Stampeding tears blurred the world, making him dance and jig.
“Okay, if you’re determined not to talk, what do you need? I’ve given you food and clothing. I’ve given you a bed and peace. What more do you fucking want from me?”
His roar hacked through my whirlpool of hysteria, dragging me back from the suffocating clouds.
Pointing at my quaking body, he snarled, “You’re acting as if this is a torture session. It’s not. It’s just dinner. Remember those? When people talk over food and answer questions when asked? Fuck, Pim. Stop looking at me as if I’m him. I’m not fucking him. Got it?!”
My gaze turned sniper sharp. Contorted snowflakes filled the holes left by my panic attack.
Excuse me if I’m not comfortable.
Excuse me if I struggle to see only dinner and not a game to play.
Excuse me if I’m not eloquent and your perfect guest!
Elder rolled his eyes. “While we’re on the topic of normal behaviour, let’s talk about that dress. It’s a goddamn sack on you. You need to eat, and I’ll buy you better fitting clothes. Just because you were a slave doesn’t mean you have to look like one.”
Air hissed through my nose. Snowflakes turned to ice picks, dying to stab him over and over again.
How dare you!
My skinniness is abhorrent to you?
Why fucking rescue me then?
Elder continued, his own anger blind to mine. “He might’ve starved and beaten you, silent one, but I expect you to resemble a woman, not an animal. Next time we’re in port, I’ll arrange for underwear and other clothing. But in the meantime, I expect you to trust what I goddamn say and stop flinching whenever I raise my arm and speak to me. Fucking get over your silence and grow up.”
My back locked in revulsion.
I’m an animal now?
My panic attack switched to an erupting volcano of hate.
I’ll show you what an animal I am. I won’t grow up. I am grown up. I’m older than you’ll ever be. And if you try to make me wear underwire and tight lace after a lifetime of scars and bruises, I’ll kill you.
My teeth ground together.
You hear me?
You want me to wear tight clothing? You want to destroy me?
No!
Rashness overrode my brain. My hand soared up, yanking off the strap clinging loosely to my shoulder. It slid down and down. My fear-hardened nipple was the only thing keeping the weightless garment from revealing my full breast.
Elder froze, his gaze locking onto the bruised skin. “Christ, what are you doing?”
I bared my teeth.
Being an animal.
“Fuck, you really don’t understand, do you?” Smooth as syrup, he leaned forward and plucked the strap from my elbow. His fingernails threatened my paper-thin skin, slipping the strap slowly, ever so slowly, up my arm to rest on the hollow of my neck and shoulder.
His face was obsidian with no sign of light or sanity. “Don’t push me. I warned you, Pim. I’m doing my best around you, but if you pull a fucking stunt like that again, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
His palm cupped my shoulder, his flesh kissing my flesh. His face came millimetres from mine. “Whatever issues you’re going through, don’t take them out on me. Otherwise, I’ll have to return the favour and take my issues out on you.” He chuckled with black undertones. “And if I do that, you’ll know the truth about me. You’ll know that Alrik was playing make believe while I’m the true villain.”
Saliva dried up. My tongue swelled with pain.
For the first time, I believed what he said. For the first time, he didn’t hide whatever he battled. He let me look inside him, and I didn’t like what I saw.
He wasn’t a gentleman. He wasn’t refined.
He was chaos and uncultured and dying to be free to invoke whatever calamity he needed to inflict.
No…
Goosebumps scattered as his fingers stroked my shoulder, reminding me he still held me, still owned me. Terror transformed to horror as my eyes flickered from his lips to his gaze.
He didn’t move, letting me draw my own conclusions—to read between the lines of what he would never say, but I felt. I felt every word, every threat, and it didn’t pacify me, it made me want to bolt from the room and throw myself into the sea.
Running his finger under the strap, he bent and kissed my shoulder. He’d touched me before. He’d kissed me before. Yet that simple readjustment of my clothes was more erotic than anything we’d ever done.
“You still want to go to war with me, silent mouse?” Elder leaned back in his chair, making the ornate wood creak with his large bulk.
Don’t call me mouse!
“Are you so repulsed by me that you’re willing to push me until I push back? Is it so bad to be cared for when the entire time I give you sanctuary, I want to take so much more in return?”
I stopped breathing.