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Betrayal hits me so hard that I actually sway as if it was a physical blow.

“No,” I repeat, unable to come up with anything more eloquent as shock renders me useless.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he argues, standing from the chair he’d pulled close so he could watch me sleep like a creep and holding his hands up in surrender.

“It’s not what it fucking looks like?” I squeal, not accepting a word of it.

I jump to my feet, refusing to be at a height disadvantage with him. Not when I’ve clearly been at his mercy since the second he grabbed me.

My eyes leave his for a beat and I notice a glittery rock thing on the shelf beside me. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve got it in my hand and I’m throwing it full force at his head.

“I trusted you. I fucking trusted you.”

He doesn’t even try to protect himself as the rock flies toward his brow and my stomach lurches when it finally makes contact. His skin splits, blood immediately pooling at the wound before it trickles down his face.

I want to feel guilty. But I refuse to. I refuse to feel anything but hatred toward him for doing this.

Jumping from the bed, I move on instinct as I fly toward him, my hands curled into fists. I hit anywhere I can, letting my frustration bleed out of me in a way I’ve never really experienced before. I’ve never been a violent person, but right now, all I want to do is hurt him, force him to feel just an ounce of the pain that’s shredding my insides right now.

“How could you do this to me?” I scream, my enraged voice not even sounding remotely like my own. “I trusted you. I thought you were different.”

He lets me go wild, leaving his arms hanging limply at his sides as I rain hell down on him. Or at least, in my head, that’s what I’m doing. I’m sure the reality is very, very different.

The second he notices that I’m exhausting myself, he reaches for my wrists, lifts them above my head and slams my back against the wall.

His nostrils flare and his chest heaves as he stares down at me.

His face is nothing but a mask. One that I’m more than familiar with. I’ve witnessed my dad, brother, and the rest of the guys pull theirs on enough. Like this, nothing outside of the task at hand matters. Nothing but being the one who survives, the one who wins, matters.

And it fucking terrifies me.

Because the person he needs to beat right now is me.

“Please.” The word falls from my lips as a plea and I hate it.

I want to be strong. To stand up to the monster staring me down like I know Stella or Emmie would.

But I can’t. Despite the cold mask staring back at me, I remember exactly what’s hiding beneath it.

A door slams somewhere else in the house, I notice for the first time since I woke up that the bedroom door is open.

If I weren’t so intent on hurting him, then I could have run.

Not that I’m sure I’d have got very far.

Footsteps pound closer and my heart rate increases as I attempt to tug my wrists free of his grip.

“Please,” I whisper. “Just let me go. I-I don’t know what you—”

My words are cut off when a shadow appears in the doorway, my body trembling with fear that one of his less-friendly buddies is about to join us and make this whole situation so much worse.

But then the shadow reveals himself and relief floods me.

“Daemon, oh my God.”

But when he stops in the doorway, his eyes darting between me and the man glaring down at me, any hope I had dies.