Page 4 of Dance of Defiance

An alien, destructive force wrenches, writhes, and twists through my body.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me. I’m six-four, two hundred and forty pounds of lean muscle, and I’ve been fighting and training since I wassix.

Nobodysurprises me, drops me, and pins me down.

Not ever.

And yet…here we are.

I grit my teeth, hissing as I flex my muscles uselessly, trying to shove the fucker off me. But we’re about the same size, and his grip isn’t loosening one bit as he looms over me. Piercing, ice-blue eyes slice into me like knives through the eyeholes of his mask. Eviscerating me. Cutting me open anddissecting me, scooping out all the dirty little secrets.

Seeing all the poison and corrupt blood inside me.

I snarl, pushing against him as his weight settles onto me, his large, tattooed hands effortlessly keeping my wrists pinned to the floor.

He leans down lower. Those all-consuming, frozen, ice-blue eyes stab right into me.

Freezing me to the spot.

Shattering my strength.

“You,” he growls in a low, almost sultry tone that sends a foreign and yet familiar sensation creeping up my spine.

My breath catches as he quickly brings his face another six inches toward mine. The low light from the hall behind us catches in his eyes, making them look like twin oceans on fire.

“You don’t belong here…Roman.”

2

ROMAN

A pulse throbsin my head like a drum beating…beating…fucking beatinginto my psyche as I stare up into icy blue eyes.

Time slows to a crawl. My very blood feels like it has turned to syrup in my veins and my surroundings fade away until it’s just me lying on the floor and the masked man with venomously blue eyes flaying me open, laying bare every single dark, poisonous secret I have.

Don’t see it.

Don’t see that part of me.

My chest tightens, and not just from the weight planted on it. My throat feels like it’s closing up—tightening and squeezing until I can barely breathe.

How the fuck does he know who I am?

“Your suit is too small,Roman,” the man growls softly, as if reading my thoughts.

Why is he not calling down the thunder on me? Why is there no radio alert to the other guards?

“And the guards here don’t exactly walk around sipping from a fucking flask while they're on duty,” he murmurs, his eyes still boring right into my soul.

Who the FUCK is this?

My eyes flit over his glossy black mask, then slip lower. For a moment, when my gaze lands on the ink swirling out from his shirt collar, my brain short circuits.

Vaughn.

For half a second, I try to make sense of how the man on the dais below has made his way up here, gotten the jump on me, and now has me pinned to the ground, the weight of his body on mine.

But then my eyes flick to the side, and I freeze.