Page 73 of Brutal King

I lift my camera and take several photographs of the enclosure. “What was she like?”

He glances down. “Stubborn and willful. Brutal, even. But so beautiful. My father got her so that I could learn to manage difficult people. How to make them bend to my will. She was a lesson.”

“Did you break her?” I say, using the first term that comes to mind given my similar situation. I can’t help but compare myself to the mare. He has called me stubborn and willful. He has called me beautiful. “Did she give into you?”

“If you mean, did I earn her love, then yes.”

“How do you know it was love? She might have just been faking it. Or maybe she was waiting for the chance to break free.”

Gideon’s gaze glitters knowingly as he turns to me. “Are we still talking about the horse?”

“Never mind.” I shake my head and snap a photo of him because I know he doesn’t like it.

He chuckles. “You aren’t like Shiloh.”

“Oh yeah,” I say disbelievingly. “How so?”

“For one, I never wanted to fuck her.”

“You’re terrible.”

“So you keep saying.”

“What happened to Shiloh?”

It takes him a long while to reply to that. “She taught me just how much I could lose because of a single mistake.”

Just like at the cemetery, I want to ask him more, but something in his eyes has me biting my tongue. It’s sadness. Complete and utter sadness. And it threatens to break my heart in spite of everything he’s done.

Clearing my throat, I move to check the inside. I can’t allow myself to feel anything but disdain for Gideon. I must not.

He follows me in, remaining several feet behind as I capture a few images of the empty stalls. Though there are no horses, there are a few with straw bedding. I bend down to touch it, when a cat bolts out from beneath it and hisses at me.

“Jesus Christ!” I jump into Gideon’s arms.

Laughing, he holds me against him tightly. “Careful, she has kittens.”

“Okay, I’ve let this go long enough.” I push away. “What’s up with the cats? When I first got here, you told me not to let them in. But theyarein! They’re coming out of the woodwork. I trip on them at least once a day. Did you know that I named two of them? Yeah, Winter and Autumn. Guess what? I have no idea who they are, there are so many and they all look alike.”

“I like cats.” He shrugs. “There are only ten of them indoors. It’s a big house and they keep it pest free. But they’re territorial. There are problems when the outdoor cats come in. I try to avoid unsupervised introductions.” Stepping past me, he bends down to the gray female with the engorged teats. He rubs her beneath her chin, and the little minx lets him. “This is Sabina. I’ll take one of her kittens inside when they’re weaned.”

I approach too. Sabina eyes me wearily, but refrains from hissing now that her master is here. “What about the rest of the kittens?”

“They’ll be adopted out by the vet.”

“You have a vet?”

“Though I’m adept at many things, animal medicine isn’t one of them. He comes out regularly, spays and neuters most of them. He brings new blood in for breeding.”

“Wow.” I reach toward her, and she finally lets me rub her ears. But the feral gleam is still there. “Can I see the kittens?”

“She likes me, but even I can’t get near them. When they get older and begin to wander, we can.”

“That will be weeks.”

He nods. “Two or three, at least.”

That means, he intends to keep me here that much longer. I swallow the sudden lump in my throat and it falls to my stomach like coal.

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