Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
No one had ever made me this mad. No one had ever angered me beyond fucking reason before. But there she was, relaxed on the bed, her ankles crossed while she gave me a flat, bored expression.
She didn’t even flinch at the slamming door. Didn’t shift. Just stared at me, her gaze dragging over me like I was interrupting her day. Like I wasn’t the reason she was still breathing.
“Back for another lecture?” she drawled, lifting one delicate wrist and rattling the cuff against the decorative but strong wrought iron bars of the headboard. “Or did you finally decide to just kill me and get it over with? After all, I won’t marry you, so what use do I have, right?”
I stepped closer to her, slow and deadly, my muscles coiled tight, ready to pounce. “Don’t tempt me.”
She smirked, a cold, cruel sneer, before she opened her lips and spat pure venom. “Oh? And here I thought you preferred to chain me to the bed forever, like a proper caveman. I’m assuming your plan was to give me some time out of this bed? Just enough to cook and clean, like a good little wife?”
Her lips twisted in disgust as she bit out the word wife.
My hands flexed at my sides as anger crawled up my spine. “Is that an invitation, printsessa?”
Her eyes flashed, but she didn’t take the bait. She wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction of a fight, not when I could win.
She was far too smart for that.
Instead, she dragged her handcuff over the wrought iron, metal dragging on metal making an ugly, grating noise. Deliberately filling the space between us with a sound that was worse than nails on a chalkboard.
Only Zoya could turn her imprisonment into my punishment.
“I’m not marrying you.” Her words came out sharp, singular, and absolute.
I bent over her, bracing both of my hands on the mattress, caging her in before I leaned in closer, my words dropping to a lethal whisper. “What the fuck makes you think that you have a choice? You will do as you are told.”
She exhaled a sharp laugh, something dark and reckless lighting up her gaze. I could see the hysteria, the crazy just beyond those brilliant emerald eyes. “You really are just your family’s puppet, aren’t you? The good little obedient doggy.”
“Careful,” I warned, clenching my jaw.
“Why?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling sweetly. “Or what? You’ll chain me up?”
She lifted her wrist, flicking it to make the chain jingle before she pulled it tight and scraped it over the wrought iron again. The sound shot through my skull and ran down my spine in the most irritating way possible.
“No, you’re not going to hurt me. Do you know how I know you’re not going to hurt me? Because Gregor didn’t tell you to. And that’s what you do, right? Whatever you’re told, like a good boy? Well, just because you’re good with being their little lap dog doesn’t mean I am.”
The remaining shreds of the control I came in here with snapped at her words.
With a snarl, I grabbed the wooden edge of the headboard with both of my hands and pulled. The wrought iron bars warped, and then the wood splintered as I ripped it apart. Shards of wood went flying as the frame twisted and groaned under the force, but the second it fractured, the iron bars slipped free and the chain fell loose. The cuff around her wrist was still locked but no longer attached to anything.
Zoya sat up fast, rubbing her wrist, and her expression flickered for just a second. Fear? No. She wouldn’t have let me see fear in her eyes. Shock? Maybe, but I doubted that too.
It was excitement.
Her pretty little lips could spout lies all day. She could say over and over how much she didn’t want me, didn’t need me, wouldn’t be mine.
Her body told me the truth.
She wanted me. She was turned on by my power and it made her tight little body hot whenever I showed her my strength.
Zoya would fight it, but she would lose. Her own needs would override her stubbornness. It just needed a little help.
She launched herself off the bed, but she didn’t run. I expected her to make a break for the door and then I was going to be on her in a fucking second.
Instead, my little warrior got right up in my face, shoving at my chest.
“You don’t own me, Roman! I will never be your property. I will curse your name until the day I die.”
The way she spat my name like it was the vilest thing she had ever tasted sent a sharp shock of anger through me. Every single insult, every dismissive look or word just honed my rage into a sharper blade.