Page 51 of Shadow Waltz
“I didn't ask for that,” I said, but the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.
“Didn't you?” Troy asked quietly, and the question cut deeper than any accusation. “You put on his collar, accepted his protection, let him claim you in front of people who could destroy him. What did you think would happen?”
The truth of it settled over me like a blanket made of guilt and arousal in equal measure. Maybe I hadn't asked for violence explicitly, but I'd chosen to belong to a man who dealt in deathand control. I'd worn his collar knowing what kind of world I was entering, what kind of protection I was accepting.
“None of us asked for this,” Troy said, his voice softening slightly. “But here we are anyway, and the only choice left is how we handle it.”
He reached out slowly, giving me every chance to pull away, and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. The contact was gentle, almost tender, but I could feel the strength in his fingers, the controlled violence that lurked beneath every careful touch.
“How do you handle it?” I asked. “Knowing that people die because of decisions you had no part in making?”
Troy's thumb traced along my cheekbone, and the touch sent shivers through my nervous system that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the way he was looking at me—like something precious and breakable and completely at his mercy.
“You learn to live with it,” he said simply. “You accept that the world is a brutal place where good people die for bad reasons, and you focus on protecting the things that matter.”
His hand moved to cup the back of my neck, fingers finding the edge of my collar and tracing the leather. The touch was electric, possessive, a reminder that I belonged to someone who was willing to share me with his most trusted lieutenant.
A new sound cut through the building's mechanical hum—Luka's voice over the intercom system, calm and controlled but carrying an undertone of barely restrained violence.
“The situation is contained,” he announced, though his definition of 'contained' probably involved more bodies than I wanted to think about. “Lockdown will continue until further notice. Anyone who has a problem with that is welcome to discuss it with me personally.”
Troy's grip on my neck tightened almost imperceptibly, and I realized that even here, in what was supposed to be the safestplace in the building, he was preparing for the possibility that someone might try to breach our defenses.
“He's protecting you,” Troy said quietly, his thumb stroking along the leather of my collar. “But protection in our world looks different than it does in yours. It's messy and violent and usually involves more blood than most people can stomach.”
The words dared me to decide whether I could live with the cost of being owned by a monster. But sitting there with Troy's hand on my neck and the taste of violence in the air, I realized that maybe I was more monster than I'd ever wanted to admit.
Sleep wasimpossible when your bedroom had become a fortress and every shadow might hide an assassin, so I'd given up pretending and taken to staring out the reinforced windows at a city that looked like it was burning from the inside out. Sirens wailed in the distance, and the occasional flash of emergency lights painted the buildings in shades of crisis that felt all too familiar.
Troy had moved his chair closer to the bed, close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. His weapon rested on his knee, and his eyes constantly scanned for threats, but I caught him looking at me more than once—studying my face in the red emergency lighting like he was trying to memorize every detail.
“How many people have died because of me?” I asked the question to the darkness, not really expecting an answer but needing to voice the guilt that had been eating at me like acid.
“Tonight? Seven confirmed, maybe more,” Troy said with the clinical detachment of someone giving a casualty report. “Three buyers who thought they could take you by force, two of theirbodyguards, one security guard who was feeding information to the wrong people, and one unfortunate janitor who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Each number hit like a physical blow, but underneath the guilt was something else—a dark satisfaction that I was valuable enough to inspire this kind of violence, important enough that seven people had died trying to take me or protect me.
“Does that turn you on?” Troy asked quietly, and the question made my blood freeze in my veins because it meant he'd seen something in my expression, some tell that gave away the sick thrill I got from being the center of so much violence.
“What?” I tried to sound outraged, but the word came out breathless instead.
“The violence. The blood. The fact that people are dying because you're valuable enough to kill for.” Troy leaned forward, close enough that I could see the way the emergency lighting caught in his eyes. “It's not uncommon, you know. People who've been treated like nothing their whole lives, suddenly finding out they're worth a war.”
The observation cut too close to the truth, because he was right—there was something intoxicating about being valuable enough to inspire this kind of passion, this level of protection. For someone who'd spent his life being disposable, being worth dying for was its own kind of drug.
“I'm fucked up,” I said quietly, the admission tasting like ash in my mouth.
“We all are,” Troy replied, and his hand found mine in the darkness, fingers intertwining with surprising gentleness. “The trick is finding someone whose particular brand of fucked up complements yours.”
Troy's fingers tightened around mine, heat radiating from his palm into the shivery center of my chest. He studied me in the emergency red glow, his features gone sharp—razor cheekbones,heavy stubble, full lips made for bruising kisses. His shirt strained at his broad chest and arms, each muscle defined and inked with old scars, a map of violence and history. The bulge in his tailored slacks was impossible to miss, cock half-hard and growing with every shuddering breath I took.
“You want this,” Troy murmured, voice gravel thick. Not a question—an order pulled from my bones. “Not just the danger. The surrender. The mess.” His thumb traced the collar at my throat, lingering at the metal ring, tugging just enough to make my breath catch.
I nodded, trembling with anticipation.
“Luka gave the order,” Troy said, low and dark. “Told me to take care of you by any means. That means I get to have you—however I want. Right here, right now. You want that?”
A thrill raced through me—fear and desire in equal measure. “Yes,” I breathed, heat pooling in my belly. “Please.”