Page 112 of Blood and Thorns

Caden’s nostrils flared, the skin on his cheeks a little flushed. “Does she agree?”

“She will.” She wasn’t going to be given a choice. “She quiets the noise, Cade.”

“Jesus, you sound whipped. Lang isn’t going to believe it.” Caden pursed his lips, but there was still anger there. “What do you want to do about Miles?”

“Put out a price on his head. Alive.”

“He’s been with us a decade.” Caden dragged his palm down his face. “Fuck.”

“I don’t care.” Arabella was the first time I’d ever wanted to keep something, rather than destroy it. “I’ve decided. She’s mine.”

Chapter 49

Arabella

I was pressed to something hard and deliciously warm. Opening my eyes to slits, I found myself wrapped around Sebastian like ivy. My leg was hooked over his hip, and my palm was placed directly above his heart.

Sebastian’s face was turned towards me, features completely relaxed. I’d never seen him so calm, even if his hand was holding me against him at the bottom of my back.

My naked back. Even in sleep his fingers pressed, pinning me exactly where he wanted me. This was the most I’d ever touched him, and I needed to carefully twist out of his hold before he woke and realised. Gently reaching back for his arm, I tried to wiggle myself under it when he pulled me even tighter against his side.

It was then I realised he wasn’t asleep.

I stiffened, and it took me a moment to relax into his embrace. To frown because his fingers had started to rub gentle circles rather than push me away.

Sebastian just laid there, his breathing even as he watched me. His chest was bare, and the sheets were pooled low on his hips. I took my time to look for injuries orevidence of blood. But all I noticed were the split knuckles on his right hand.

“Did you kill him?” I whispered, my heart aching as I waited for an answer.

Sebastian said nothing, his eyes of midnight cold. Frozen.

My chest tightened. “He was all I had.”

I sucked in a staggered breath, unable to get in enough air. I shoved into his side, knowing I only managed to get out of his grasp and climb to my feet because he’d let me.

Ripping the sheets off the bed, I wrapped them around myself, trying and failing to use them to keep this pressure from escaping my body. Sebastian sat up slowly, eyes following me as I began to pace.

“How could you do that?” My voice hitched, my breathing rapid.

“Why does he matter so much to you?”

“Because he never left me!” I screamed, my walls crumbling.

Sebastian stepped closer, and I couldn’t help but shove him back with all my strength. It was like trying to hit a mountain. So I hit him again, and again, each blow landing on his chest.

He encircled my wrists, tugging me until I was flush against him with my head tipped back. “Stop before you hurt yourself.”

I wanted to fight, to scratch and claw until he was as messed up on the outside as I felt on the inside.

“He was a rotten father, but at least he stayed.” I sucked in another breath, trying to control the way my lungs squeezed. “My mum couldn’t even do that.”

The air rippled with tension, and I found myself caught by my own anger. It perforated the air like smoke, suffocating as I dragged up memories I’d rather forget.

“She left us, and itdestroyedhim!” I choked out, my voice barely more than a ragged whisper. “It shattered something in him so completely that he stopped being a father. He couldn’t even look at me without seeing everything she took with her.”

I’d come home late from school, the rain soaking through my uniform as I walked, wondering how they could forget me again. The house was dark when I arrived, shadows pooling behind the windows. I fumbled for the spare key beneath the loose rock, the metal cold in my hand, my fingers trembling against the cold.

I expected to find Mum inside, either crying at the kitchen table or frantically throwing pans around, halfway through some manic attempt at dinner. But when I stepped through the door, the silence hit me first.