Page 213 of Merciless Desires

I stood in my stirrups, swung my right leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. Rinka, my Andalusian mare, bent her neck to nuzzle my arm. I obligingly drew a handful of mints from my pocket and fed them to her, then turned back to Rose.

“I know.”

Her eyes widened. “You knew?”

I led Rinka into a stall where she occupied herself with a net of hay. I felt Rose’s gaze follow me.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

I pushed my hands into my breeches and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “There was no point.”

She slowly shook her head. “You hadn’t been injured then, so don’t try the self-esteem excuse on me. You were so confident back then, so charismatic. I would have melted into a puddle if you’d shown an interest in me. And you knew it.”

“It’s not that.” I released a sigh. I hadn’t expected to have to tell this part of the story, but since she’d asked… “The Isle of Crow is run by a consortium of families. Mine is one of them. We have… traditions. One of them is that the children of the premier families can only marry within the consortium. We can’t marry anyone outside of it, and that includes anyone on the mainland. It’s a protective measure to keep all the wealth on the island.”

For a second, I thought her skin had paled.

“So, you’re told who you can and can’t marry?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Usually, yes, but… after the incident, it was agreed I wouldn’t be bound to the same rules.”

Her brows knitted together. “Why?”

I focused on her face and not the pain of this admission which still felt like a fresh, open wound. “Because…” The back of my neck began to sweat. The families don’t want to subject their daughters to a freak like me. “After enduring what I did, they thought the least they could do was give me some freedom.”

She stood and walked towards me. When she raised her hand, I didn’t flinch. She could slap me again and it would feel like a kiss. When she stroked her fingertips down the scars on my cheek, I held my breath. “What happened to you, Dax?”

I took her wrist, bringing her fingertips to my lips. “I don’t want you to know.”

Her big eyes looked softly up at me. “Why?”

“I don’t want you to be burdened with it. I want you to go home and live your life.” I pressed a kiss to the pad of her ring finger.

“I’ll be burdened if you don’t tell me.”

I narrowed my eyes on her.

“I care about you, Dax. Ever since we first met, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. I never thought I’d see you again, and now that I have, I want to know everything. I don’t want to lose you again.”

Her words were so determined and her expression so sincere, something inside me cracked. “I’m not going to hurt you, you know.”

She recoiled slightly. “I know.”

“You are free to go, Rose. You’re not my prisoner anymore.”

“I know,” she repeated. “I don’t want to go.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t understand. Why?”

She pressed both palms to the sides of my face. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve just said? I have wanted you since that day in the bookshop. Now that I’ve found you… After everything we shared last night, I’m not letting you go.”

The crack in my heart widened, letting in a beam of light. “But… my scars.”

“They’re who you are. Just like mine are who I am.” She breathed steadily, still holding my face. “What happened?”

I sucked in a deep breath. I hadn’t told anyone this. “It was acid. Someone threw a bucket of acid over me.”

Her expression contorted in slow motion. “What? Who would do that?”

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