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. And, 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?”
“No, Blackbird. He would just kill me himself.”
My shock was apparent in my sharp intake of breath, because I knew from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth. What kind of life was Lucas talking about where men would do this to each other? “That’s heartbreaking.”
“It’s really not,” he said honestly, and rounded the edge of the bed to sit on it. Leaning forward, he cupped my face in his hands. “What’s heartbreaking is watching your spirit shatter—and knowing it’s my fault—while years of training tells me that it’s what I have to do, that it’s what’s right.” His full lips pressed to my forehead and stayed there when he spoke again. “I’m sorry, Briar. I am so sorry. You can hate me all you want. I’ll always hate myself more.”
“Then don’t be this way,” I begged, gripping at his arms. “Don’t do these things.”
When he pulled away, I could see that that wasn’t even an option. “I have to be like this. I have to teach you.”
“But you aren’t that man, you said you couldn’t be that man. And I’ve seen that you don’t want to be, I can see it now. Maybe you thought that you needed to do these things and live a certain way, but that was before you bought me . . . before you had your first girl, so—”
“No. I can assure you that this wouldn’t be happening if I’d bought another girl that day,” he said firmly. “I needed you from the moment I saw you, but I knew that need for you would get in the way of what I had to do to you, so I almost didn’t bid on you.”
“Why did you?”
“Bid?” he asked, and the second real smile I had ever seen lit up his face, making him so achingly beautiful. “Because, Blackbird, you started singing.”
His admission had old suspicions rising in my chest. “The seller was mad when I started singing . . .”
“I’m sure he was. Every man there stopped bidding as soon as you started. I remember thinking you were brave for singing in the middle of an auction. Obviously I know now that it was because you were scared, but it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t let anyone take you after that.”
My eyes snapped up to his. Even through my suspicion, I couldn’t stop feeling surprised. In the four years I’d been with Kyle, he’d never once noticed or understood that singing went hand in hand with fear. And this man had figured me out within weeks, maybe less.
“What other rules are you breaking with me?”
He watched me for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Some things are better left unknown—at least for tonight, Blackbird.”
I nodded, accepting that. He still evaded answering every time I asked how long I had been gone. For all I knew, the women weren’t allowed to know the rules, and he would continue to say that same thing.