I struggled to suck in a decent breath with the intensity in his gaze. “I understand plenty.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. You think we’re going to torture and maim you for the next few years. Yes, your future is set in stone, and yes, it will hang over your head until it’s finished. But you have to keep living, keep experiencing. You’re part of our family now. You’ll be treated as such.”
My brain whirled.
“In answer to your question, I always intended to tend to your wounds, just like I will do with every debt. You’re mine.” His lips twitched. “In sickness and in health.”
Temper flared through my blood. “Don’t twist the vows of matrimony. This isn’t a marriage. This is the worst kind of kidnapping.”
His eyes hooded, hiding his thoughts. “A marriage is a kidnapping. After all, it’s a contract between two people.” He came closer, unravelling the end of the bandage and holding it against my side. My arms wrapped around my naked chest hating that even now, even after everything he’d done, my skin still rippled with want.
His face tightened and he grabbed my wrists, placing them forcibly by my sides. “Arms down.” His attention turned to holding the bandage against my ribcage. Once in place, he moved in a circle around me, wrapping my torso caringly in gauze. The soft fabric granted needed relief.
I bit the inside of my cheek. How was it that the gentlest of his touches killed me the most? I’d never been this light-headed without the curse of vertigo. Never been this confused by one person.
Jethro kept his eyes down as he waltzed around, slowly binding me with more of the bandage.
On his second rotation, he murmured, “In a way, we are married.”
I rolled my eyes, cursing my taut nipples. “In no universe would this be called a marriage.”
He sighed. “How do you explain the similarities then? The fact we were raised to be a part of each other’s lives, groomed by families, governed by dictators, and forced into a binding agreement against our wishes.”
The air solidified, turning from unseen substance to heavy bricks of truth. My head snapped up, eyes latching onto Jethro's golden ones. “What did you just say?”
The man he kept hidden blazed bright.
Against both our wishes.
That was the second time he’d said it.
Go on. Admit it. Say that all along you’ve been acting. That this is as repulsive to you as it is to me.
We stood silent, neither of us willing to look away in case it was interpreted as defeat. Slowly, the concern in his eyes shifted to glittering frost—the chill I knew so well giving him somewhere to hide. “You misunderstood me, Ms. Weaver. I meant to say your not our—slip of the tongue.” He continued wrapping the bandage around my middle, covering my breasts with the length of softness, protecting the seeping cuts on my back.
I wanted to yell at him. To find the crack I’d just witnessed and force it to turn from hairline into crevice. But I stood silently, breathing hard as he finished wrapping me like a priceless present, securing the bandage with a small clip.
He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. “You did perfectly, Ms. Weaver. You repaid the First Debt with strength, and you’ve earned a reward.” He moved closer, wrapping his arms around me. His embrace scalded, heating the lash marks to a boil.
I froze in his arms, completely dumbfounded.
To an outsider, it would’ve looked like an embrace—tender, sweet, the coupling of two people crackling with anger and unwanted lust. To me, it was a torment—a farce.
Pulling back, he whispered, “Do you know we met when we were young? I barely remember, and I’m a few years older than you, so I doubt you will recall.”
“What?” My mind flew backward, trying to remember a fiendish little boy with icy winds in his soul. “When?”
He reached up, undoing my ponytail and running his strong fingers through the strands. “Back in London. We met for ten minutes. My grandmother escorted me. They made us sign something—you used a crayon that you’d been drawing a bright pink dress with.”
My heart stormed with denial. How could that be?
Jethro bared his teeth, his eyes locking onto my lips. “That was the first document they made us sign—the beginning of our entwined fate. However, soon you’ll be signing something else.”
Oh, God. My stomach revolted at giving him any more rights over me.
It wouldn’t happen. The only thing I’d sign when it came to the Hawks was their death certificates.
His thumb traced my bottom lip. “You can’t say no. You promised.”
I shook my head. “When?”
“When you ran. We agreed if you didn’t make it to the boundary, you would sign another document—one just between us that trumps everything else.” The tips of his cool, no longer warm, fingers trailed along my collarbone. He leaned in and placed the slightest of kisses on my cheek. “I’ve been rather busy, so haven’t had time to draw it up, but once I do, that’s the one I’ll treasure. That’s the one that will contain your soul.”
I tore from his grip.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I slapped him.
Hard.
Viciously hard and firm and so full of anger. I wanted to smite him into the ground.
He hissed between his teeth as my palm print glowed instantly on his shaven cheek.
I seethed, “You’re forgetting that no matter how many contracts you make me sign, none of them will own my soul. I own that. Me! And I’ll make you watch, before this is over, while I burn your house to the ground and bury your family.”
Jethro turned to a rock.
Grabbing the diamond collar around my neck, I hissed, “And this. I’ll find a way to remove it. I’ll tear every single diamond from the setting and donate it to victims of bastards like you.”
Jethro’s anger dissolved, almost as if he shed it in one swoop. His smile was forced, but the passion in his eyes was fire not frost. “Bastards like me? I don’t think there are other bastards like me.”