Another small tear slides down my cheek.
“That is why I am unfit to be a Silk Girl.” I add. “Different. It must be.”
“You’re not unfit,” he says, curt.
He stands up and nods toward my cloak, which hangs on a silver claw by the closet. “Put on your cloak. I’m taking you to get something to eat.”
I blink at him. My body is frozen on the mattress. I admitted to him that I am Fur, not just Common but born amongst outlaws, that I wasn’t born to be a Silk Girl originally, that my need for Meaningful Purpose didn’t start in the womb, and he…
“Did you hear what I said, Sire?” I press.
“I heard. I know what you are. Better than you do. Now, do as you’re told. Cloak.”
I don’t like that answer or its ambiguity.
I stand up in my night dress, the ends skirting the flooring, tickling my toes. “I am awful at my Trade.” I square my shoulders at him and peer up, immediately shadowed by his giant frame. “Yes,” I press on despite looking like a mouse agitated with a bear. “I ask too many questions. I’m suspicious and pry. I consider the world, now and before, and why it is the way it is. This is true. But you, you started this thing.”
I pace in front of him, focused on the floor before each step. “You held my hand and pretended to care. You saved me and carried me to your military vehicle—you could have made someone else do it. You organised oatmeal with honey for me. You cornered me in the banquet room and... Now you’re here, in this room while I have no veil on. You blur the line of our appropriate interactions. Why? Why do that to me? I could have been well-behaved. I could have if you had kept the line between us.”
Breathing hard, I stop my back-and-forth and stand in front of him with my hands gripping my hips.
I peer up at him and… I blink. He is grinning. Not smirking but actually grinning. I’ve never seen him grin. It- it transforms his face.
How patronising.
How annoying.
I smile back.
“You’re so tiny.” His lips only widen and while my knees buckle under the beauty of his grin, his words irritate me.
So tiny…
Drained to the point of mindlessness, I relent and watch him retrieve my cloak, coming up behind me.
A warm caress rolls down my spine as he drapes the cloak on my shoulders and lifts the hood over my black hair.
“You need to keep your head low. Hide your pretty face. Do you have any energy left after that little outburst to do as you’re told, little creature?”
Drained, I simply nod. I’m too emotionally exhausted for much else.
My stomach rolls, the movement large enough to speak volumes for the hunger I’ve been quelling.
Still behind me, he says, “I want you to know that I heard you.”
I exhale hard, closing my eyes and holding them like that as he speaks. With his chest, large and hard, so close to my back, he warms me to my bones.
“I blurred the lines because I don’t want the lines. I apologise if that confused you. I was thinking of myself, and what I wanted.”
His huge hand moves to the side of my neck, sliding down to massage the shoulder he wounded.
“I will make amends for hurting you,” he whispers, a deep baritone of dark promises. “Now. Follow me. Chin to your chest. Don’t let anyone see your face or I will have to kill them.”
That last phrase widens my eyes.
The door opens, and I am walking into The Circle, with his looming body a barricade behind me, before my next thought can surface.
I amble slowly through the holding space.
The cloak cuts across my eyes but I risk looking at the Guard who is passed out on the floor by the entrance. What about the other girls? They aren’t secure.
Rome’s body presses to my spine, and I realise I have stopped moving forward.
“Move forward, girl,” he states, and I continue taking a step at a time down the dark corridors.
Girl? He never calls me that.
His hand grips my neck through the fabric of my cloak, heat wrapping around my throat with his long fingers. Despite my best efforts not to, I hum from the sense of security he brings.
I stumble.
Concentrate.
I’m too busy watching my step from under the seam of the hood that I can only take in the hues of the lamps reflecting on the polished white and gold flooring.
We turn and enter a room with heavy white double doors, the floor decor changes to grey ceramic tiles, the scent of sizzling butter swirls around my nose.
“Out while I eat,” Rome suddenly orders, his voice proceeding the sound of pans and other metal items being placed down, and quick, nervous footsteps.
Then silence.
It’s unsettling, yet I like the energy his power creates. I only wish he wielded it with more kindness.
I hear my breath in my ears.
Rome lowers my hood. Bright lights make me squint. I peer around to see a large kitchen fit to create banquets, fitted with triple ovens, twin stone tops, a walk-in fridge, and a long, wide shiny steel island bench for preparation. This space is so clean, it sparkles.
When I feel his hands on my shoulders, I inhale quickly. His knuckles caress the skin at my collarbone as he slides my cloak off my shoulders. He lays it to the side.
Vulnerable like this, I hug myself. The material of my white night gown is thin and slightly translucent. It’s the same one that every Silk Girl wears to sleep in.
Rome lifts me to sit on the island bench, my legs dangling, toes just free of the hem of my skirting.
Warmth pools in my belly and makes me squirm.
He moves close.
My mind blurs as he stands, an intimidating wall of muscles, only a head taller than me now.
And I’m not sure I like it. I’m scared of being this close to his lips. Lips that snarl and hurt me, but that I want to touch with mine.
I look at him. Study him.
It’s bright in here so I can identify the different blues in his gaze and understand his state of mind from his deliciously dishevelled hair and large black irises— he is wearing all his remorse on the outside right now.
I like seeing him.
The real him—Rome.
Concerned eyes move over me, stopping at my shoulder. He lifts my arm, inspecting the entire length, then the other. He brushes his finger over a small grass wound from when he dropped me. “My temper is a problem. My sister…” He sighs roughly, changing the course of his sentence. “This will not happen again.”
His stare is paralysing when he lifts his hand to my lips and traces the curves. I part my mouth to let him explore the flesh. His fingers are warm, firm, demanding.
“I like your lips,” he states, then sweeps my hair over my shoulders, exposing my bare neck. “And your throat.”
“Because you want to strangle it?” I ask, sad, throwing his own nasty threats back at him before he can do it himself. Warn me. How awful he is. I know. I saw.
He drops his hand.
Picks up mine and places them on his bare abdomen.
Shit.
He’s like a rock—course and unforgiving.
I stroke the rippling muscles as they respond to my touch as if his inner beast presses back, demanding more gentle attention. He grips the counter on either side of my hips, his knuckles turning white as he leans in. Caging me. It feels intimate in an emotional way—a wholesome way.
Like he just wants to be stroked in privacy with me.
“No,” he says, his voice deep. “Not because I want to strangle it.” He leans down and presses his lips to my pulse.