Page 182 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness
“If you don’t believe me, why aren’t you angry?” I asked. “Why are you being kind to me?”
It wasn’t kindness, but I didn’t say that.
Aster lifted me in his arms without answering, off the floor and away from the spilled grains of rice. When he set me on his large bed, I scrambled back, putting as much distance between us as possible.
Would he?
I eyed the door. I reached for my power and came away empty. There was nothing stopping Aster from assaulting me but his own word.
He didn’t move, still standing next to the bed. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. You and Juliette are being nasty to each other, and I won’t stand for it. Not the lying, and certainly not the violence.”
“If you’re concerned about violence, then you should ask her where she goes when she sneaks out at night,” I hissed.
I still had my dagger. I fought the urge to look at the door again.
“Juliette is not a prisoner, dear,” Aster said calmly. “She is not being held against her will. You will not poison me against her, nor willshepoison me againstyou.”
That was beside the fucking point. Nothing I said was making it through to Aster because Aster didn’t care about the truth.
He just wanted to remain in control of two traumatized girls with dark power.
No better than Conrad. Never was.
Gods, now I remembered my last interaction with Conrad. What did he know? Why was he talking about me sleeping with the enemy? And had he kept this from Aster, or did Aster merely refuse to believe him?
No one in this castle was behaving in a straight-forward manner. Actions contradicted words, and words contradicted each other. What the fuck was I missing?
“Tomorrow will be better,” Aster said. “You’re going to sleep in here so I can keep an eye on you.”
That couldn’t happen for multiple reasons. I needed to stop Kylo from prematurely declaring war. I wasn’t willing to doom the realm because ofmyfailure.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Aster said slowly. “You are only being restricted for the protection of yourself and others. You speak of Juliette’s violent ways, and yet you are the only one who killed three people today. You’ve murderedmanyof my kind, actually.”
“To protect myself and?—”
I stopped talking. It didn’t matter. I was not dealing with reasonable people.
I was dealing with monsters.
“Let me go, please,” I said. “You said I would always be free to leave.”
“My wife is healing from a stab wound,” Aster snapped. “I find it implausible she would go to such lengths as to hurt herself, but if that’s what happened, we will figure it out tomorrow. Until then, you will be under my care. It’s the only way I can be sure you are both safe.”
The words were poised on my tongue, but I decided against voicing them.
His wife was healing from a stab wound. So why wasn’t he withher?
Part of me was delighted by the mental image of Juliette suffering alone from the consequences of her own actions. But another part of me felt strangely sad. She deserved much worse, of course.
But Aster was her whole world. Psychopath or not, she was deeply trauma bonded to him. And instead of being with her, he was here with me, the woman who supposedly stabbed her.
I looked at Aster with new eyes. His pupils were big, his nostrils flared. He unabashedly flicked his gaze up and down my body before stopping to stare at the metal cuff around my neck. I avoided glancing at the bulge swelling beneath his dress pants.
If I stabbed Aster in his sleep, I could find the key to the bondage around my neck. Aster slipped the key into his pocket. While I was at it, I could grab my necklace and the attached stun powder.
A strong knock cut through my scheming thoughts.
“Come in.”
