Page 111 of Ruthless Creatures

Who can’t marry me.

Who might, in fact, one day be required to marry someone else.

And he’d have no choice in the matter.

He’d do it to honor his oath.

When I take a step back, Kage reaches out and grabs my wrist. He pulls me against his body, takes my face in his hands, and growls, “No matter what, I’ll always be yours. You’ll always be mine. That won’t change.”

“It will if you’re married to another woman! Or did you think I’d share?”

I try to twist away, but he keeps me against him, wrapping his strong arms around me and holding me tight. “He won’t find me a wife. He needs me as I am. Focused. Undistracted.”

“But he could, right?”

When Kage doesn’t respond, I have my answer.

My laugh is an ugly thing, choked and full of dark despair. “Right. He could decide any time that you should marry some mafia princess to form an alliance with her family. Isn’t that how arranged marriages usually go?”

I’m crying again. But these aren’t tears of happiness. These tears come from a place of rage. A place of pain. A place of total disappointment in myself that I allowed my heart to take demonic possession of my head and lead me into this awful situation.

If I could kick my own ass, I would.

“Let me go.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he does what I ask, opening his arms and releasing me. I pull away, walk halfway across the room, then stop and turn back.

“This is why you said you’d have to make me fall in love with you first, before I found out all your secrets, right? Because even if I could get past what you do for a living, you knew I wouldn’t be able to get past this.”

He remains silent. His chest rises and falls rapidly. His dark eyes burn.

“Well, congratulations. Your plan worked. And don’t you dare talk to me for the rest of the day, because I’m so mad at both of us I could spit!”

His eyes flash. He takes a step forward, his gaze searing mine. “Are you saying you’re in love with me?”

Exasperated, I throw my hands in the air. “Are you kidding me?You’re looking for declarations of love right now? I’m about to chop off your head!”

Still advancing slowly, he says softly, “You are, aren’t you? You’re in love with me. Say it.”

I’m so mad I start to shake. I’m still crying a little, too, but the tears have taken a back burner and now the rage is in the driver’s seat. Seething, I stare at him.

“You selfish, arrogant son of a bitch.”

“Guilty. Say it.”

“Would I have agreed to any of this insanity if I wasn’t in love with you?”

His voice drops, becoming deadly soft. He’s still advancing. “Then say it. Tell me. I want to hear the words.”

“And I want to hear you groaning in pain when I smash a hammer onto all your toes, but we can’t always get what we want.”

I whirl around and stalk out of the living room, down the hall, and into my bedroom. Kage is right on my heels. I barge into the bathroom, intending to slam the door behind me and lock it, but he’s too close. He barges in with me, crowding me near the sink.

Infuriated that he won’t leave me alone to have a breakdown in private, I snatch my brush off the sink and brandish it at him.

“Don’t make me use this on you!”

It’s a ridiculous threat, partly because I have zero intention of smacking him with my hairbrush and partly because he’d probably just laugh at me if I did, but it makes him stop short.