“Alright then,” she breathed, shrugging out of her puffy coat so that I could get easier access to her wrists and my eyebrows rose as I realised she meant it. “You can…tie me up in exchange for the truth from your lips.”
I only considered it for a moment before I was closing the distance between us, holding out the loops in the knot I’d tied so that she could slip her wrists through them.
I looked her dead in the eye as I gripped the end of the rope and yanked it hard, the nooses tightening around her wrists and a gasp escaping those full lips as I restrained her.
“Come on then, baby,” I purred, moving so close to her that I could taste her breath on the air dividing us. “Ask away.”
I kept the rope gripped in my fist and raised her hands above her head until her arms were straight and I could lean my forearm to the tree above her head to keep her there. She was panting as I restrained her, her eyes hunting mine in the dark as I drank in the sight of her.
“Do you hate your family?” she asked finally, the space between us filling up with her question.
“Yes,” I replied simply and the scathing look she gave me said that wasn’t enough of a truth. “My family are not nice people.”
“In what way?”
“In all the ways that count. But I suppose the bit that matters is that they expected me to be like them. To join the family business and carve my way through life leaving a trail of blood in my wake.”
“And you seriously think you don’t do that?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at me and I was sure we were both thinking about what I’d done to that fucker in the crypt.
“The point is that I don’t do it for them.” I refused to let myself think about the shit I’d done this summer. Royaume D'élite and the fucked up things that had happened there. The final straw which had forced my hand into deciding to cut myself off from my family for good. If she knew about what I’d done then she’d think even less of me than she already did. Hell, I hadn’t even shared that truth with Blake and Saint yet, though what we’d been through in the catacombs with Merl made me wonder if they wouldn’t judge me as harshly as I’d feared. But I was already judging myself enough that I hadn’t wanted to find out for sure.
My gaze trailed down her body as she arched her back against the trunk of the tree, her chest rising and falling heavily as I kept her restrained. But despite the fact that having her tied up this way was like one of my fantasies crawling right out of my brain and into reality, I didn’t touch her.
“Are your family criminals then? I thought you came from old money-”
“My father is old money alright. Slit his wrists and he’d bleed blue all over the floor. But his family were also close to bankrupt when he was my age and he was sent out on the hunt for an advantageous marriage. New money. New blood. That’s how he ended up with my mom. The O’Briens are the richest mob family in the state, probably in the entire country. And they wanted a nice, legitimate front to some of their business dealings which the Roscoes could give them. They sealed the deal with marriage and an heir. So here I am.”
“So you hate what your family is?” she guessed. But I didn’t really give a shit about being born of monsters. It made sense. What I didn’t like was the expectation that came with that.
“No. I hate what they want me to be. A pawn in their big game. A figurehead, a mouthpiece, a lump of muscle. And sure, maybe a leader one day, but all under their terms. I have a lot of uncles with a lot of ideas for me. I take exception to being told how to live my life.”
“And yet you bound me into a life with you and the other Night Keepers knowing that it went against what I wanted?” she growled in outrage and I had to admit she had a valid point.
Suddenly, having her tied up at my mercy didn’t really hold the appeal it had a few minutes ago and I shifted closer to her as I raised my other hand to the rope too.
“Well, I’ve never lied to you about being a sonofabitch,” I pointed out in a rough voice. I yanked on the rope and the knot fell apart, releasing her wrists before I turned and walked away from her.
“Kyan, wait-” She snatched my hand before I could get more than a few steps and I looked around at her in the moonlight as our breaths rose between us. “I have one more question.”
I didn’t reply, but I didn’t leave so I guessed that was permission enough for her to go on.
“I want to know why you need violence in your life so much.” Her thumb skimmed over my busted knuckles and the flicker of pain raced through me in a wave that felt like waking up.
I tried to think of a way to put words to the burning need for the fight which warred in me. I knew she felt it too. But maybe she understood her own demons well enough to know why she craved it. For me, it was just primal, instinctual, necessary.
“I’m a bad person who’s done bad things, baby,” I said roughly, reaching out with my free hand to tuck a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. “And something in me stops me from feeling guilt over that. Something in me thrives on bloodshed
