Second Debt (Indebted #3)(12)

I don’t want you here. You disgust me.

I want you to obey. You terrify me.

I understood her temper, but it didn’t mean I had to take it. It wasn’t me who’d slaughtered and buried her family.

I fumbled for my ice and strode into the room.

Nila looked away, cutting me off from her thoughts. She sat in the middle of the huge oblong table, surrounded by material and brightly coloured pins.

She’s sewing.

I didn’t know why that comforted me, but it did. She’d returned to her craft because it was a part of her. She’d found a way to stay fundamentally true to her family, all while I drifted further and further from mine. Where I was melting and losing myself, she was forming into a defiantly stronger person.

You’re doing that.

It was because of me that she’d grown. Because of who I was and what circumstances we found ourselves in. I shouldn’t take such perverse happiness from that, but I did. It wasn’t her father or twin who’d made her grow and see her own potential.

It was her sworn enemy.

The man who’d tasted and f*cked her.

The man whose heart thumped uncomfortably alive whenever she was near.

I couldn’t work out the complex mess inside. One moment, I hated her for dragging me from where I’d existed all my life, but the next, I wanted to kiss her for showing me an alternative to how I’d been living.

My ice couldn’t compete with her.

And what was worse, I didn’t want it to.

“What are you doing in here?” Suspicion, lust, and anger buffeted me in her stare, turning me to stone.

Before she’d arrived, I’d been a ball of twine—carefully packaged with no loose ends in sight. But Nila, with her needles and scissors, had somehow found a thread and pulled. Every tug undid the tightly wrapped nucleus of who I was, and I battled with fighting against the change or just giving up and letting it happen.

I couldn’t remember the last time it got this bad. But it was my own f*cking fault. I shouldn’t have let myself slide so far from my safety net. Who knew if I could find my way back?

When I didn’t move or speak, Nila placed the swatch of turquoise cloth onto the table and narrowed her gaze. “Either speak or leave, I can’t be around you right now.”

She couldn’t be around me? How about I couldn’t be around her?

Silence granted me a reprieve. I stood taller, locking my muscles against the haunting memory of her yesterday.

My eyes fell to her hands. Her index finger had a bright pink plaster on the tip—no doubt from pricking herself with a needle while working.

Needle.

What would she do if I were to suddenly call her Needle? What if I just admitted I was Kite? Would she hate me for the deception or be grateful that she no longer had to pretend?

Why had she not confronted Kestrel? And how much longer would she continue to avoid my text last night?

It f*cked me off that I couldn’t drop my guard, knowing whatever she felt toward Kite transferred to my brother. He was winning, even while I stripped myself bare in the hopes of achieving the impossible.

Her eyes glinted. “Dammit, say something or go!”

Her voice jolted me back into the present. “I need you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Why? You belong to me, that’s why. I don’t have to have a reason.”

Her knuckles turned white as she fisted the material. “Carry on being delusional, Mr. Hawk, but disappear so I don’t have to look at you.” She turned around, showing me her back.

Temper frothed in my gut. How dare she turn her back on me? I snapped my fingers, growling, “I won’t ask again. Come here.”

“You didn’t ask the first time. And don’t snap your fingers. I’m not a dog and I will not heel.” She wore a gypsy cream skirt and black sweater. With her spine ramrod straight, she looked haughty and as chilly as any sovereign.

My mouth watered to kiss her.

My cock twitched to f*ck her.

My heart thumped with desire.

An argument brewed between us, gathering force until the curtains twitched with an animosity-storm.

“You’re right, you aren’t a dog. A dog is much easier to train.”

“Believe me, if I was a dog, my fangs would be buried in your arse, and you’d be pleading for mercy. I definitely wouldn’t be well-trained.”

My hands balled. A stupid flippant comment but it spiralled us deeper into a quarrel.

Just knowing she had the guts to stand up to me made me f*cking hot. I wanted to bend her over the table and f*ck her, hard and ruthless.

Were all Weavers like her? Strong willed and contentious or was she unique—a once in a lifetime adversary?

“Turn around. Look at me.”

If she did, I’d give into the throbbing in my cock and make my father wait.

“No. I don’t want to look at a Hawk.” Her voice was sharp and cutting. Whatever liveliness she’d had before had disappeared—almost as if she’d left her soul where her family lay on the moor.

Her dismissal and obvious unaffectedness of our pointless argument tensed my muscles.

Didn’t my desire for her mean anything? Didn’t my text help her see me? The real me? Surely, the truth granted me some leeway for forgiveness.

I stepped forward. I wanted to curse her for making me this way. This weak. “Last night—” I gave you more honesty in one text message than I’ve given anyone. Who was I kidding? She didn’t f*cking care. She shouldn’t f*cking care.