Page 36 of Sold to the Nalgar
She hated him. She wanted to scream at him again, claw his face, run—something.
But all she could do was sit there. Swallowing her fury. Burning under his gaze and feeling, to her horror, the slow bloom of something else beneath her skin.
No.She couldn’t surrender. Not yet.
But something dangerous was unfurling inside her.
And then it hit her.
Like a slow, creeping shadow sliding up the walls of her thoughts, cold and suffocating, it hit her.
All his promises. The pampering. The comforts. Theyou will not want for anything…
It wasn’t generosity.
It was justification.
There would be a cost.
Of course there would be.
Her mouth went dry. Her spine stiffened against the mattress.
She looked at him—reallylooked. At his strange, perfect face. The sculpted body relaxed like a predator at rest. The red eyes that never left her.
And she asked the one question she’d been dreading. The question that wrapped around her heart like a noose.
“What do you want from me?”
It came out barely a whisper. She hated the tremor in her voice, but it was there, laid bare in the space between them like a sacrificial offering.
He didn’t answer right away.
He didn’t have to.
The silence stretched, thick with unspoken truths.
He tilted his head, slowly.
“Everything.”
The word dropped between them like a blade.
Her blood ran cold.
“Your service,” he said. “Your attention. Your submission. Your blood.”
A beat.
“Your body.”
Cecilia couldn’t breathe.
She’d known. Of course she’d known. Somewhere deep inside, she’d always known.
But hearing it aloud—spoken in that smooth, deep voice with such simple certainty—made her want to crawl out of her skin.
He didn’t move.
