Page 44 of Kept to Kill
‘Never?’ he asked incredulously. ‘So you killed the midwife as you entered the world, your mother as she held you to her breast?’
‘I …’ She looked away and shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘You’re lying.’
Lily refused to meet his gaze. ‘What did you do to me? Why did you make me drink your blood? Is that how you’re still alive?’
‘I –webound you to our unit.’
‘I thought Brothers came in threes, not fours.’
‘You met Maeve. She’s a Fourth,’ he pointed out.
‘Why?’
He looked down to where his hand was still wrapped around her bare wrist and squeezed it to remind her that it was there. ‘Brothers in a unit cannot kill each other, not even with the gifts they possess.’
He watched her face, wondering if she would be afraid now that she had no power over them, but all he saw was utter relief in her countenance. Either she didn’t care that she was helpless when it came to them or she was too naïve to understand that that put her in a certain amount of danger from the men she traveled with.
‘I don’t understand. Why do it now? It’s been days since we left your army.’ She was staring at where their flesh touched as if she couldn’t believe that it was happening.
He let her go. ‘Now that we are in the north, it would be safer if we don’t have to worry about accidentally brushing against you all the time. There may be occasions where we have to touch you to save your life, and hesitation can mean death in perilous situations.’
‘So all three of you can touch me and you won’t … succumb?’
He nodded.
‘And I – I can …’
‘You can touch us with no ill effects,’ he confirmed.
Tentatively and very slowly, she nudged her hand towards him. He didn’t move, didn’t want her to startle and stop what she was going to do. Quin didn’t know if she’d initiated anything with Bastian or if he had been the one to touch her first, but if she hadn’t, Quin wanted to be the first man she touched not to kill, not because she’d been told to, but because she wanted to.
He made himself stay still, though his very being screamed at him to lean in closer as she reached her hand up to his face and, very lightly, traced two of her fingers over his brow. Lily’s movements were precise, and the look on her face as she moved down his stubbly cheek to where his tattoo started on his neck was one of intense concentration. He let his eyes drift shut.
Her fingers stopped, staying where they were as if she too were frozen now. He looked at her and found her staring at him, a look of wonder on her face that she quickly shuttered when she noticed him watching. She pulled her hand away and looked at her fingers.
‘Is this the first time you’ve ever done that? Touched someone, I mean?’ he fumbled, cheeks heating. He hoped she didn’t notice. He was a Dark Brother and he’d had his share of women. He knew he was considered charming when he wanted to be. So why did this girl leave him feeling like a foolish, green lad with no experience whatsoever?
But she hadn’t seen. She was touching him again! A finger skimmed his lips and then stroked his jaw more boldly.
He couldn’t stand it any longer. He surged forward and captured her lips with his roughly. She made a sound of surprise and tried to break the kiss, but he didn’t let her, moving with her until her head was on the pillow and he was practically on top of her. Her arms came up hesitantly, as if that long-inured part of her had already forgotten that she couldn’t kill him. Then her hands were on his tunic and he expected her to push him away, knowing that he would let her.
He had no interest in forcing her to do this. She’d had enough of that in her life, and he didn’t want to add any more to it than he absolutely had to. But she didn’t push him away. Her fingers gripped his clothes and drew him closer, making a sound of such utter satisfaction that he deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping past her lips to tease hers in long strokes in a promise of what was to come.
He opened his eyes for a moment and saw hers were open too, wide with her astonishment and something else. She was looking past him.
The door slammed and he pulled away with a suddenness that had his body yearning to return to her arms for more.
He turned his head, already knowing it would be one of his Brothers, but which one would he be punishing later for interrupting?
Mal.Fucking spy.
He stood by the door, simply watching. His expression was blank, but Quin knew his Brother well, and he was anything but unmoved. Quin had been afraid that Mal wouldn’t be able to stop himself from killing her before she could perform her task, and he knew that Bastian had believed the same.
Bastian had thought he was clever by bringing up the binding the way he had, but Quin knew what he was trying to do from the beginning. He’d developed an attachment, however tenuous, to their little prisoner – who was still under him, breathing hard with her eyes locked on Mal. And his eyes, in turn, were on her. Binding her had suited Quin’s purposes for safety’s sake and to soothe Mal’s more murderous urges when it came to her.
But Mal didn’t want tokillher, he wanted tofuckher, and by the way he was looking at her, he’d already whetted his appetite somehow. How could Quin have been so blind? Bastian and Mal were both interested in her, and, he readily admitted, he was as well. And in binding her to their unit, he had made it so they could all indulge themselves with her, a girl so starved for the warmth of another’s skin on hers that it would be so, so easy to make her acquiesce. Muttering a curse, he scrambled off her, ignoring the look of hurt in her eyes that was there one moment and gone the next.
