“Thank you.” If more tears wanted to come, she fought them back. Precious thing. Too proud to cry properly in front of me, though given what danger she had just faced, she had every reason to give herself over to sobbing. Instead, she set her jaw and focused on the place where my shadow lingered on the floor. “Although, I’m not sure that you deserve my thanks.”
“Do I not?” I raised an eyebrow, almost amused. Even now, she spurned me. Incredible. “I believe I just saved you from two predators who would have done any number of awful things to you had I not arrived when I did. But perhaps I am mistaken? No doubt you were playing some little game with Queen Lieja’s lovers, one that I would not understand.”
“Don’t be cruel. I only meant that I guess you’re probably going to punish me now. I’ll thank you for saving me, but I won’t thank you for that.” Atlanta raised her fingers to her lower lip. When she drew them away, their tips were wet and pink with blood. It was only then that I noticed her mouth was swollen. Luckily, it was not damaged badly, which would have been more difficult to explain to Lieja come morning, but the lower lip flushed and plumper than it should have been.
When I moved toward her, she stiffened as I raised my thumb to her lip. I shifted it downward with care, then shook my head as cold fury filled my chest.
“They hit you.”
“Not hard,” Atlanta whispered. Her eyes would still not meet mine. “But I bit my lip when they did it, and—”
I took her hand in mine again before she could say any more. Enough of this debacle had already taken place in the hall, where anyone—servants or otherwise—could have easily overheard and seen.
If I was to punish her for this—and I was still mulling that possibility over—it would be from the safety of our room.
As I pulled Atlanta in and closed the door behind us, I only paused for a moment as I noticed my way of thinking. Our room. Not just mine.
“I’m sorry.” Atlanta stood in the room’s center, her eyes still lowered, and sucked her bleeding lip between her teeth.
I said nothing. I tucked my hands behind my back as I took slow, measured strides around her, circling her like a predator around a tasty morsel of meat. She was trying to hide it, but she was shaking. The shirt I had given her to wear was torn open down to her ribcage, the buttons ripped away. Through the gap in it, I could practically see her tender little heart beating furiously beneath her breasts. They rose and fell, two perfect, pristine mounds, with each ragged breath she drew as she tried to calm herself.
It would not work.
“I said I was sorry,” she said again, a little louder as I made my second circle around her.
Again, I said nothing. It was fascinating to recall how she had looked only earlier that day, coming out of the bath like a goddess—a queen. Of course, it had been an act, but in the moment, it had been a superbly believable one. Now, though—now, she looked frightened, though I knew she did not want to show it. Delicate. Tender. Defenseless—and very, very small.
“Will you just say something?” She turned her head slightly to spit the words over her shoulder at me.
I drew in front of her once more and took her chin between my index finger and thumb. I was careful of my claws as I turned her face up toward mine.
“What would you have me say?”
“I—I don’t know. Yell at me. Scream. Tell me what a stupid, idiot little girl I was, running off like that—”
“So you admit that you were running.”
Atlanta’s mouth fell open slightly as she realized how she had just incriminated herself. With a toss of her head, she pulled her chin from my grasp to look away once more. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did not have to. If you wish for me to call you a halfwit for yet another poorly planned escape attempt, I will do it—but do not assume that I share in your idiocy.” I looked her up and down again, my eyes lingering on that lovely gap my torn shirt left over her flushed, heaving chest, then went to the door and rang the bell outside of it.
A servant appeared promptly. I gave her my order and closed the door behind her as she disappeared to do my bidding.
“What are you going to do to me, then?” This time, when Atlanta’s eyes met mine, hers were full of a fresh kind of fear. “Did you tell the servant to tell Lieja?”
“No.” I almost chuckled at the mere thought. I had saved her from Lieja’s brutes, and she still thought that I was not on her side? “I sent for ice. For your lip.”
“Oh.” Atlanta’s shoulders relaxed, though only slightly. “Thank you then.”
“I thought we were in agreement that you should not thank me just yet.” I strode before her once more, drawing myself to my full height. I did not mean to intimidate her—a specter rarely had need for intimidation when our reputations could precede us so forcefully wherever we went—but I did intend to remind her of the reality of her situation here on Nightmoor. She was a tiny thing. Not weak, but far from strong enough to put up a fair fight. Entirely without protection here—except for me, and me alone. “You disobeyed my orders. You slipped away from me in the middle of the night and put yourself in danger—and for what? You had no plan. That much is clear.”
“I had a plan,” she mumbled, but even she did not sound sure of that.
“Being set upon by sex-hungry cowards is not a plan, Atlanta.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan. Obviously.”
“And yet.”
