Page 59 of The Hunter
She didn’t know now which she found more terrifying.
“Ten minutes.” His hand tightened, but then something flickered in his eyes and she caught what she could have called a wince before he released her. “Ten minutes and then you’re mine.” He swept to the doorway that Welton had vacated.
“I’m done waiting.”
Millie didn’t breathe until the door closed behind him.
Ten minutes. She almost couldn’t consider it.
Her hand shook as she pulled the blanket up over her son, brushed a lock of his hair off his forehead, and watched those angelic eyes flutter behind closed lids. Good dreams, she hoped. Something that didn’t include this new world of theirs full of danger and assassins and the consequences of the past.
Ten minutes.
Or nine, now. As she looked down into the face of her precious boy, she knew it would take all the time he’d allotted her to prepare, but she’d do what she promised. The curve of his round cheek glowed in the soft light of the lantern, and as she pondered it, Millie found herself wondering about the man to whom she belonged for the night.
He’d mentioned a mother. A whore. But in the darkness of the carriage, she thought that she’d heard something like nostalgia lurking in his otherwise monotone voice. A man like Argent… It was easier to think he’d been birthed from a shadowy hell-mouth in some dark, forbidden place. Already a lethal, brutal man with no conscience. It was as if he’d been put together by something darker and infinitely more cruel than God. Like pieces were missing.
But that couldn’t be, could it?
Once he’d been small like the child in front of her. Helpless. Maybe even innocent.
Had he been born, as some were, with the desire to kill? With the urge to take a life? Or had he been created by some dastardly villain who shaped him into the man he was? What if his missing peices had been ripped away from him? What if his brutality, his proclivity for violence and bloodletting, reached into the bedchamber as well?
Tears pricked Millie’s eyes and she rapidly blinked them away, she couldn’t tell if they were tears of fear or of compassion, but she did know one thing. She hated to cry for no reason. Besides, these questions were useless, because in a matter of minutes, she’d know the answers.
I’m done waiting,he’d said.
Well, she supposed they both were.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
The consistent sting and burn of his stitching needle did not produce the effect Argent desired. Of course, the thread he kept on hand in the washroom pulled the sliced flesh of his forearm back together, but the pain did little to alleviate the erection abrading against his trousers. He couldn’t tell which discomfort irritated him more, the cut or his cock.
Since the slice was a defensive wound on the underside of his dominant forearm, he had to seek out the only mirror in his entire cavernous place and use his less dexterous hand to do the stitching, while trying to work backwards from the reflection in the glass.
His efforts at a clean stitch had been thwarted more than once, and he’d had to start over. In fact, he might be doing more damage to the skin than good. He hadn’t initially realized how long the gash was, though it wasn’t incredibly deep. The bandage had kept it from bleeding too much, but carrying the child had caused it to ooze.
Ten minutes.Maybe he should have given her more time.
He’d divested himself of his bloodstained shirt and bade Welton bring him a clean bandage.
Welton set the supplies on the long bench built into the wall beneath the only washroom window. “If you’d allow me, Master Argent, I could stitch your wound in a jiffy,” he offered.
“I’m not in the habit of letting other people near me with sharp objects, even if it is only a needle.” Welton knew that, of course, but the man always offered.
“Very good, sir, but might I suggest you put on your clean shirt lest you frighten the lady.”
Brows drawing together, Argent considered it. Perhaps he should have been better prepared for this. For the first time in a score of years, he took a moment to truly study his reflection.
He really was an unsightly bastard. Though he knew his strong features could compel others at times, he was fairly certain his body would disgust them. His torso stood as a large chronicle of a life of abject, unceasing violence.
Argent flexed his shoulder and arm, smooth muscle rippling beneath a web of badly healed burns stretched over a body that had grown exponentially in height and girth since the wound had been inflicted.
While Welton unfolded the starched white shirt, this one loose and casual, Argent counted two bullet wounds, seven knife gashes, and he couldn’t even imagine what his back looked like. He’d once been wounded by a cattle prod a sadistic guard had brought to make the prisoners work harder.
That had been a terrible day. A terrible, blood-soaked day. He was pretty certain those scars still remained, though he’d never much cared to look.
What would Millie see when she encountered him like this? A killer? A protector? A coercer?
