I’d barely gotten settled on the bed when the door opened and his dark presence filled my room.
“I didn’t give her a number or ask her for any kind of help,” I said through gritted teeth, keeping my focus on the comforter beneath me.
“I know,” he said, and I listened to his slow footfalls that brought him deeper into my room.
Once he was standing at the foot of my bed, I glanced up at him and silently cursed myself for the way my voice shook when I asked, “Is this how it’s going to be now?” When he lifted a brow, I clarified, “You’ve been gone.”
“No.” He blew out a slow, resigned breath before continuing, “I thought time away from you would help remind me who I need to be.”
I took in his expression and hesitantly assumed, “And it didn’t?”
“I remembered,” he said in a chilling tone. “But that doesn’t mean I can be that person with you.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand.”
A huff of a laugh left him, soft and mocking. “You don’t?”
I didn’t know why everyone in this world, as Lucas had called it, expected me to understand their confusing personalities and vague words—most of all, the man before me.
From his reaction when he found me with William, to his sudden coldness before lunch, to the lesson that had ended as abruptly as it had begun, to days of pure silence afterward, to the number of things I felt . . .
Having the ability to have me terrified to needing his touch, to hating his darkness, to wanting that avenging angel side of him all within the span of a few minutes was dizzying and something I hadn’t anticipated—and just another piece of him I despised.
I didn’t like that he could affect every one of my emotions so deeply, so thoroughly.
Especially when I didn’t want him to be able to affect me at all.
When I didn’t respond, his head shook absentmindedly. “I can’t . . . none of this is allowed. I can’t let this . . .” he trailed off, seeming to search for the right words. “It goes against our way of living, Briar,” he explained. “But not only that, it’s dangerous for us. For you. William obviously knows, if any of the other men—or our enemies—were to find out . . . Christ.”
“What goes against your way of living, and what would be dangerous?” My voice rose with frustration as I continued. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep up with anything that is happening when I can’t even keep up with your moods or your confusing, cryptic words? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to try to progress”—I sneered the word—“when in the matter of hours, you went from saving me and caring about me, to again making me think you were going to rape me?” I scoffed, but the sound and my voice when I spoke again didn’t hold any of my frustration, only lingering pain and humiliation from that night. “And you wondered why I was still afraid of you, and why it was taking me so long to get comfortable around you.”
Lucas’s face fell and his eyes shut with a slow exhale.
I tensed as I waited to see how he would look when those eyes opened again, but he only looked defeated.
“That’s the problem. I don’t—” He stopped, then corrected himself, “I can’t care about you, Briar. None of the men in this world care about any of their women past the bond of owning them.”
My heart ached at his words.
I blinked quickly and hated that my eyes burned with unshed tears. “But that morning. You looked—when William was here . . .” I couldn’t figure out how to explain the look on Lucas’s face that morning without embarrassing myself, because now I was sure I had imagined it. A
nd, again, I didn’t want this devil or anything he did to affect me. “You . . . when you came in, you—”
“I can’t care, Briar. That’s my problem. That is our problem. I was never supposed to care about you, and you’ve had me breaking rule after rule because you’ve gotten so far under my skin. William saw it the night I had the doctor here for you, and saw more than enough the morning he tried to teach you.” Lucas ran his hands over his face, covering the agony for only a second.
I still didn’t understand why he would look this tortured. “What is so wrong with caring about someone?” I asked quietly.
“Because they can get to me through you,” he answered darkly. “If anyone ever wanted to hurt me—to send me a message—they would do it by going through you.” His eyes met mine. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong, because I can promise you I would do the same. But then there’s our way of life. We have rules we have to live by. If one of us starts breaking the rules, it risks everything. We can’t let risks live, Briar, you have to understand that.”
My mouth popped open when his words clicked. “So because a man cares about someone, that’s reason to . . . to . . . to kill him?”
“No, there would need to be more rules broken. But, trust me, with how many rules I have thrown out the window in these weeks with you, they have grounds to get rid of me. William won’t say anything about how he thinks I’m starting to care about you because he broke one by coming here the other morning and an even bigger one by touching you. But if he knew about any of the other rules I’ve broken . . .”
“He’s your mentor!”
Lucas laughed. “And?”
That brought me up short, and I remembered Lucas’s threat to William on the morning everything had changed . . . “Doesn’t your relationship mean enough that he would try to stop them from killing you?”