Page 49 of Touch of Hate
He lets out a sigh before beginning to pace in front of the bed. “I can see why you’d think that,” he murmurs. “I was always there for you when you needed me. I was your hero.”
“You were,” I agree with a lump in my throat, emotion threatening to break through. “Even if you did break your promise.”
“My promise?”
No. Anything but this. He can’t have forgotten. “To always give me a first on my birthday. The night of my seventeenth, I didn’t sleep a wink. I waited past dawn, sitting at the window. You never came, never sent word.”
This time, there’s no hiding the pain so intense it makes my voice crack. I cried for hours, curled in a ball on the bed, once I gave up hope. Cursing myself, my naivete. How easy it was for him to hurt me, to abandon me. “It broke my heart.”
Understanding touches the corners of his eyes, softening them, and when he speaks, it’s with all the gentleness he was missing before. “It was impossible.” Says the man who kidnapped me from my father’s heavily guarded compound.
“Nothing is impossible. All I could think was that you were dead or something bad had happened to you.” Or that he’d changed his mind about me—somehow, the thought is even harder to voice than the fear of him dying.
“You think it wasn’t a struggle for me? That I didn’t curse myself for letting you down?”
“My point is, even that wasn’t enough to make me forget you. It didn’t change my feelings for you, either. I know the real you, Ren.” Who am I trying to convince? Him or myself?
“You’ve never seen my bad side.” He glances my way, meeting my gaze. “You never will, either. But it exists, and it is capable of any number of terrible things.”
The thin blankets aren’t enough to keep me from shivering at the flat certainty in his voice. He can’t mean this. He can’t mean he tried to kill my brother, his best friend.
Something about him is dark and furtive now. I can’t put my finger on it—the way his eyes shift back and forth, never landing on anything for long. The way he fidgets, jamming his hands into his pockets before pulling them out again, sometimes rubbing them on his thighs. He’s jumpy, full of nervous energy, and unable to vent it in any useful way.
He’s a caged lion, pacing back and forth. What happens when the lion gets tired of pacing? Who does it lash out at? The person stupid enough to stick their hand in the cage, obviously.
Ren was never like this before. He always had a self-possessed way about him. More than once, I’ve overheard Dad describing him as almost too laid-back, like nothing affected him very deeply. He knew how to let things roll off his shoulders.
I mean, I know that’s not technically true. Things affected him deeply, the way they would anyone. He just knew how to handle himself, was all.
Unless he was enraged, like the night Enzo Grimaldi cornered me in the library. He was my avenging angel that night, full of murderous darkness that really and truly turned me on for the first time in my life.
This isn’t the same thing at all. Not even close.
Then he was unhinged, but even that had an edge of control to it. He was self-possessed enough not to take things too far.
This version of Ren doesn’t have the same grip on himself.
And I’m alone with him.
“Where are we?” Before he can answer, I insist, “We have to go back. You need to take me home. Otherwise, this will only get worse. You get that, right? Things are bad enough already. We can work everything out.”
I’m babbling, but I can’t stop. “Please,” I whisper, trembling because I know my words are falling on deaf ears. “Please, take me back before they send people to get me. I don’t want anybody hurting you. You know they will if they find me. They might kill you. There’s still time to work this out, Ren.”
A quick look over my left shoulder reveals a door open on the rest of what I now understand is a cabin. My gaze lands on a faded couch, the coffee table in front of it littered with dirty cups and dishes.
And beside it, a door.
I have no idea where we are. All things considered, there’s very little chance of finding help.
But right now, more sickeningly afraid with every breath I take, good sense is in short supply. I have to get out of here. The one person in the world who I was sure I could count on is… all wrong. I can’t even begin to unpack what that means or what to do about it.
I can do that later. When I’m out of here.
Away from him. Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m about to run away from the man I’ve spent all these years loving in spite of everything.
I see him whirl on me out of the corner of my eye once my feet are on the floor. Fear sends adrenaline flooding my system, making me fly across the bedroom and into the living area, the front door in my sights.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice is loud, harsh, and much too close to my ear. A cry of pure anguish tears itself from my chest as a steel band encircles my waist, and my feet are left kicking thin air instead of pounding the floor.