Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“I said watch your tone with your sister who was fucking shot a couple of hours ago.” Elliot’s murmur was lower but no less threatening.
“Yeah, she was shot.” Rowan sized him up. “Something that I should’ve found out from her, not the fucking sheriff at the grocery store.”
“He shouldn’t be talking about shootings in the grocery store,” I rubbed my forehead.
“He thought I already fucking knew, given you’re my goddamn sister!” he yelled.
I rolled my shoulders, ready to yell back. The thought of sinking into a defensive identity was welcome at that stage, when I felt so unhinged.
“If you can’t watch your tone with her, you’re out of this house,” Elliot told him, unflinching.
Rowan’s glance flicked to him once more. It was slightly menacing but also … amused? Surely not.
“You know, speaking for my sister, let alone thinking it’s your job to protect her, is tantamount to a death sentence in her eyes,” Rowan remarked dryly.
“I know that she doesn’t let anyone protect her, but I’ll do it anyway because if I hadn’t tried, that bullet would’ve hit her heart,” Elliot seethed back.
Rowan’s mouth fell open, all amusement—however small—leaving his expression, his dark brows furrowing as he once again looked at my bandage.
“Fuck,” he grumbled under his breath, running his hand through his hair. “Who did this?”
“Don’t know,” I shrugged. “Cops are looking into it.” I tried my best to make it sound like I was going to let them do their job and not go digging the second I didn’t have a set of male eyes on me.
Rowan’s measured gaze stayed on me. “You don’t know who shot at you in the middle of nowhere.” It wasn’t a question. More of an accusation since he was making it clear he thought I knew exactly who was responsible.
I shrugged again. “Bad luck. Hunters with bad aim and an even worse sense of direction?”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth thinned with irritation and knowing. Our conversation from the day before I met Elliot lingered at the forefront of my mind and likely in his. He was content to let me keep him in the dark—barely—when I wasn’t getting shot at, but I knew I was currently shit out of luck. The walls were closing in around me. The back of my neck started to feel uncomfortably hot.
There was a long silence, Rowan staring me down. “We’re going to be talking about this further,” he promised. “And you’re going to actually say something. This shit ends now.”
I folded my arms, hiding my wince as I forgot about the wound in my bicep. “Well, sure it does, Rowan, because you’ve just said so, and so it will be,” I retorted sarcastically.
Rowan let out a long sigh. He didn’t respond, instead he looked to Elliot. “Look after her. You don’t, I kill you.”
“How about I look after myself, and I kill any men who need killing with my own two hands?” I offered, not joking.
Again, Rowan ignored me, waiting for Elliot to nod.
“She’s capable of looking after herself.” Elliot proved once again that he did not defer to the alpha male status quo, which I found remarkably hot.
“Bullet wound in her arm would beg to differ,” Rowan replied before turning his back and leaving.
He slammed the door on his way out.
Rude. Disrespectful. Like a teenager having a tantrum. Though I knew it came only from his concern and frustration with me.
It seemed I was surrounded by frustrated men who wanted to protect me from monsters I’d summoned. Monsters I’d created. They couldn’t slay them for me, but I’d never let them. Monsters were only defeated by heroes in fairy tales. The real monsters of this world needed a similar creature to bring them down. And as much as I tried to masquerade otherwise, I was closer to a monster than I was any kind of hero.
My breathing was shallow as I stared at the door and then Elliot.
I waited. For the inevitable.
For the questions. Especially after that scene with Rowan, he’d be bursting with them. I’d been poised to tell him my entire life story before, he was perceptive enough to know that. And he was perceptive enough to understand that there was tension with Rowan, things to be learned.
Elliot looked at me, and I held my breath. “What do you want your punishment to be?”
He asked the one question I didn’t expect.
“W-what?” I stuttered, taken aback.
“For disobeying me.” He stepped forward like a predator, not the protector he was mere moments ago. I was amazed by the man’s ability to slip into different personas within the same skin.
My skin heated at his approach, his tone, the darkness in his gaze.
“I told you to stay where you were. When your brother knocked at the door. And I told you to get in the closet earlier. You didn’t listen to me.” He gripped my chin firmly between his fingers. “So what do you want your punishment to be? You can take my belt, or you won’t be able to come for the rest of the night.”