I’d bolted the moment I’d seen, and to this day, we’d never discussed it.

“You’re right,” Jethro whispered. “I disgraced myself. But I had no alternative. I couldn’t do what I wanted without hurting you more, and you’d already been hurt enough. It was the only way to see straight—to let the poison out of my system.”

“Poison?”

He chuckled sadly. “It’s one word for it.”

His touch landed on my spine again, wiping away the leftovers of his transgression. “If you want an apology, I won’t give it.”

“So I’m to accept you smearing your cum into my flayed back?”

I’m to accept that I belong to you, because I have no other choice?

He didn’t reply. Tossing the rag into the bowl, he grabbed a tube of cream beside it. Silently, he smeared the lotion onto my cuts.

I hissed as the cream stung before fading to a gentle throb. Every hair on my body bristled with how tenderly he cared for me. My heart raced for an entirely different reason as he meticulously smeared my entire back in balm.

The moment I was covered, he stood.

“Sit up,” he ordered.

Sit up? That was asking for the impossible. I couldn’t.

When I tried half-heartedly and swallowed a moan of agony, Jethro moved closer. “Let me help.”

He hovered, his scent of woods and leather scrambling my heart until I suffered a bad case of arrhythmia.

He didn’t touch me, only waited.

He’s waiting for your permission—transferring power back to you.

I frowned. What tricks was he playing? Who was this silent attentive man, and what the hell happened to the bastard I wanted to murder?

Jethro continued to watch me, his face tight and unreadable.

I nodded once.

With powerful hands, he helped me sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed.

Squeezing my eyes, I almost succumbed to pain-induced vertigo as I swayed in his grip.

“Trust me,” he murmured, reaching beneath my arms to scoop my weight, helping me stand.

I moaned as a few of the shallower cuts reopened, oozing painfully.

“Can you stand on your own?”

I wanted to berate him. Ridicule his kindness with what he’d done. But something in his eyes implored me to relax—to not fight him on this particular subject.

I blinked, completely lost as to his motives or plans.

Slowly, I nodded.

Leaving me to wobble in place, he pulled free a large bandage from a first-aid kit on the floor.

Between my teeth, I muttered, “You always intended to patch me up…afterwards?”

His eyebrow rose, locking me in his stare. “You still don’t understand.”

I struggled to suck in a decent breath with the intensity in his gaze. “I understand plenty.”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t. You think we’re going to torture and maim you for the next few years. Yes, your future is set in stone, and yes, it will hang over your head until it’s finished. But you have to keep living, keep experiencing. You’re part of our family now. You’ll be treated as such.”

My brain whirled.

“In answer to your question, I always intended to tend to your wounds, just like I will do with every debt. You’re mine.” His lips twitched. “In sickness and in health.”

Temper flared through my blood. “Don’t twist the vows of matrimony. This isn’t a marriage. This is the worst kind of kidnapping.”

His eyes hooded, hiding his thoughts. “A marriage is a kidnapping. After all, it’s a contract between two people.” He came closer, unravelling the end of the bandage and holding it against my side. My arms wrapped around my naked chest hating that even now, even after everything he’d done, my skin still rippled with want.

His face tightened and he grabbed my wrists, placing them forcibly by my sides. “Arms down.” His attention turned to holding the bandage against my ribcage. Once in place, he moved in a circle around me, wrapping my torso caringly in gauze. The soft fabric granted needed relief.

I bit the inside of my cheek. How was it that the gentlest of his touches killed me the most? I’d never been this light-headed without the curse of vertigo. Never been this confused by one person.

Jethro kept his eyes down as he waltzed around, slowly binding me with more of the bandage.

On his second rotation, he murmured, “In a way, we are married.”

I rolled my eyes, cursing my taut nipples. “In no universe would this be called a marriage.”

He sighed. “How do you explain the similarities then? The fact we were raised to be a part of each other’s lives, groomed by families, governed by dictators, and forced into a binding agreement against our wishes.”

The air solidified, turning from unseen substance to heavy bricks of truth. My head snapped up, eyes latching onto Jethro's golden ones. “What did you just say?”

The man he kept hidden blazed bright.

Against both our wishes.

That was the second time he’d said it.

Go on. Admit it. Say that all along you’ve been acting. That this is as repulsive to you as it is to me.

We stood silent, neither of us willing to look away in case it was interpreted as defeat. Slowly, the concern in his eyes shifted to glittering frost—the chill I knew so well giving him somewhere to hide. “You misunderstood me, Ms. Weaver. I meant to say your not our—slip of the tongue.” He continued wrapping the bandage around my middle, covering my breasts with the length of softness, protecting the seeping cuts on my back.

I wanted to yell at him. To find the crack I’d just witnessed and force it to turn from hairline into crevice. But I stood silently, breathing hard as he finished wrapping me like a priceless present, securing the bandage with a small clip.

He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. “You did perfectly, Ms. Weaver. You repaid the First Debt with strength, and you’ve earned a reward.” He moved closer, wrapping his arms around me. His embrace scalded, heating the lash marks to a boil.

I froze in his arms, completely dumbfounded.

To an outsider, it would’ve looked like an embrace—tender, sweet, the coupling of two people crackling with anger and unwanted lust. To me, it was a torment—a farce.

Pulling back, he whispered, “Do you know we met when we were young? I barely remember, and I’m a few years older than you, so I doubt you will recall.”