Page 56 of Malicious Claim

Makros pulled back, his warmth on her lips, and smirked. "You're not fighting me,Wifey."

Leila swallowed, looking up at him, her muscles locked in defiance. "Because I'm waiting for the best time to strike," she breathed.

Makros traced her bottom lip with his thumb, his sense of humor flaring into something more intense, more possessive. "Good," he breathed. "I wouldn't want you to shatter too easily."

And then he was off her, standing beside the bed and rolling up his sleeves as if preparing for something painstaking. Something long-term.

Leila struggled to sit up because of the pain in her muscles that she had sustained from the beating. The welts on her back pulsed with heat, but she wouldn't move. She wouldn't give him the pleasure of knowing she was hurt.

Makros retrieved the belt he had let fall, running the length of the leather through his fingers before looking at her. "On your knees."

Leila gazed back at him. "No."

Makros exhaled hard. "Wifey, always proving to be so difficult."

He grabbed her by the wrist as she tried to get away, yanking her off the bed. She fell to her knees, the shock jolting through her skeleton, but still she did not say a word.

"You never learn, huh?" Makros said, he moved up behind her, his presence looming. "If pain won't teach you, then maybe something else will."

His fingers dug into her hair, his head tilting so she couldn't help but catch his eye. His expression was neutral, but the hold he had on her was firm.

"You're going to learn to submit, Leila," he said in a voice that was smooth like honey. "And not because I forced you but because, in the back of your mind, you do and will."

Leila drew a rough breath, biting back the scream of anger rising in her throat.

He was playing with her. Twisting the knife.

Makros ran his fingers over the marks on her back, slow, possessive. "You believe you still have control, but you don't. Notreally. Every breath you breathe, every thought you think, I own it."

Leila clamped down hard on her teeth. "You don't own me."

Makros hummed, uninterested. "Then why are you still here?"

Leila didn't answer. She couldn't.

Because whether she liked it or not, she was still here.

It was only because she hadn’t perished while trying to flee. She hadn't pushed herself to her absolute limit.

Somewhere deep inside the distorted depths of her mind, she wondered if she had known that escaping would cost her something greater than freedom?

Makros was gazing at her, expecting her to shatter.

She wouldn't.

Rather, she stood taller. "If submission is what you wish, then take it."

Makros froze, his eyes flashing with something indistinguishable.

Leila willed herself to sneer. "But don't forget, Makros," she breathed. "Submission is an illusion."

Makros laughed and then, in a horror that was almost too sweet, he ran a finger down her face. "We'll see,dolcezza."

Chapter Twenty Four

The Double Cross

The warehouse was deathly quiet. It was the kind of silence that made the hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand up.

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