Immortals After Dark 01 - The Warlord Wants Forever

chain back. It was a leap of faith on his part and she’d responded to it. Responded in kind. It was a bit ironic that she’d smugly planned to punk him only to get snared in her own machinations. She’d lasted only a few days playing easy till she went easy, her femme fatale plans culminating in the oh-sonefarious leap into his arms.

    She grinned into the pillow. She’d take back her chain, but only because it looked so damned sassy on her.

    When she rose and stretched, she found him watching her. Her grin widened, but he didn’t return her smile, just glanced at her bare breasts and snapped, “Put on some clothes.”

    She drew her head back, frowning. “Are you angry with me?” He was usually brusque when they woke, but she could tell this was much worse. She was baffled by what could have happened since she’d gone to sleep, tucked against his chest, secure under his heavy arm. His eyes were somehow crazed and bleak at the same time, his face exhausted. Alarm began to build inside her.

    “We have a lot to discuss tonight.” He tossed her a robe. “Put it on and sit here.”

    She had no choice but to comply. He traced away and was back seconds later, holding the chain fisted in his whitened grip. “Tonight we’re going to make some adjustments between us—or more accurately, in you.”

    Her eyes widened. “Wroth, what are you doing?” she asked slowly. “You vowed to give it back today.”

    “A woman like you should understand broken vows.”

    “What are you talking about? How can you do this to me now?” The evening she’d decided to stay.

    His face was crueler than she’d ever seen it. “You mean after the last two weeks? Just because you wanted to be fucked and I complied doesn’t mean I won’t treat you as you deserve.”

    She put the back of her hand to her face as if she’d been struck. He didn’t say “treat you as a whore,” didn’t call her that, but somehow he made her feel it. “As I deserve,” she repeated dumbly.

    He grasped her arm, squeezing it hard. “I can’t live like this, Myst. With this.” At her confused expression, he said, “I’ve seen your past. I know what you were, what you are.”

    “What I was?” Her frown deepened. She hadn’t lived her life perfectly—there’d been missteps and misjudgments—but she’d done little to be ashamed of. Was the killing too much for him to handle? He’d been a freaking warlord! “If you find me lacking, know that I regret very few of my actions over my long life.”

    That seemed to enrage him. “No? What about playing at love and acting at surrender?”

    “Wroth, that was—”

    “Silence.” He kissed her roughly, harshly, though she struggled against him before he pulled back. “I’ve realized you are heartless.” His eyes appeared tortured, his entire body tight with tension. “But what if I just ordered you to be kinder, then made you forget all the men that came before me? Made you forget all that, forget your vicious sisters who kill without remorse?”

    She gasped, eyes watering, but she couldn’t speak after his command. Her hands clenched. She’d never wanted to scream more in her life, and yet her lips parted silently in shock when he said, “I believe I’ll just order you to want me so fiercely that you can’t think of anything or anyone else—”

    A voice interrupted from downstairs. “General Wroth, you’re needed at Oblak immediately.”

    “What?” he bellowed. She felt his eyes on her as she staggered to the window seat, tears beginning to fall. She curled up, leaning her forehead against the glass.

    “Your brother’s been badly injured.”

    He pointed at her. “Stay here,” he bit out, then disappeared. She heard him downstairs, locking away her freedom again, then he was gone once more. Stay here? In the room or the manor? He’d been so thrown by the news that he hadn’t elaborated.

    So stumbling, clutching at the wall as energy funneled out of her, she finally made her way to his study. She pulled aside the cabinet, finding the safe behind it. When she reached for the lock, her hand veered off course as though pushed by an unseen force. She bit her lip and tried again, fighting to simply brush the metal.

    Commanded not to touch it. Just like he would command her to forget who she was, that she even had a family. Lightning cracked outside in time with a sob. He’d been about to do it.

    It was true then. Vampires couldn’t be trusted—he’d