Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(19)

But I didn’t want to be seen. Not by him. Not by anyone. I wanted to disappear into myself, to let go of what I was holding on to and fall through the endless darkness until I couldn’t remember I was falling anymore.

“Are you awake?” he asked, unable to see my shadowed face from the corner I was perched in.

“I’m awake,” I answered listlessly.

“Good. We need to talk.”

“Talk.”

He clicked his tongue. “Angel.”

“Dominic,” I mimicked.

“Will you come out of that corner please?”

“I’d rather not.”

I heard him shift on his feet. “Is that your blood on the floor?” he asked, having just noticed it.

“You’re the expert. You tell me.”

His mouth slipped into a tight line. “I’m losing my patience.”

Better than losing your sanity, I thought, though I kept that one to myself.

“Come here. Now.” His voice reverberated in my mind, bouncing off the walls like a memory I couldn’t hide from.

I stood up and walked right over to him—I had no choice in the matter.

“Stop compelling me,” I said, glaring at him as I stood in front of the door.

His eyes flicked down to my hand. “What happened?” he asked, ticking his chin to my mangled knuckles.

“The concrete was giving me the side eye,” I fake-smiled. “Figured I should teach it a lesson.”

He stared back at me unimpressed. Annoyed even.

“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” I warned, pointing my finger at him and then slamming my hand against the bars. The noise ricocheted off the dungeon walls like an echo. “You try living on this side of the door!”

He looked bored. “Are you done or would you like to waste more energy beating up inanimate objects?”

“I’ll let you know when I decide,” I said and started to turn back towards my dark corner.

“Jemma.”

I stopped in my tracks. I hadn’t heard him call me by my name since the first day we met. It sounded strange coming from his lips now, like a secret he wasn’t supposed to know. I turned back and faced him.

“Are you done?” he repeated, his tone softer this time.

“Did you not hear what he said, Dominic?” I defended myself against his unspoken judgements. “He knows something about my mother! My mother, Dominic! What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Bury it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Do you want to get out of this place alive or do you want to stick around here and chase after ghosts that have been dead for years?”

“I want to get out of here, but he knows—”

“Whatever he may or may not know about your long-lost mother is neither here nor there. He’s trying to get inside your head, angel. Do not let him.” He leveled me with the intensity in his smoldering eyes. “He wants you to believe it’s hopeless, that you can’t beat him, all in the hopes that you will join him instead.”

I started to shake my head and then froze in my tracks. “Oh, my God. You’re right. You’re totally right.” I pushed my hands through my hair as I tried to put it all together in my mind. “He probably never even met my mother. He’s just trying to screw with me to get me to do what he wants. To turn me against everyone on the outside so that I stay on the inside with him.” Wasn’t that exactly what he had said earlier? That he wanted me to join him—to Turn.

Dominic didn’t say anything.

“Wow.” I shook my head at how ridiculously gullible I could be. If I was going to survive this godforsaken world, I really needed to start shielding my weak-ass mind from people like Engel. “I can’t believe I almost fell for it.”

“Don’t dwell on it, love. Use it against him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let him think he planted the seed,” he said ominously and then leaned in closer to the bars. “If you ever want to get out of this place, you’re going to have to start playing nice with him. He needs to think the bond is starting to work. We need him to trust in that so that he loosens your strings again.”

“But how am I supposed to do that?”

“Retract your claws, love. Make him believe your defenses are coming down. That you’ve considered his warning and appreciate all that he is doing—that you don’t trust the outside world anymore. Whatever it takes. The more he believes the bond is forming, the more he’ll let his guard down.”

I bit my lip as I mulled it over. I could do that. I could totally do that. The faster I learned to play nice with him, the faster I could get out of this hellhole, and that was the only thing I wanted.

“Consider it done.”



The next few days went exactly as planned. I used every feeding with Engel as an opportunity to win him over. Each time he fed on me, I resisted a little less. Each time he spoke to me, no matter how much I wanted to claw his eyes out or roll my eyes into the back of my head, I bit down my tongue and smiled at him. And it was starting to work.

He definitely noticed the change in my demeanor, and with Dominic whispering lies about the fake bloodbond in his ears, he even allowed me to eat and bathe on two separate occasions. It didn’t sound like much, but it was infinitely better than what I had before; which was a big fat nothing at all.