Page 25 of Cloak of the Vampire
Yet I couldn’t.
And when I felt his breath near my ear, I regretted striking him in the first place.
“Are you done?” he murmured against my ear, not angry but rigid, nonetheless.
As if.Ignoring all the warning bells in my head, I decided it was now or never. “You have no right,” I spat out, growing furious. “You have no right to make life here difficult for me after what you did to me.”
I squirmed beneath his hold, each movement bringing our bodies together even more.
Ragnor’s silence and resolute hold infuriated me further. “You stole everything from me,” I hissed, starting to shake from the fury. “And it would’ve been somewhat fine if not for the fact you’ve done so consensually with everyone else!”
His silence broke. “You should be thanking me,” he said, voice lower than before. “You should be kissing the ground I walk on for letting you live.”
“You gave me no choice!” I snapped, inadvertently moving my ear closer to his mouth.
“Ah,” he murmured, “so you wish I would have killed you instead?”
I tensed as my head filled with distant memories of urns and a bloody river. Cool perspiration coated my skin, and my breath turned shallow for entirely different reasons.
“Yes,” I whispered. “You should have.”
It felt like he froze too. “Why?”
Exhaustion hit me just then. I was tired. So, so tired. “Let me go,” I said instead of answering. “Just ... let me go.”
Let me leave this place and never return.
“Only if you’re going to behave,” he said quietly.
Without any energy, I simply said, “I will.”
To my surprise, he released me and stepped back. I turned around and caught his eyes slowly moving up and down my body before landing on my face.
Ignoring the flush I felt in places that had been cold for so long, I was about to leave when he said, “I didn’t say you could go.”
I stopped and whipped my head toward him. “I’m not a pet,” I snapped before I turned back to walk away.
Between one blink and the next, he was blocking my path with his tall looming form. In another blur, his hand was grabbing my chin, forcing my head to tilt up and look at his eyes, which had gone neon blue. “You still don’t understand how things work here, do you?” he said in a low, rumbling tone.
Blood rushed up to my face. “I already told you,” I said tautly. “You should’ve killed me.”
He stepped closer until our bodies were pressing together. I sucked in a breath at his proximity, and my chest rose, rubbing against his. This small movement made sparks shoot straight to my nipples.Fuck.
“I gave you a new life, abetterlife,” he said quietly, and his eyes, no longer neon, were suddenly contemplative. “You’re stronger than you’ve ever been. You have a community you can belong to, if you so choose. I’ve given you something people would kill for and, more often than not, don’t get.”
I grabbed the collar of his shirt, using the grip to get up on my tiptoes so our faces would only be inches apart. I could feel the rise of heat in deep places, which was getting more difficult to ignore.
“I never asked for this,” I said, glaring at him. “I was happy up there. I was content. I wasfree.”
It was a total lie. My life above was shit. Go to work. Come home. Eat frozen dinners. Watch Cassidy’s shitty band play. Go home. Do it all again the next day. It might have been meaningless, but it was my life. I was in control. Ragnor stole that from me.
“You took the one thing from me that meant something,” I hissed, “and you’re going to regret it.”
His gaze caught mine, and for a moment, I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to lean forward, take one more step until my torso was lined up with his, my breasts pressed against his chest, and my lips hovering over his—
Startled at the abrupt straying of my thoughts, I let him go as though my hands were scorched, turned around, and was about to make my exit when he said into the silence, “Everything would go far easier for you if you would stop fighting.”
Part of me urged me to keep on going without replying. That continuing this little chat was dangerous. But my head and mouth had two different needs, and as I kept on walking, I snorted and blurted out, “I couldn’t give less fucks.”
