I turn as Justice pushes in the guard whose phone I stole. The younger man is pale but his jaw is set.
Thorn’s eyes are cold. No humanity lurks in them, and I startle into being instantly awake, unable to swallow. He studies me. “I see you took his phone. Never play poker.” He doesn’t look at his brother. “Kill him.”
“No.” I burst forward and stop, my bare feet sliding on the chilly floor. “Don’t kill him. It’s my fault.”
Thorn barely cocks his head. “Dermot lost his phone. You say you don’t have it. That’s unforgivable.”
I gulp. Completely outmatched. “The phone is between the third and fourth volumes of Francesco Millentonie’s Philosophies,” I whisper, trying not to wring my hands together.
Justice silently moves to the bookshelf and finds the phone. Perhaps he spends a lot of time in here—most of the world has never heard of Millentonie.
My chest finally fills with air.
“Good. Now toss his useless ass off the cliff,” Thorn says, still pinning me with his glacial gaze. Whatever warmth I thought I’d seen in those silver flecks is gone. Had I imagined that?
“No,” I say, my voice hoarse, looking up a good foot to meet those eyes. “You can’t kill him. I took the phone. It’s my fault.”
Thorn finishes rolling up his other sleeve, revealing more tattoos of what look like garnets, rosebuds, skulls, and barbed wire along with a Gaelic saying or two . . . dealing with blood oaths. “It was his phone and he lost it.”
Anger flushes through me so quickly I sway. “Yet it’s my fault. Jesus. You’re as bad as my father.”
That catches his attention. “Excuse me?”
“With the emotional blackmail. I did something you didn’t like, and you’re going to put this poor man’s death on my head so I don’t do it again. That’s not only pathetic, it’s fucking evil.” Wires of fury snap through me, and I look for a weapon. “It’s not just unfair but fundamentally wrong for a man, a real man, to use a woman’s emotions against her.” My ears heat so fast, I’m surprised they don’t burn right off my head. “Act as to treat humanity . . . in every case as an end withal, never as means only,” I spit at him.
He pauses. “Did you just quote Kant?”
“It fits,” I hiss, so angry my throat hurts.
He crosses his arms, looking even more threatening. I can handle the danger, but the coldness in his eyes is something else.
Justice clears his throat. “Thorn—” He instantly stops as Thorn levels him with a look.
“Please don’t kill him.” My anger morphs into fear. “I’m begging you.”
He turns back to me, tall and broad, pissed and dangerous. “No, you’re not.”
Oh. Dread slithers through my gut. Fine. I drop to my knees, my head bowed. If it saves the soldier, it’s worth the pride. “Please don’t kill him, Thorn.” The tile floor is freezing on my knees.
“Look at me,” he orders.
I look up, surprised to feel tears in my eyes.
The silver flecks in his disappear. “Take him outside and beat the shit out of him. I’ll let you know later if she’s convinced me to spare his life.”
I catch a flash of relief in Justice’s eyes and a bit of dread in Dermot’s. But at least he’ll be alive for the time being.
I stand, my legs wobbling. “I’ll be going now.”
“You broke rule number one, Alana. I gave you fair warning of the consequences.”
My head jerks and my heart rate skyrockets into the unhealthy zone. He isn’t joking.
Like all prey, I let instinct take over and run.
ELEVEN
Alana
He catches me at the doorway, one arm banded around my waist lifting me off the ground. I was so close. His low chuckle rumbles through the silent library and I realize he let me get that far. Temper streaks through me and I struggle in his hold, turning to punch him in the neck and following with several kicks to whatever part of him I can find.
Every blow glances off his hard body, hurting my hand but not hampering his stride. Panic rushes through me like a live electrical wire in water.
He sits on the vacated sofa and smoothly flips me over, facedown. My abdomen impacts his hard thighs and the air whooshes out of my lungs while my hair falls to the floor. This is not happening. He tosses my skirt up and cool air brushes my nearly bare ass. Why did I wear a thong?
The first jolt of his displeasure lands hard, smack in the middle of my butt.
Pain blows through me—along with more humiliation. I rear up, shrieking, reduced to raw fury. Coughing, I struggle wildly, more animal than human. He plants a hard palm in the center of my back, eliminating any hope of freedom.
Then he hits me again.
I hear the slap before heated pain spreads out from his hand, down my thighs and up my back. Never in my life have I been treated like this. “You fucking son of—”
The next slap is even harder, and I suck in breath, the words sticking in my throat. I exercise and I know how to fight. Yet I’m helpless against his strength, and that, more than anything, infuriates me even more.
Until he rains down a series of blows that has my ass on fire. “You’re gonna want to submit sooner rather than later, baby,” he rumbles. He hits every spot with his over-fucking-large hand, top, bottom, and both sides, more than once, no doubt coloring my rear brighter than the garnets inlaid in the floor. I hadn’t noticed them before.
Tears blur my vision.
