Page 28 of Chain Me

Damn.A shiver racked my spine, instilled by the grit in the voice haunting me.

But I didn’t give in. Left. Right. My feet moved dutifully, driving me forward even as my newfound strength began to wane again. Pride warred with basic human instinct. I needed to sit down. I needed—

“Stop.” A pale hand slammed against the wall inches from my face and I had no choice but to stop. “I’m begging you. Begging that, for once in your life, you exercisecaution.” Though his tone was level, anger bubbled up beneath the surface of his polished persona. Like heat, I felt it sear my skin.

“So, now you care? Funny, considering that you left.Without a word. Without so much as a calling card. After you told me that the only reason you even bothered to tolerate me was to, and I quote,‘Get to the only Gray who mattered.’”

“Should I tell you where I was?” He shifted to face me, and I took an involuntary step back. He towered above, his features in shadow. “I was trying to save your life, yet again. A task it appears that I take far more seriously than you do.”

I swallowed.Ah.“What a convincing lie.”

“A lie…” His eyes widened and then narrowed into slits. Against the wall, his fingers flexed, and a hairline crack appeared in the plaster. “You think you have the right to pout like a petulant child? When it was your sister who—”

“My sister who what?”

He seemed to hesitate before confessing, “Your sister who signed a contract of her own.”

“Oh?” My heart throbbed, suddenly heavy, and I turned away. “Don’t tell me you’ve been with her all this time? How lucky for you. You managed to score not just one Gray sister, but both—”

“No.”

I cringed. His tone was far too soft.

“I didn’t forceherinto a contract, Eleanor.”

He let the silence linger, almost daring me to ask him to continue.

I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

So, his upper lip curled back from his teeth as he said, “She refused to let me near you—as you lay dying, I might add—unless I agreed to her terms.”

Heat prickled up and down my spine as a burning sting stabbed at my eyes. “What terms?”

“I agreed to leave the city immediately,” he said. “Cease all contact with you. If I refused, she would stand by and let usbothwatch you die.”

“No.” I blinked more rapidly, shaking my head. “You’re lying.”

He wasn’t. We both knew it. Still, it helped somewhat to say as much. I could give Georgiana the benefit of the doubt she never extended toward me. I could pretend she actually loved me.

As long as I ignored the truth.

“Do you think I wanted to tell you like this?” he countered. “Trust me when I say this, but I don’t enjoy playing the role of your monster.”

“So, why come back at all?” I bit back. My heart raced as rage overrode logic. He wasn’t the only one with secrets to tell. “No, don’t tell me. We both know the answer—for your contract. Is that it? You want it back?”

Of course. His face would reveal as much. I smirked, ready to witness the truth in full view—his gaze widened, horrified. His jaw clenched, made of stone.

He wasn’t gloating.

“You knew,” I deduced, closing my eyes in defiance of everything his shocked expression conveyed. Yes, he had to know. “You want it that badly? Fine. Just admit it now. I’ll shove the damn thing down your throat if you do.”

But he said nothing. No quip. No insult.

“I-If we are done here, I’ll just be leaving,” I stammered weakly. One step was as far as I made it before I found myself shoved against the wall.

Gently.Cool fingers gripped my shoulders, trembling with the restraint needed to keep from bruising—his expression contained no such care, however. Even the suit couldn’t save him—man became monster.