Page 36 of Scarred Queen

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Burning heat from that dark, possessive gaze. She knew what he was telling her. He could take her and keep her without her permission. He’d already done it. But she also sensed the longing within him. The longing for his queen; the woman that could willingly stand strong and reign by hisside.

“What will it take?” heasked.

She smiled without warmth, her lips curving against his. “I want everyone involved in the death of my family. The person that gave the order, the people that covered it up, the men that pulled the triggers. Everyone. I want to kill them all,Reyes.”

She felt the catch in his breath. His fingers bit into the flesh of her hip and he slammed her against the wall, pressing his hard erection against the cradle of her thighs. Her bloodthirsty declaration had turned him on. “You have my word,mi reina,” he growled against her mouth before slanting his lips over hers. Casey tugged her wrists from his restraining hold, buried her hands in his hair and kissed himback.

I want to see red, she thought,I won’t rest until I see red again,as she drifted in a haze of hate anddesire.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Casey,ven aqui ahora!”

The thunder in Reyes’ voice was enough to send the birds in the bushes fleeing for the skies. Casey stiffened but didn’t turn to look at the man emerging from the house to shout at her back. When she didn’t immediately respond to his demand, she felt the snapping anger in his demeanor reach out for her across the expansive yard. Then she heard him stalk toward her as he moved with the lethal grace of a jungle cat. She could tell from the edginess of the nearby guards that he was making his way toward her. She stiffened her posture, but maintained her position next to the fountain at the back of their colossalmansion.

She’d been avoiding him for more than a week, since their arrival back from Brazil. She had murmured that she’d needed space and even lied to him, telling him she’d had a vicious headache. When he’d questioned her, she’d assured him it wasn’t a full-blown migraine, but that it was bad enough for her to require her own room so she couldn’t be disturbed. He had been annoyed and flat out refused, but her arguments had won him over. What if he disturbed her in her sleep, jostled her head? She had assured him it would only be temporary. But she knew he was losing patience. And, apparently, it was nowgone.

Casey wanted to feel bad for lying. For being disloyal to the man that was tirelessly searching for her family’s killers so he could present their heads on a platter to his chosen queen. But she couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty for misleading the person who had known all along and never said a word. It should have been him to tell her about her family. About the hole in her head; the damage to her brain. In her heart, she felt like he’d built her up only to cut her adrift when she needed himmost.

He seized her from behind and flung her around to face him. She was wearing heels so she was face to face with him when she turned. Perhaps she’d sensed this confrontation coming. Knew that he’d had enough of herillusiveness.

“I told you to come to me,” he snarled, his dark eyes livid with warning. “You do as I tell you, every time I tell you, when I tell you to do it,Casey.”

Casey knew she was skating the dangerous edge of his patience, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She tugged her arm, trying to pull it from his grip. His fingers dug into her flesh, refusing to give up his hold. She pressed her lips together and said, “I’m not your dog, Reyes. I don’t have to come when I’mcalled.”

His nostrils flared in reaction and she winced at the brutal tightening of his hand. There would definitely be bruises later. “And this is how you want to play it with me,nena?” he asked, his voice surprisingly quiet considering the waves of anger pouring from his body. “After I have allowed you a week of space. Allowed you to lie to me, to go to another room and withhold your body from me? I have given you all the tenderness and understanding a man in my position is capable of.” He stared hard at her, allowing his heated gaze to linger on her lips before moving back to her eyes so she could see the determination there. Her grace period was definitely over. “You want to be very careful in your next words,miamor.”

Her eyes traced over the scars on his face; the scars that declared him king. The deep, pitted lines that marked his battles and made him the hardened leader that he was. He was tough and commanding, everything that she was not and never could be. She didn’t understand why he wanted her. She was nothing to a man like him. She should have died on that floor with the rest of her family. She was a fake survivor. A ghost living in the shell of a broken woman. She was a falsequeen.

She turned her head to look away from him toward the mountains across from their hidden valley. Their home was really spectacularly beautiful and if she was being honest with herself, truly honest, if she could have chosen to live anywhere in the world, despite having been essentially brought here against her will, she would have chosen this place anyway. It wasbreathtaking.

“Just go away and leave me alone, Reyes,” she murmured absently, her eyes taking on an unfocused faraway look as she continued to gaze into thedistance.

She felt the heat of his rising anger wash over her as he clasped his hand over her other arm and shook her until her head snapped up. “Look at me, damn you,” he gritted from between clenched teeth. When she finally did, forcing herself to focus on his blazingly angry, dark face, he spoke again, his voice throbbing with quiet authority. “Last chance, Casey. It’s time for you to stop drifting and come back to me now. Let’s do this the easy way,cariña.”

She studied him for a moment, tempted to give in. Tempted to recapture the weeks before she remembered what happened to her family, before she found out what had happened to her, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t trust him. And worse, she couldn’t trust herself. She wasn’t brave, she wasn’t strong, she was just… numb to everything. She was the pale imitation of a woman who should’ve died ten yearsago.

“Fuck you, Reyes!” she spat, smacking his chest with her open palm. “You don’t get a say in what I do. You withheld the truth from me. You broke me just as much as Ignacio ever did, maybe worse. If this is how I choose to deal, then you get no say in thematter.”

A part of her knew she was being too hard on him, that he’d had her best interests at heart. That he could have kept the truth from her indefinitely if he’d chosen. But she was so damn angry and in so much pain over the fresh feelings of loss that she couldn’t seem to control herself and Reyes was the only one she could strike out at. So rather than heed the inner voice telling her to step carefully with the vicious mob boss, she struck out athim.

“You dare to say his name to me?” Reyes growled dangerously, “You dare to compare me to that weak-willed excuse for a man?” His voice rose in a snarl as he said, “His name does not pass your lips again,understand?”

“What are you going to do about it?” she charged back athim.

“I’m going to wake you the fuck up,” he snarled and turned, hauling her with him, heading toward thehouse.

Casey thought he meant to drag her inside the house and up to their bedroom, but he didn’t. Instead he skirted the house and strode toward a side of the compound she had never been to before. She could barely keep up to him in her high heels and with his long, agitated strides. She had to run and was sadly out of breath when they arrived at a nondescript concrete building. It’s very blandness was utterlyterrifying.

“Wh-where are we?” she asked hesitantly, clutching at a stitch in her side and trying to hide herpanic.

He ignored her question, instead nodding sharply at a guard stationed by the door. The guard opened the door for them and stood aside to let them pass. Reyes readjusted his grip on her elbow when she tried digging her heels in and dragged her through the doorway and into a dimly lit hallway that screamed ‘once you enter this passageway, you will never exit.’ Casey walk-stumbled after Reyes as he pulled her impatiently down one long corridor afteranother.

“I-is this some kind of prison?” Casey askedtimidly.

“Yes.” His answer was immediate and clipped, not inviting further commentary, but the sheer size of the building prompted her to speakup.

“How many people do you keep in here?” she askedincredulously.

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