Page 10 of Liar
I’m not considering Savannah’s feelings in this scenario. I can’t—for if I do, I’ll feel sorry for her, and that shouldn’t be possible when she’s so tightly wrapped around the Briars. Any involvement with the Briars, with the Societies, is sinister. I’m still not convinced Savannah’s kidnapping was Society-free.
“She needs me,” he says hoarsely, his gaze searing into my bones.
My stomach plummets at the simple statement. “I know.”
“Leaving her to deal with the after-effects of her trauma would be like leaving you in that pool to drown.”
I clench my jaw, at last looking away, unable to hold his too-intelligent stare any longer. “I’ve accepted that, Thorne. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I didn’t contact you or try to see you all these weeks. I let you go to her. I’m willing to finish this semester without speaking to you again. If it weren’t for you pulling me into one of Winthorpe’s blind spots and accosting me, I would’ve kept doing it. So why—”
Thorne closes the space between us in one stride, cupping my face in both his hands, forcing my chin up. “Because I can’t.”
My lips thin despite the pain shooting through my jaw at his vise-like grip. “That … sounds like a you problem. Not a me problem.”
Wrapping my fingers around his wrists, I yank him down, to which he surprisingly complies. Probably because his gaze freezes me in the same way any of his strongholds do.
“There’s a meeting tonight,” Thorne says. “Don’t go.”
I pause before turning on my heel. “I’m one of them. One of you. I have to go.” I level him with a look. “Or else your father might very well try to kill me for a second time.”
Thorne’s gaze shutters. His jawline grows taut. “Whatever’s driving you to keep being a part of my life—of this—you need to put an end to it. Nothing is worth your life, Ember.”
It’s the second time he’s used my name. I don’t expect Thorne to comprehend what motivates me anymore, the same way he can’t understand why he keeps doing as his father says.
I have my own family to protect.
“You live your Noble life, and I’ll enjoy my Virtuous one,” I murmur, then stride out into the hall.
Thorne doesn’t follow. I hate that part of me wanted him to.
Distracted, I turn a blind corner toward the exit and don’t see the wide expanse of uniform and the barrel chest that wears it until it’s too late.
Black shrouds my vision. Cloth obscures my scream.
“Ready for some fun?” a scratched, eager voice whispers in my ear, then yanks me out of sight.
Chapter 4
Thorne
Ember is a succubus, consuming in every sense.
That theory’s proven when I specifically wipe the sight of her from my view for an entire month, yet her scent remained in my nostrils, the vision of her in my mind’s eye. Her peppery musk dancing along the back of my tongue, ruining my taste for anyone else.
I was whipped for her, lashed in front of the entire Nobility, and I should despise her for it. I get on my knees for no man or woman, yet my father bent me over for access to an amateur sex tape. A wide-angle view in night vision mode where our eyes glow like ferrets and our bodies came together in blurry, green twists, yet I protected it from my father anyway.
Protected her.
Chased Ember down on the night of the challenge that should’ve killed her—and let’s be honest, she should’ve died a few times now, escaping death with the skill of a nimble hare until ultimately, jaws will sink into her haunches—and buckled in front of her. Me. Bleeding and weak, opening myself up to her, and for what?
I’m forever tied to the Briars, enemies of the Weatherbys. Savannah Merricourt is labeled as my intended, and I should accept it, as I do everything, because my father’s too powerful and I’ve been locked in the Briar dungeon too many times.
Outwardly, I can do what he wants while actively forging my own pathway to independence, but that simply can’t work when imprisoned for weeks on end.
And so, like I stated to Ember, we’re at an impasse. All of us.
Will it leave room for a truce? Never.
“Turn into a vampire, that way you won’t have to glare at your reflection all the time.”