Nolan squeezes my elbow in a silent warning. I clear my throat. “Get some rest tonight, Tiernan, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
His eyes narrow on Nolan, but Nolan doesn’t pay him any heed. He takes my elbow and leads me away. When we’re several paces away from my siblings, my heart is in my throat.
“Have you forgotten why you’re here?” he scolds.
“How could I forget?” I snap. “You’ve reminded me ten times.”
“Perhaps I need to remind you more clearly back in my room?”
Reluctantly, I clam up. Exhaustion suffuses me and I don’t want to spar with him again, not tonight.
“That won’t be necessary,” I say through clenched teeth.
We get back to his room but my heart is down the hall. The only people I love in the entire world are alone with strangers, and I’m here as a prisoner.
I wonder if he’ll interrogate me tonight, what he has planned for me still.
He shuts the door harder than necessary. It’s dark in here, but a faint glimmer of moonlight illuminates his face. A shock of blond hair falls over his forehead, and his jaw’s clenched.
“Keenan will kick my arse for this,” he mutters. “You know that, don’t you? Probably hope he does.”
He fastens a series of locks before he stalks over to me. I don’t respond to him. I don’t even think he’s looking for an answer, and I’m so tired, so confused and scared for my brothers and sister that I don’t even know what to say. I can only assume they’re safe for tonight, but they’re apart from me. I can’t reach them and have to trust the very people I despise with their safety.
“I couldn’t care less if Keenan kicks your arse for this,” I mutter, but it’s a lie. I don’t want him to get in trouble for helping out my family. He could’ve left them. Then what?
He walks to me and my heartbeat quickens. Have I pushed him too far? When he reaches me, he runs his fingers through my hair, his grip at once tight, primal, erotic. My head falls back, baring my neck. If he were a vampire, I’d be his prey, my lifeblood pulsing beneath him in the light of the full moon outside his window. He’d bite me, and I’d be his for eternity.
“You don’t care, do you?” he whispers.
“What happens to you? No.”
He smirks at me. “Might be the first fucking honest thing you’ve said to me all night.”
I swallow and don’t respond. It isn’t.
“Back in the room,” he says. “We’ll get some sleep and pick this up again in the morning.”
I’m not so sure what “this” is, but I know what I plan in the morning.
He half-drags me back to his room, tugging me along. If he has any tenderness in him, he’s exhausted it. We reach the bed, and he tosses me onto it.
“Clothes off.”
I don’t fight it. I’m exhausted and fearful, and I need to reserve my energy for the next battle I’ll face. I don’t care that he wants to remind me of who I am, what my place is, or that I’m his prisoner. It’s as if he needs to force this knowledge on me because he’s shown weakness with tonight’s rescue.
Is it even a rescue? I’ve no idea. If he plans to use tonight as leverage, it isn’t. It’s merely a bargaining chip.
So I strip my clothes off and toss them to the floor like this doesn’t demoralize me, like my body and mind are two separate entities that don’t entwine.
Are they safe? The baby, Fiona, and Tiernan? Are they scared? Will anyone hurt them again?
I don’t know if I want to hit him or cry, but of course I’m not given a choice. When I’m stripped, he brings me back to the bed, removes a pair of cuffs from the drawer, and fastens them around my wrists. He tosses a blanket over my naked body and turns away from me as if I disgust him.
“Sleep,” he orders. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”Chapter 9NolanI sleep in my boxers on my sofa reluctantly. I could’ve slept next to her, but I needed some space to think.
The next morning I rise early after only a few hours of sleep. There’s a crick in my neck and my back aches. Toss pillows aren’t made for fucking comfort. I look out the window, at the sun rising over the ocean, and for one moment I let it bring me peace. I wish I was in my own room. I like to sit on the balcony of a morning and drink tea with the sunrise.
I reach for my phone and power it on, grateful there are no messages from Keenan. I’ve got video feed to my bedroom on it. I zoom in on Sheena.
It took her a while to fall asleep. I watched her until she did. It isn’t easy to fall asleep with your wrists cuffed. I’ve been there before. But she finally did, and after I could tell she was out, I rolled over and got some rest myself.