Page 33 of Cruel Pawn
I rose slowly to my feet, composing myself through sheer will, wiping any emotion off my face so that when I stood before Grandfather, I was exactly as he expected. As he’d trained me to be. Calm, deadly, and strong. Invincible.
He assessed me, peeling back my skin and muscle and bone to see the weaknesses hiding inside. “We’ll work on that,” was all he said before he turned on the heel of his shiny loafers and left me in the room with the corpse of a man who assaulted me.
18
Priya
My head pounded, my mouth equally full of cotton and bile as I came to, and realised the world was rocking around me. Was I on a ship? The hazy thought broke through the traumatic memory that hadn’t haunted my sleep for months, maybe even a year. It was no wonder it had resurfaced now; my most terrifying out of control memory had been triggered by Arden stealing my control by kidnapping and locking me up.
Arden.
The world wasn’t rocking; Arden had me propped against his chest as he sat against the headboard and he was rocking me, murmuring empty promises of safety. I didn’t let any of them pierce my heart this time, hardening myself. This was all a con to get revenge for me hurting him, but he’d find me a much harder target to break than he’d been for me.
It was still dark, only a soft amber glow from a lamp across the room throwing the shapes and shadows of the cottage into soft relief. I could just about make out the sofa, the TV, the blocky shapes of cupboards in the kitchen.
“I’m here, my opera,” Arden murmured, rocking me. “I’m right here. Your nightmares can’t hurt you because I’ll hurt them first. I’ll reach inside this pretty skull and prise them all out with my fingers if I have to, because the only person that gets to hurt you isme.”
“That’s physically impossible,” I remarked, my voice emerging as a hoarse, raw thing I instantly hated.
“I know,” he agreed easily, gently. “I can’t hurt you; you’re too damn pretty. I take one look at those big, brown eyes and forget what I was doing.”
Warm fingers skimmed my jaw, tilting my face up so he could lock eyes with me.
“I meant reaching your fingers into my head and ripping out my nightmares,” I said, swallowing at the sustained eye contact.
The way he watched me made my stomach squirm. It looked real—his obsession, his care. It lookedreal.And I wanted to delude myself into believing he wasn’t a good enough actor to pull this off, but I was still too shaken by my dream. It was just wishful thinking. Arden was a psychopath, a kidnapper, a murderer, and fuck knows what else—he wasn’t the sweet, harmless cat-daddy I first assumed.
“Tell me what attacked your dreams, my opera,” he murmured, his thumb skimming my cheek, painting warmth across cool skin until I had to fight a shiver, had to fight the urge to lean into that touch.
“I’m not telling you anything,” I snapped weakly, trying to climb off him. His hands clamped on my hips with surprising strength, keeping my thighs wrapped around him. And theharder I fought him, the harder he gripped me, watching me with dark, patient eyes.
“You’re getting off on me fighting you?” I demanded, my upper lip curled back at the insistent hardness that pressed to my hip, growing each time I tried to unseat myself. It swelled further when I gave up on trying to escape and decided to wrap my hands around his throat and kill him instead.
“You really shouldn’t be aroused by a murder attempt,” I muttered, but his cock jolted against my hip like it excited him.
“Tell me what you dreamt about,” he murmured, not attempting to dislodge my strangling hands, as if he liked it. I made a throaty sound and dropped my hands. This wasn’t working. “Tell me,” he insisted, abrasively gentle.
I squirmed, uncomfortable, my skin pickling all over. “Get fucked.”
“Sure, we can do that after, but you’re going to tell me what you dreamt about and I’m going to beat your nightmares into submission first, hm?”
His soft, coaxing tone only made my scowl deepen. I shoved at his chest, and a flicker of something went through me, loosening the grip on my chest by a meagre fraction. I shoved him again, curled my fingernails into his bare chest until I left marks.
“That’s it, my opera. Get it out, take it out on me. I can handle anything you throw at me.”
I clenched my jaw, ignoring the lump that swelled in my throat because I had no explanation for it. I hated this. I preferred to handle my nightmares alone in the dark, as was natural. Not clamped in the arms of a clingy octopus that refused to surrender me to the dark. I shoved at him again, and again, until it was my balled-up fists making contact, until redness spread across his pale chest like a masterpiece, until I was emptyand shaky and cold. Until I had nothing left to fight Arden as he bound me up in his arms and rocked me.
“Tell me,” he murmured, his voice only a whisper louder than the silence.
“I don’t want to,” I muttered into the warm skin of his chest. He was inescapable, all around me, all over me, the lulling warmth and reassurance of him burrowing into my skin like a barb. I didn’t want it, didn’t know what the fuck to do with this ruthless, unbendingaffection.
“The only nightmares allowed to exist in this clever mind are the ones I put there.”
The fuck kind of response was that? I sighed. Heavily. He was still hard against my hip but we both pretended it wasn’t there, at least for now.
“Why do you care so much?” I demanded, the words too big to keep trapped in my chest. They forced my lips apart and bulldozed their way through my clenched teeth, refusing to be silent. “Why do you give a fuck if I have nightmares?”
“Because you’re mine and I love you.”
