Page 17 of Captive Souls

No one, not a single person who had interacted with me, had dared tease me. Except perhaps my brother, but even he was careful with his actions around me. He protected himself, cautious with his words. Even him—the one person on this hunk of rock who saw me as something more than a killer—knew to keep his guard up around me.

Piper, despite being my literal fucking captive, was not guarding anything about herself. This woman seemed to have absolutely no self-preservation. How she’d survived all these years was anyone’s guess. A trait that I should’ve found deplorable, not … endearing.

“I know how to chop wood,” I replied after a long silence she didn’t seem to be in a rush to fill. She hadn’t dropped her eyes from mine either.

Though I had lied to some of the most dangerous people in the world, had made them not so much as second-guess me, this woman seemed to see through me in a second. The tilt of her lips, the arch in her eyebrow, the overall victory glistening in her golden eyes.

I had never chopped wood in my life.

I had chopped up people, though, so I was sure it was a similar process.

“Okay, well… Even though I’m sure you’ll beexcellentat chopping wood, I really need the exercise since it doesn’t seem like these accommodations feature a gym,” she explained, eyes sparkling playfully.

Again, my dick twitched at the teasing in her tone, the confidence in the face of her situation, the terror and panic of before nowhere to be seen. Piper was a survivor. She wasn’t weak, her strength unlike anything I’d ever seen. To cultivate a warmth inside of herself that resulted in her being able to find the will to smile in a situation as dire as this was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

She started toward the axe, but I stepped in her path.

She stopped, looking up at me. There should’ve been fear in her eyes. Terror. I could see shades of it now, but it mixed with that lightness that shouldn’t exist in my presence. My presence alone should’ve snuffed out every inch of light.

“I can’t let you use that axe,” I informed her. My muscles were taut, the effort it took to keep my form still, my expression blank, was more than I’d ever expended in a simple interaction.

She tilted her head to regard me. “Because you think I’ll try to hack you into little pieces and escape?”

I thinned my lips, answering her with a curt nod.

She laughed.

Laughed.

The sound warmed up the room that had previously felt frosty.

Her laugh cut through layers of steel and ice, penetrating right to the core of me, finding something soft and pliant, something I didn’t even know I had inside me.

Her face quickly turned faux serious, presumably because she realized I hadn’t so much as smiled. “I’m a little squeamish, so axe murdering is a little too grizzly for me,” she said dryly.“And the process of using an axe to cut up a human being sounds overly tiring. Especially since I doubt you’d go quietly.”

I struggled to keep my composure as she pointedly looked me up and down. Her eyes on me were a physical fucking thing.

Walking around each day, I felt lifeless. I knew logically that my heart was pumping blood to my limbs, my organs were functioning correctly, and I was medically alive. But despite that, I was sure I was dead inside, a sociopath. I didn’t feel things the way other people did. Nothing warmed me.

Except her smile.

Her laugh.

Her simple fucking gaze on me, bringing me to life. Like I hadn’t existed until she looked at me.

Whether or not she saw what she did to me was unclear. I hoped to fuck she didn’t because then I’d truly be fucked.

Apparently, she saw my silence as acquiescence since she skirted around me, grabbed the axe, hauled it over her shoulder and whistled as she exited the cabin, presumably to chop wood.

I didn’t stop her. Didn’t try to reassert dominance. A huge mistake since she needed to know I was the one in charge. But I was lost. I didn’t usually need to make an effort to exert dominance. I’d spent years, decades, honing myself into a weapon even the most obtuse people recognized and instantly submitted to.

Sure, I’d been challenged over the years, especially by idiots in Stone’s ranks, wrongly assuming my position was his right-hand, wanting to take that from me.

Few had tried to challenge me, and those who did had perished. The stories were now infamous in the ranks, and no one had dared go against me since. Not in a long while.

Except Piper. My fucking captive.

The low thumps coming from outside told me she was chopping wood.