well, yeah, no. Those field trips are few and far between.”

What would I miss if I indeed stayed here? Who was I kidding? Like there was a chance I wasn’t staying. No way.

But really. What wouldn’t I miss if I stayed here?

That gave me pause. I looked down at my perfect manicure that I had been forced to maintain. It was all cracked red blood mixed with my cotton-candy iridescent pink polish. Since the morning after Zeid had rescued me, I hadn’t had one person pulland tease my hair. It was long and natural and I liked it. No one sat measuring my waist to make sure that I hadn’t gained an inch. My thighs hadn’t been pinched to make sure there was no cellulite.

Heck. Zeid seemed to like all of me just the way I was. And Cali and Rylee? They treated me like I fit here.

Screw that. Could I stay here?

“You seem to think that I am staying here. But I’ve only known Zeid for a few days?—”

I was cut off when large arms darted around me. Zeid wrapped me up in his hold and twisted me to face him.

“Every word out of that mouth of yours echoes. So think long and hard before you say shit like that.”

I looked up into his face. Gone was the darkness that seemed to be his mask down here. Also gone was the lust, but it was all replaced by something strange, like a little innocence laced with what I wanted to call anger, but that didn’t feel right.

“Say shit like what, Zeiden?”

The drying blood seemed to crinkle and crack as I tried to pull out of his grasp.

“I was talking to Cali and Rylee, not you. So let me go and then you go clean up the mess you let me make.”

He wasn’t letting go.

“The fuck I will. I heard you. I heard you say that they seem to think you are staying. Make no mistake, dove. There is no way out. Not now. Not ever.”

That should have been scary. In fact, that should have felt like a death sentence. A small part of me wanted to panic and my heart sure as hell tried, but as I looked into those endless pools that were a straight shot to his soul the panic just disappeared.

There was one less monster in my world thanks to Zeid. There was joy and happiness too. And freedom to just be.

“When you say there is no way out, do you mean that like I’m a prisoner?”

I wasn’t sure what was so damn funny, but everyone else in the room seemed to be in on a private joke by the sounds of muffled laughs.

“Do Cali and Rylee look like prisoners to you?”

I glanced over my shoulder where the two women leaned against a cement pillar watching X and Cas work. The lights down here were all on now, though it was still rather dim, but what light there was reflected off something on each of their fingers. I looked again. Rings? Were they married?

Did thugs even get married? Everything my father had painted in a neat little picture for me seemed all wrong. My brain wanted to let go of all the prejudices and lies, but a lifetime of brainwashing made it a bit harder. Still, the idea of choosing to stay? The idea of him proposing because he wanted to and not some stupid contract or millions of dollars? My heart began to beat freely like the cage it had always been stuck in was suddenly opened and I was actually free to feel. Almost. And then there went the brain again to think and overthink.

“Marriage can seem an awful lot like prison,” I said, turning back to Zeid.

His grip hadn’t let up even a bit on me, but one hand did move, and this time it was around my neck as he pushed me toward a wall, where he lowered his voice.

“You are notmyprisoner,I amyours. If you tried to leave, you would take my heart right along with you. So the only way out is death. You see, if you tried to find refuge in the arms of another man, he would die and I would make it last twice as long as the judge here. If you looked at another man, I would kill him too. I would kill everyone until I was your only choice because, Daisy, without you there is no purpose. I have no purpose and itbecame clear to me the moment I couldn’t send you back to your father.”

I swallowed. That sounded a lot like a confession. One that I'd dreamed about. About someone wanting me for me. Someone so in love with me that they would do what all the romance books in the world said heroes did. Burned the world for the woman they loved.

“Is that a proposal?”

The set of his face hadn’t cracked. His fingers didn’t tighten or loosen. Hell, I couldn’t tell if he’d even taken a single breath. And me? My lungs burned until I realized I’d stopped breathing right along with him. Because I wanted the answer to a question I’d never wanted to ask.

“Tell me, little dove. Would you stay if it wasn’t?”

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