Looking her dead in the eye, I give her the cold, hard truth just as she asked, knowing that it’s not what she wants to hear. “I had to know where your loyalties lied,” I tell her. “I needed your raw, honest reaction to learning Marcus was dead. I needed to see how it hurt you, or if it hurt you at all.”
Her eyes search mine, her head shaking in disbelief. “You’re a fucking monster,” she murmurs, her voice dropping to a low whisper.
I nod, knowing all too well. “Yes, I am.”
“So, what happened?” she questions. “Was my grief not believable enough? Were the tears and heartache not enough to convince you? I was a fucking mess, and yet you still doubted me.”
Raising my chin, I let her see the horrors deep inside my eyes. “I did doubt you,” I tell her, slowly standing and making my way toward her. She eases back a step before deciding to hold her ground, on some level knowing that I’m not going to hurt her. “I didn’t trust you. I questioned your loyalties and I wanted to see you hurt like I was.”
Her brows furrow and the fear instantly seeps out of her gaze only to be replaced with confusion. “Like you were? What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands, standing a little straighter. “Marcus was fine and you knew it. What do you have to be hurt about? Me? Because I tried to run again? Because I was allowing myself to get close with your brothers, but not you? It makes no fucking sense. You had nothing to be hurt about except for your own goddamn actions.”
I clench my jaw as her words hit something hard inside me, something I refuse to believe exists. I step closer, hating how clearly she can see through the hard exterior that I’ve worked years to perfect. “Why are you really here?” I demand, narrowing my gaze on her baby blue eyes and feeling the anger rising high in my chest, only the anger is aimed at myself for failing to conceal the real man who lies beneath, the man my father has conditioned me to bury.
Shayne stares back up at me, not backing away from the relentless brutal stare coming her way. “I want you to train me.”
I scoff. “You’re fucking kidding, right? Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I asked you to,” she seethes, stepping closer into me and shoving me hard in the chest. “Because despite the shit you’ve put me through, I still have a will to survive.”
“No.”
“It’s not a negotiation,” she tells me. “You put your hands on me and in return, you will teach me how to survive. I don’t expect to learn how to take down someone like you who’s been training all their life, but at the very least, you will train me how to get away so assholes like you can’t hurt me again.”
I shake my head. After the bullshit the Miller brothers pulled on her, I had every intention of training her, but not now. She’s not ready. I reach out and brush my fingers over her shoulder, watching the way she flinches at my touch and shrugs away. “How the fuck do you expect me to train you when you can’t stand the thought of my touch?” I snap my arm around her waist and yank her in hard against my chest, instantly smelling that sweet taste of innocence, an innocence I want nothing more than to destroy. “You can’t bear to be close to me, and yet you want me to throw you around on a training mat, sneaking up behind you and putting you into hostage-like situations to get out of? You’re too weak. You’re not ready.”
“I don’t care,” she seethes, getting her hands up between us and pushing back against my chest, forcing herself free. “I’ll deal with it, but what I won’t do is walk out of here without getting exactly what I want.”
“You don’t know what you want.”
She narrows her eyes and if looks could kill, I’d already be dead. “Don’t act like you know anything about what I want.”
“I felt your lips on mine,” I tell her, walking back into her again, refusing to allow her any personal space, but hell, she’s the one insisting that she can handle it. “I felt your body melt into me. I’ve committed your moan to memory. I know exactly what you want.”
“Good job,” she spits. “You were able to read my body’s reaction to you, but it’s nothing different to what it does around Marcus or Levi. Congratulations, you’re nothing special, just one of many. The only difference is that they’ve had me, tasted me, felt me coming on their rock-hard cocks, while you can only dream about it.”
Fucking hell, my little Empress is playing to kill, and damn it, that one stung like a fucking bitch, but nothing has ever made my blood boil more.