Chapter Thirty
I’m still breathing hard when he stands up.
He touches something on the sheet. Blood, bright and smeared across white sheets. It looks barbaric. That came from my body. From his rough claiming.
His hand curls into a fist.
“Gabriel?”
Without a word he goes into the bathroom. I’m half expecting him to draw a bath like he did for me before. Or maybe return with a damp towel. I can feel him between my legs.
It’s sore there. And bloody, apparently.
The sweat on my body cools, and I shiver in the bed. Alone.
I feel a little disoriented, as if I drank a whole bottle of that moonshine. What just happened? That was sex. I just had sex with Gabriel Miller. I lost my virginity to him.
My legs are unsteady as I stand, using the side table to hold myself up until my knees lock. Then I make my way over to the bathroom, where the door is slitted open. Gabriel is standing there naked, unselfconscious, his arms braced on the edge of the counter, his strange gold gaze trained on the mirror. He’s looking at himself. What does he see?
“Gabriel?”
He doesn’t move. “What do you want?”
The sharpness of his voice cuts me. “Are you coming back to bed?”
I liked the way he held me last time, curled around me protectively while I drifted off to sleep. I need him to do that again, especially with the strange, remote expression on his face.
“It’s my bed,” he says, voice brusque. “I belong there. Not you.”
I suck in a breath. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like an ass!”
“I’m sorry if you were expecting something different, Ms. James. I bought you. I used you. Now I’m done.”
Stung, I take a step back. “So I’m supposed to go to my room and sit there until you want to use me again, is that it?”
He swings around to face me, taking a step closer. “No, I don’t want to use you anymore. Now that I’ve had you, I’m done. You can go.”
My mouth drops. “But…a month…”
His gaze flickers over my body, both admiring and cruel. “You’re beautiful, but there are lots of beautiful women in the city. The only thing that made you special was your virginity, and now that’s gone.”
Hurt feels like a concrete block in my chest, weighing me down, making it impossible to breathe. “You’re just saying that.”
“Why would I just say that?” he asks, mocking. “Do you really think that highly of yourself? One taste and I would have to keep fucking you for eternity? That’s a pretty magical cunt you must have.”
Rage feels so much better than the aching pain. “Fine. Pretend like there wasn’t a connection between us. Pretend like you didn’t enjoy the chess and the…the sex!”
Two steps and he’s right in front of me. Then his hand fists in my hair. He bends my head back so I’m looking up at him. “Let’s get this straight, Ms. James. I enjoyed the chess. I enjoyed the sex even more. But you were only a means to an end. A pawn.”
I blink, but there’s no fighting these tears. They fill my eyes and fall in shameful drops down my cheeks. He lets go of my hair with a rough sound.
“We got too close,” I say, my voice uneven. “You’re scared, because—”
“Make excuses for me. Because Daddy kept a whorehouse, I never learned how to love, is that it? Tell me, little virgin. Did you imagine you could fix me? Did you think if you beat me at chess, I’d learn my lesson? But I won the game, didn’t I? You lost.”
Through the tears I see the beige pawn lying on the carpet. Discarded. Its usefulness over. That’s what I am here—my father’s daughter, bought to send a message. Fucked to drive that message home. He’s nothing if not thorough. And now my usefulness? It’s over.
I stare at his back as he walks into the bedroom, dismissing me.
He picks up the half-empty bottle of moonshine from the table.
How could I have cared about him? But it doesn’t matter. I still care about him, even now that I know he’s every bit the monster I feared. The heart is the cruelest enemy of all.
With my heart in my throat, I move to leave. I’m standing with my hand on the knob, trying to make sense of it. I spent so long thinking about defeating the Minotaur that I didn’t consider he might just let me go.
I didn’t consider that I would have liked to stay.
Part of me wants to go to him, to demand that he explain why he’s kicking me out, to make him see we have something deeper. Except I barely know that myself. It’s a shock to realize I’ve come to care for him, this man of precious metal and revenge, of carved wood and heartache.
I’m supposed to hate him.
From across the room comes a terrible crash, making me jump. I turn to see the thick moonshine bottle in shards against the iron grate in the fireplace, a ship against jagged rocks, embattled by the storm.
Gabriel destroyed it, that last memento from his father.
How had I forgotten his violence? Why had I been so sure he wouldn’t use it against me? Fear runs through my veins, cold and thin. I may not hate Gabriel Miller, but I’m still afraid of him. Then I’m running through the halls, trying to remember my way back, trying to find the way out.