Captured (The Captive #1)(25)
“Am I supposed to care?” he grated.
She blinked in surprise, her crystalline blue eyes widened in disbelief. Then, she shook her head, her eyes cleared and her chin jutted slightly. Her hands folded demurely before her, but he was beginning to realize that it was just an act. There was nothing demure or weak about this girl, she may play it off well, but there were many layers beneath her docile exterior. “I suppose not,” she said softly, even her voice had taken on that decorous tone.
“She also hurt you.”
Arianna shifted slightly; though she remained outwardly meek he sensed the raw anger that spiked through her. “That doesn’t make what you just did right. You took her job and her pride away from her. Two wrongs don’t make a right, or at least that’s what my dad always told my brother’s and I.”
Despite his frustration with her, and his growing urge to shake her, his interest was piqued by her words. It was the most she had talked about her family since arriving. “How many brothers?”
She shrugged absently, her fingers nervously played with the sleeves of her nightgown. Her eyes were sad, distant as her thoughts turned toward her family. It was the first time she hadn’t looked angry or frustrated with him this morning. He found her preferred the anger to the sorrow that engulfed her. “Two. Anyway you did not have to frighten her. She was simply jealous because she thought that I was a threat to her, when it came to you.”
“And why would she think that?”
Arianna shrugged again, sighing softly as she folded her arms over her chest. He did not miss the slight wince of pain the action caused her. “I don’t know. She was wrong of course; I mean I am most certainly not a threat to her, or anyone else. Especially when you were feeding from her…”
“I was what?” he interrupted her rush of words sharply.
Arianna’s blue eyes widened slightly, she began to fiddle with her nightgown sleeves again. “Feeding from her.”
“I don’t know where you got your information, but it is wrong.”
“Oh,” she said softly, her forehead furrowing slightly. “Oh, I see. I thought…” her voice trailed off, she shook her head slightly. “I must have misunderstood her, or you. I simply assumed that though you may have forgotten about her, that the wounds on her were from you.”
“You think I would forget her that quickly.” She shrugged softly, but there was a hint of remorse in the set of her shoulders. “You really think that little of me?”
Her mouth parted, she bit hard on her bottom lip as she watched him with new interest. “I don’t know what to make of you,” she admitted honestly. “I really don’t. This whole situation…” She held her hands out before her, her gaze darted over the room before turning back to him. “I don’t know what to make of any of it. It’s scary and it’s disconcerting, and I am so far out of my league here that I have no idea what is going on. I don’t know if you’re playing with me while plotting my death, I don’t know what the hell is going on here. I’ve heard the stories and I’ve seen the damage your kind can do. I don’t know how to play these games; I don’t understand the anger and resentment that festers here! How the hell am I supposed to know what to think or what to do?”
Her voice was ragged and filled with raw emotion by the time she stopped speaking. Her shoulders were heaving, her eyes wide and earnest. For the first time her fa?ade completely crumbled and he was able to see the terrified, angry girl beneath the timid exterior. She took a ragged breath; her shoulders bowed again as she folded her hands before her once more, but they both knew that she could not un-ring that bell.
For the first time he began to understand how she truly felt. She had kept so much of it hidden from him, but in that one brief moment she had laid it all bare. He started to see her in a new light, and though he had known something more lie beneath her prim exterior, he began to truly see the pride and heart of this trapped, cornered girl. He felt the stirrings of a new emotion and was surprised to realize that it was sympathy, something that he had never felt before, and had never thought to experience.
“Well, anyway, she thought more of what transpired between you,” she finished softly.
Braith clenched his fists, struggling against the strange feelings stirring within him, feelings that would only make him weak. Feelings that he could not allow himself to experience. “I don’t care.” The words were sharper than he had intended, but he didn’t like the thought that the girl had even mentioned such a thing to Arianna, and he didn’t like the fact that it even bothered him.
It also served to remind him of the fact that he was hungry. There were a few different women that he would often visit when the need came upon him, but he found that the idea of feeding from them wasn’t appealing at the moment. Especially not when he had Arianna standing across from him looking unbelievably innocent and striking, and smelling deliciously wonderful.
His veins thrummed with hunger, his hands fisted at his sides. He recalled her words about having to take anything from her by force, he wondered if she still felt the same, or if maybe, just maybe, she might allow him to feed from her. He didn’t think that was very likely, not when she still looked at him with fear and distrust most of the time. And not when she believed that he tossed women, and especially humans, aside like they were nothing. Though, if he were to be honest with himself, he usually did.