Page 35 of The Alpha's Gamble
When I’d swallowed, I stared down at the plate. I was ravenous. Did I want the rest? I still couldn’t decide.
“I’m not trying to run up your bill. And I shouldn’t have said that, you know, a few minutes ago,” Declan said quietly. “I should’ve connected the dots from what I heard earlier when you were talking in your sleep. But I was too focused on—tell me about the nightmare, Blake.”
Now my hands were gripping the plate so tightlyImight break it if I didn’t watch out.
“Why are you being nice to me? I fucking hate it.” I didn’t, actually. But I knew the other shoe would drop, maybe in five minutes, maybe in half an hour. And that would make this little interlude of almost letting my guard down so much infinitely worse.
A long silence fell. My stomach churned, and even the best cheesecake I’d ever had failed to tempt me. So he’d ordered it just for me, because I liked it. And he’d brought it to me in bed. That made it dangerous rather than appealing, like Snow White’s poisoned apple. A trap.
I glanced up. Declan had his eyes fixed somewhere off in the distance, maybe the opposite wall. Definitely somewhere that wasn’t me. That telltale flush along his cheekbones had made an appearance again, too.
“I reviewed the security footage,” he muttered. “After I chewed you out for lying to me. It can’t have been Walter,” he added, sounding so stubborn it made me want to shake him. “But someone used magic on you. I could tell when it hit you. You went from calm to feral instantly.”
He’d seen it. He’d realized I hadn’t lied—at least about the magic, anyway, even if he was still too damn stupidly loyal to stupid Walter to admit he had to be the culprit—and he’d left me alone in my room afraid and anxious and…alone. And then to come and get me for dinner without leading with that crucial piece of information?
“If that’s your version of an apology, it sucks,” I said flatly. “You were wrong. About me, about what happened. You assumed the worst even when I told you the truth. And by the way? There was no one else around. A huge empty loading dock, and there was no one.”
“They must’ve disguised their presence with magic,” he argued, still not meeting my eyes. “And it’s not an apology. I don’t have anything to be sorry for. You’re a liar, and I treated you like one. The boy who cried wolf? You know that story, Blake?”
Fuck him. And I’d opened my mouth to say so when something else occurred to me. “And your precious Walter didn’t notice the presence of another mage either? Is he that incompetent?”
Declan finally looked at me, cheeks even more flushed now, eyes gleaming. “You thought he was bloody competent enough to force you to attack him without leaving a trace. So which is it?”
“You’re the one implying he’s incompetent, not me! I don’t think he is, which is why I know he’s the one who put the spell on me. Soyoutellmewhich it is!”
“He was distracted dealing with you, and—”
“Dealing with me how, exactly? When I wasn’t doing anything at all except standing there before he put his fucking magic on me!”
We both broke off, panting, both of us having risen to a shout, both of us leaning in until we were inches apart.
Declan stared me down, eyes glowing, and I could feel that mine were doing the same, fangs and claws itching to extend. His big body was rigid with tension, poised for fucking or fighting. But I wouldn’t back down. Not now, not when he was in the fucking wrong!
At last he leaned back a little, shook his head, and glanced down, and I nearly toppled over from shock.Declanhad blinked first? Were we in some kind of alternate dimension?
“Are you going to eat that fucking cheesecake, or do I have to?”
I yanked the plate out of his reach so fast it practically made a whooshing noise.
And Declan…laughed. Not at me.Withme. He’d laughed at me enough by now that I could tell the difference immediately. My own lips tugged up helplessly, even though I was desperate to keep from smiling or laughing in sympathy with that infectious grin and those sparkling dark eyes. I couldn’t give in that easily, could I? Let it go so quickly that he’d left me to think I was a prisoner with no way out?
“I guess I’m not getting any,” he said. “I got it for you, anyway. I’m not—don’t fuck around with me, Blake. If you order every single entrée on the menu on purpose to be a dick, I’m not going to be happy about it. But that doesn’t mean—” He broke off and swallowed hard, his smile slipping away. “You need to learn a lesson,” he went on after a moment, voice very low. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to keep your strength up if you’re going to be any use to me. Making you my fuck toy’s one thing. You deserve it. Starving you’s another.”
I let that sink in for a moment, looking at what he’d said from every angle before I responded.
And fuck it, if I wasn’t going to talk, I might as well eat. I forked up more of the cheesecake while I pondered. Gods, it still tasted so good. Getting my adrenaline flowing with anger had burned off the heavy horror that remembering my dream had brought on, and my appetite had come roaring back.
Declan hadn’t meant to say what he’d just said, I’d have sworn to it. He’d had other words on the tip of his tongue. And there was a lot of room between five-star gourmet meals and starvation; he could’ve had his staff bring me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches three times a day if he wanted to keep me alive without letting me enjoy it.
Maybe he wasn’t quite as much of a hard-ass as he’d been leading me to believe, in short.
And I had no idea where that left me. Because the only way I could bear the way he treated me most of the time would be to assume that he was a bastard in general, and that I was in the right on some level.
But if Declan only treatedmethat way, lapsing occasionally into being his real self when I hadn’t pissed him off so much, then that maybe meant…
That I deserved it.
I finished the cheesecake, but I didn’t taste any more of it. It might as well have been a prisoner’s bread and water after all.
