Page 68 of Purchased

“And how does that make you feel?”

“How does that makeyoufeel?”

She’s not aware that I am in the room. All her attention, all her anger is focused on Volkov.

I feel as though I am intruding, even though she is the one who barged in on my session. As she rants, I back toward the door and leave without her noticing I was ever there, though I can still hear her as I retreat.

I want to give her the chance to process her rage with Volkov. He’s the one she went to. Not me. She didn’t ask him where I was. I assume she will come looking for me soon enough, though.

* * *

Beatrix

“Why doesn’t he love me?”

“What about this makes you think he doesn’t love you?”

“He sent a man to go and get dirt on me. He found out all this stuff about me, and he didn’t tell me any of it. He was keeping this a secret from me. All this information about me.”

“How long has he had it?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He should have told me right away.”

“Your mate wanted to know more about you.”

“And everything he found out is bad. I’m a psycho from a long line of psychos, and the person who made these notes said I should never be bred with.”

“That’s a hurtful statement.”

“Yeah, it is. Just because I kill people and have to be prevented from eating them, and because I assaulted him viciously the first time we met, and because I’ve been killing since I was fourteen, it’s, like, what, I’m a bad person now?”

Volkov’s lips twitch in a way I haven’t seen them twitch before. I think he finds it somewhat amusing, which only serves to piss me off.

“What? Is this funny to you?”

“Your indignation at imagining being considered a bad person just because of a bit of murder is pretty funny.”

“Well. I mean. I have good qualities. I care about people. I try to keep them safe when I can. I was trying to keep Armand safe when I… wait… do you know about the gendarmes?”

“I’ve been made aware.”

“If they hadn’t done what they did, I wouldn’t have done what I did. I solved a problem.”

“Yes, and the fact that you were trespassing in the first place was hardly your fault.”

“Exactly. Armand let me do it.”

“Armand is too much of a permissive mate.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m saying it.”

The problem with this man, aside from everything, is the fact that he doesn’t actually know everything. He thinks he does, but there is much of my experiences he knows absolutely nothing about. Like what Armand did to me the night we met. Nobody who saw that would ever call him permissive.

“If you knew the things he did to me, you wouldn’t call him permissive.”

“I’m sure he’s capable of discipline from time to time, but it is when he feels like it, not when you need it.”

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