Page 110 of Captive Prize

She exhaled a sharp laugh, something dark and reckless lighting up her gaze. I could see the hysteria, the crazy just beyond those brilliant emerald eyes. “You really are just your family’s puppet, aren’t you? The good little obedient doggy.”

“Careful,” I warned, clenching my jaw.

“Why?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling sweetly. “Or what? You’ll chain me up?”

She lifted her wrist, flicking it to make the chain jingle before she pulled it tight and scraped it over the wrought iron again. The sound shot through my skull and ran down my spine in the most irritating way possible.

“No, you’re not going to hurt me. Do you know how I know you’re not going to hurt me? Because Gregor didn’t tell you to. And that’s what you do, right? Whatever you’re told, like a good boy? Well, just because you’re good with being their little lap dog doesn’t mean I am.”

The remaining shreds of the control I came in here with snapped at her words.

With a snarl, I grabbed the wooden edge of the headboard with both of my hands and pulled. The wrought iron bars warped, and then the wood splintered as I ripped it apart. Shards of wood went flying as the frame twisted and groaned under the force, but the second it fractured, the iron bars slipped free and the chain fell loose. The cuff around her wrist was still locked but no longer attached to anything.

Zoya sat up fast, rubbing her wrist, and her expression flickered for just a second. Fear? No. She wouldn’t have let me see fear in her eyes. Shock? Maybe, but I doubted that too.

It was excitement.

Her pretty little lips could spout lies all day. She could say over and over how much she didn’t want me, didn’t need me, wouldn’t be mine.

Her body told me the truth.

She wanted me. She was turned on by my power and it made her tight little body hot whenever I showed her my strength.

Zoya would fight it, but she would lose. Her own needs would override her stubbornness. It just needed a little help.

She launched herself off the bed, but she didn’t run. I expected her to make a break for the door and then I was going to be on her in a fucking second.

Instead, my little warrior got right up in my face, shoving at my chest.

“You don’t own me, Roman! I will never be your property. I will curse your name until the day I die.”

The way she spat my name like it was the vilest thing she had ever tasted sent a sharp shock of anger through me. Every single insult, every dismissive look or word just honed my rage into a sharper blade.

“Funny, you didn’t seem to mind my name in your mouth when you were screaming at me to save you.”

Her hand flew toward my face, but I caught her wrist in mid-air, twisting it behind her back, forcing her body to press against mine.

She twisted hard against my grip, and I felt every inch of her defiance—hot, breathless, infuriatingly arousing. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I pulled her over to the bed, sending the lamp crashing onto the floor where it shattered at my feet, before I sat her on the now empty nightstand.

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to be grateful?” she said, pure fury coloring her words. “Bow at your feet like a good little captive?”

“No.” My grip tightened, my other hand coming up to tangle in her soft blonde locks, forcing her head back just enough to make her eyes widen as she stared up at me. “This is the part where you stop lying to both of us.”

She opened her mouth—to snarl, to spit, to curse—it didn’t matter. I didn’t care.

The moment those beautiful lips parted, I took them.

I kissed her like a man starved. Like her mouth held all my anger and every answer I’d ever searched for.

The kiss was not soft, not sweet. There was nothing soft or sweet between us. It was fucking war. Teeth clashing, lips bruising and her fist tangled in my shirt like she wanted to rip me apart.

I straightened, pulling her up with me, holding her as her legs wrapped around me.

Thunder crashed in the distance, and it seemed fitting. The world sounded like it was ripping apart at the seams from something so violent, so destructive, and yet so natural, that the world made little sense without it.

I knew the feeling.

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