Page 215 of Fractured Loyalties

She stares at me for a long moment, then finally turns, walking up the stairs without another word. Her braid swings against her back, neat and controlled. Everything she does screams restraint, but I know restraint doesn’t keep the nightmares out.

Lydia arrives a few minutes after, dropping her jacket over a chair, eyes flicking between me and the stairs. “You look worse than she does,” she says.

“Watch the perimeter,” I answer.

Her smirk cuts sideways. “Translation: Stay out of your way. Fine.”

I ignore her, my eyes already dragging back to the staircase, to the closed door at the end of the hall. To Mara.

Because walls don’t keep me from wanting what’s behind them.

I don’t give her long. Ten minutes, maybe less. Just enough time to settle in, pace the perimeter of the room, pretend she still has a choice. Pretend she can claim the space as hers without me.

The door isn’t locked. I push it open and step inside.

She’s standing near the window, arms crossed tight across her chest, the blinds tilted half-closed. Her face catches the spill of sunlight through the glass, pale and sharper than usual, her eyes a storm of fury and exhaustion.

“You don’t knock now?” she says.

“It’s my house.”

Her laugh is short, bitter. “Exactly. Yours. Not mine.”

I move farther into the room, shutting the door behind me. “You’ll sleep here tonight. You’ll be alive tomorrow morning. That’s all that matters.”

Her shoulders rise, stiff. “You keep saying that like it’s a favor. Like forcing me into your cages is protection instead of control.”

I let the words settle, feel the sharp edges of them. Then I step closer, until I can feel the tension coming off her in waves. “Control keeps you breathing. You think Caleb respects boundaries? You think he’ll stop because you say no?”

Her arms drop, fists tight at her sides now. “And you think I can’t stop him myself?”

“You couldn’t before.”

That hits her like a slap. Her chin jerks up, eyes flashing with something caught between rage and shame. “I survived him. I’m still here.”

“Because you disappeared,” I bite back. “Because you made yourself small and invisible. That isn’t survival. That’s hiding.”

She steps toward me then, closing the gap, her voice rising, cutting through the sterile air of the room. “And what do you call this? Dragging me here, deciding where I sleep, who I see, how I live? You call it protection. I call it another cage. And I am done living in cages.”

Her words crash against me harder than I expect. For a second, the image of the woman I had at Dom’s club flickers in my mind—the way she knelt, restrained, waiting. Perfect obedience. And yet it’s useless now, because standing in front of me, fists clenched and jaw set, Mara is the one I can’t shake. She’s defiance and fire, not compliance. And it’s her resistance that won’t leave me alone.

“Cages are what keep predators out, Mara. And I am the only one standing between you and the man who still wants to break you.”

Her gaze locks on mine. Defiant. Trembling. She doesn’t step back, doesn’t fold. And something inside me cracks at the sight of it—because I want to strip that defiance down to its raw core, see if it burns or if it begs.

She whispers then, her voice so sharp it cuts. “Maybe the real predator is already in the room.”

The air between us shatters.

Her words hang in the room, daring me to prove her right. Maybe I already have.

I move before she can blink. My hand catches her wrist, slamming it against the dresser. The wood rattles under the force. She gasps, not out of fear, but because she wasn’t expecting me to close the distance this fast. My body cages hers in, the press of my chest against her, the edge of the furniture digging into her back.

“You think I’m the danger?” I murmur against her ear, my voice threaded with heat I can’t contain. “You’re right. But you’re still here. You didn’t run.”

Her chin jerks up, eyes flashing fire. “Because you don’t let me.”

I tighten my grip on her wrist, her body arched between me and the dresser. She fights me for half a heartbeat, her muscles taut, testing the strength of my hold. The struggle only feeds the hunger in me.