Page 67 of Never Fall for an Angel

I don’t even have to answer him. One look at my face is all he needs before he’s pushing past me and pulling the pistol from his waistband as he stalks across the yard.

My heart cracks and hand forgotten, I run after him.

“Wait!” I shout, but he doesn’t stop. “It was an accident.”

He racks the slide, not even bothering to look at me when I grab his arm and attempt to pull him back.

“It was an accident. He’s hurt!”

“Mila, go in the house.”

“No,” I growl, jumping in front of him. I’ll throw myself in front of the dog if I have to. I won’t let him hurt him. “You can’tdo that.” I shove him with everything I have, but like a brick wall, he doesn’t even move.

“There’s no place for biting mutts on this island,” he replies cooly, stepping into me and forcing me to fall back a step. I grip his shirt, but he just keeps walking, moving past me despite my struggling. Tears burn on my cheeks, the wind whipping my hair in my face, when I throw myself in front of him and the greenhouse again.

But, like the force of the sea, he only stops because he wants to. Not becauseImade him.

“He was hurt, and I pulled a piece of glass from his foot. He didn’t mean to. I won’t let you hurt him.”

His gaze fills me with ice, his stare lethal.

“Let me?” he mocks, stepping into me. “You seem to have forgotten, what you want, doesn’t matter anymore.”

I slap him so hard my hand vibrates with the sting. His head snaps to the side, the skin instantly reddening with both the blood on my hand and the force behind it. When his gaze slips back to mine, he’s never looked more like the devil than he does right now.

At the same time, I spin to run back towards the greenhouse, he catches me around the waist, tugging my back into his front with one arm around my stomach, the gun in his other hand. The air wheezes out of me, and an icy fear settles in my stomach.

Not for me, but for Phantom, because if Christian won’t listen to me, there’s no doubt in my mind he won’t think twice about shooting the dog who bit me.

“Let go of me!” I growl, but I may as well be fighting off a grizzly bear. He presses his lips to my ear, the warmth of his breath against my neck sending a shiver down my spine. Tears spill from my eyes, a sob wracking up my throat as sorrow threatens to suffocate me.

“You seem to have forgotten; temper tantrums don’t work on me.

“Please, don’t kill him—”

“You have no choices here, Mila. Right now, you are mine to feed, to protect, and to clothe. If I say you’re going to wear something, I expect you to smile and say,yes, sir, in that pretty little voice of yours. If I tell you no dogs if they’re going to bite, that’s the way it’s going to be. No arguing. No running off. And no fucking temper tantrums.”

He lets me shove away from him, and I crash to the grass below his feet, nothing more than a piece of garbage beneath his feet, just like Phantom.

He meets my tear-filled stare with his icy one, and I realize there’s not an ounce of emotion in his eyes. Not anymore.

“What happened to you?” I breathe because I can’t help myself. My stomach is in my throat, and the perimeter of the island is threatening to close in on me.

Beyond the cliffs, the waves crash against the rocks, but it’s nothing compared to the turmoil in my chest.

“Perhaps it’s the bullet still lodged in my chest,” he sneers, his lips curling up at the sides in a dangerous snarl. “You know, two inches to the left, and I would have died. Not that you care, right? You delivered that punishment on a silver platter. Didn’t you, little devil?”

Something breaks inside me, and it’s then I realize I really don’t know Christian at all anymore.

I glare at him, fresh tears burning in my eyes, and for the first time since I woke up in this fresh hell, I can’t turn them off.

God, what did I do to him?

“Sometimes, I wish I would have just used it on myself instead.”

He stares at me, watching the descent of a tear as it runs down my cheek, dripping to my bloody coat below.

“Go inside.”

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