Page 64 of Greed: The Savage
The irony wasn’t lost on Addien. Malric wanted to share even less than she did about her past. Also, like Addien, he didn’t want anyone getting close—and that included her.
He didn’treallydesire her.
That was why, as he brought one of those ice chips slowly towards her hand, trembling, she pulled away.
“I’m sorry for those things Delilah said about you earlier,” she said gruffly. Addien’s wasn’t an apology for a transgression she was guilty of, but rather remorse at what he’d experienced and been subject to because of her. Still, it didn’t make it any easier to utter those first two words.
His classically beautiful features, befitting the many portraits done of the gods here at the Devil’s Den by her friend Alice, became as terrifyingly tense and menacing as those same legendary gods who weren’t being properly pleased in those murals.
“Do you truly think I care about what she or anyone else has to say?” he asked. The smile in his voice was couched in a warning and a promise:Do not come any closer. I will eat you up.
Addien knew when to walk away from violence. She knew when to walk away from trouble. Granted, her temper hadn’t done her good around this man. But she was as magnetized towards him as she’d been repelled by every other man that wasn’t him. Certainly, she’d never possessed this all-powerful longing for Roy.
“I do,” Addien said quietly. “Oi believe you do care, a lot, Malric.”
Rage tightened the corners of his eyes. And from another, even from this man days ago, she would have known to back away, but alas, he’d already shown himself.
A man didn’t fight a nobleman for roughing up some guttersnipe, then take on the role of a servant or surgeon to the same guttersnipe if he was the Diggory kind.
A low growling began in Malric’s throat. The sound reverberating from his powerful neck emerged like he was grinding glass between his teeth.
Addien did not back down.
“Ain’t nothing wrong about a gent worrying about his honor and reputation,” she said simply.
He regarded her through narrow, impenetrable slits, danger and warning glinting in the black depths. The message was clear: I’m watching you—and if you make light of this, you’ll regret it.
Despite the fissure in his armor today, and the startling flashes of his tenderness, Addien shivered.
“And do you worry for your reputation and honor?” he asked, the faintest mocking curl returning to his tone.
It was a mechanism of his. How quickly she’d come to know this man. Days ago, she would have used it to her advantage, to humiliate him. The thought no longer held the same appeal.
“No,” she said quietly. “Honestly, I worry about staying alive.”
Unblinking, Malric stared at her a long,very long, moment.
Finally, his guard slipped. “A man’s honor is all that matters.”
Not long ago, she would’ve mocked Malric over that admission. She’d have jeered at him for not knowing what truly mattered in life—safety, security.
Now she made herself acknowledge something she’d not truly known until their time in close quarters: he was no more responsible for his birthright than she was for her far less illustrious one. Just because it wasn’t her world didn’t mean it wasn’t his—one with its own rules, its own norms, its own governance over what mattered and what did not.
As one who loathed sharing anything of herself with anyone, she could respect Thornwick’s need for silence. After his admission, she let him resume tending her wound, his head bent over her wrist as he rolled the ice gently across skin that no longer hurt. His enigmatic touch had long since chased away the sting of Dunworthy’s attack.
“So how does a gentleman who cares about honor and respectability manage to live here, of all places, and work?”
And why would a marquess, destined to be a duke, defend a rookery bird like Addien?
That question persisted, but she kept that part unsaid. Asking it would reveal too much—that she cared, and that it mattered to her that he had avenged her. That he had made her feel as though she mattered.
“I always worked,” he explained. Taking her other wrist, he examined it, turning it gently over in his hand, studying it, probing it for signs of injury.
Addien stared down at his head incredulously. He shot a quick glance up before she could conceal her surprise and gave a wry half grin. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
Addien shook her head. She wasn’t expecting so much of what she’d learned about the Marquess of Thornwick.
“My father, the duke, made it his life’s mission to make mankind as miserable as possible.” A muscle in his jaw rippled. “That included yanking a son with a fondness for debating him on the merits of preserving the old order versus championing the natural rights of man out of Oxford, and thrusting him into a government post to learn his fortune would be earned, not inherited.” His lips twisted. “The bastard never anticipated I’d take to work. That I’d come to crave it in a way I didn’t his dukedom. That was the only favor he did me.”
