Page 9 of Savage Hearts

I blinked away the burning in my eyes. I would not cry in front of him. In front of any of them. I would not. I would?—

“Ah, angel. Come on, now. Don’t cry. Is it so horrible to belong to me and my brothers?” he asked, his huge hands cupping my cheeks and his thumb swiping away the tears that had fallen.

I closed my eyes.

“Oh, yeah. There is nothing terrifying about being taken by the same men who…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words.

When I opened my eyes, it was to Silas looking at me with that inquisitive gaze of his. I wished he would stop doing that. Stop looking at me like he could see deep down to my soul.

“Hmm. Do you really think I can do to you what I did to the club?”

I flinched. It was the first time he’d acknowledged it. I shouldn’t be surprised, but the casual way he had said it?—

“You expect me to believe that? I don’t even know who you are.”

And that was the truth. The playful man I had spent my time with, the one who had tempted me to envision a different kind of future than the one I was planning, was no longer around. Silas was essentially a stranger to me.

That wiped the smile off his face, and if I’d thought his smile was creepy, it was nothing compared to his hardened eyes and lips set in a thin line.

Tears clogged my throat, and I lost the battle of trying to stay strong. “Just let me go, please. I don’t even know why I’m here. Why do you want me here?”

I tried to step back. He wrapped his arms around me and hauled me up until my body was plastered against his. My nipples tightened from the contact, and I didn’t know what I hated more in that moment: my body’s stupid reaction to him, or the man himself.

He leaned down and let his soft lips glide gently over my temple.

I shuddered, and I didn’t know if it was revulsion or something… else.

I closed my eyes once more.

“You’re here because I can’t fucking let you go,” he said, his hot breath fanning across my skin. I swallowed. “You’re here because fate has been nothing but vicious to you—otherwise, she wouldn’t have let you catch the attention of a monster.”

“There’s no such thing as fate,” I whispered. How silly. Just a week before, I had thought fate placed me directly in Silas’ path. But it was his doing all along.

“Perhaps not. Or perhaps there is. Whatever it is that made it impossible for me to kill you—” My breath caught. He tightened his arms around me. “—also made it impossible for you to escape me. Know this, little angel. You. Belong. To. Me.”

He enunciated each word with a hard press of his lips against my skin.

My fists tightened into a ball between us.

“Now, we’re going to get ready for bed, and you’re not going to fight me, understand?”

He shook me until I opened my eyes. A stranger. He was nothing more than a stranger now.

“Understand?” he repeated.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to go screw himself. His hands gripped my shoulders, much like Killian had before, reminding me of his strength.

I nodded, and hated myself just a little.

I didn’t want to fight him. I didn’t want him to hurt me.

Did it make me a coward to admit to that?

Was I stupid for complying with this terrible man’s whim simply because he was bigger than me, stronger than me?

I’d always thought I could be tough in the face of danger.

It turned out I was just as afraid of getting hurt as all the men I’d seen begging my dad for mercy whenever they had done some stupid thing that went against the club’s inconsistent and nonsensical rules.

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