They Stole Her for a Breeding Den, She Chose the Alpha Who Let Her Leave novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: His Rule

At a silent dinner Darius sets one rule, rewraps her wrist, and she finds her dead phone in his desk.

On the third night Nico unlocked the door and said Darius wanted me at dinner.

"Wanted," I said.

Nico rubbed the back of his neck.

"Asked. He said to say asked."

I went because the hall was the first new ground I had been offered in three days, and I wanted to count it.

The corridor ran left to a staircase and right to a pair of double doors.

There was a window at the turn of the stairs, shut, and below it a courtyard with a gate and two men smoking.

Nico walked behind me and did not touch me once.

The dining room was too big for two people.

The table could have seated twenty, and one end was laid with two plates, two glasses of water and one candle.

Darius stood when I came in.

He was not wearing the coat.

Without it he was only a man in a dark shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and his forearms were scarred on the inside, long pale lines that ran from wrist to elbow.

"Sit anywhere," he said.

I chose the chair nearest the door, and he did not argue.

He sat at the far end of the table, which kept the whole length of it between us, and Nico left and shut the doors.

For a while we ate in silence.

The food was good, which made me angry.

It was roast chicken and potatoes, and I had not eaten properly in three days, so I ate all of it and hated every bite.

Darius watched me, and his eyes never dropped below my chin.

"You have a question," he said at last.

"I have a lot of questions."

"Ask the first one."

"Why didn't you say anything? In the room, when Silas said it. You stood there."

He set his fork down.

"Because anything I said in front of him would have been used against you."

"That's a good answer."

"It's the true one." He turned his glass a quarter turn. "I am not going to tell you I'm not part of this. I drove the van."

I had not known that.

I put my fork down very slowly, so that I would not throw it.

"You drove the van."

"Yes."

"You watched Eli put that cloth over my face."

"Yes."

He said it without looking away, and that was worse than if he had flinched.

My hands were shaking under the table, and I pressed them between my knees.

"Then what do you want from me, Darius? You want to be forgiven?"

"No." He said it at once. "I want you to know the one rule in this house that is mine."

I waited.

"Nothing happens to you here unless you say it." His voice stayed even. "Not from Ronan. Not from any of us. Not from me. Silas has his Claiming, and I cannot stop the date. But I will not put a hand on you that you have not asked for, and I will not ask you to ask."

"That's a nice speech."

"It isn't a speech. It's the rule."

"And if Silas orders you?"

He did not answer.

His jaw moved once, and that was all.

I got up, because I could not sit across from him one second longer.

The room swam, and I put my hand on the table to steady myself.

When I lifted it again the bandage on my wrist had come loose, and the skin underneath was scraped raw where I had worked at the window bar.

I had not even noticed.

"Let me see that," Darius said.

"No."

"Mara."

It was the first time he had used my name.

He came around the table slowly, so that I could see every step.

He stopped an arm's length away and held out his hand with the palm up.

He did not reach for me.

He waited.

I stood there with my pulse in my ears, and I thought about screaming, and about the two men smoking in the courtyard.

Then I put my wrist in his hand.

His fingers were warm, and the skin of his palm was rough with old calluses.

He turned my arm toward the candle and looked at the raw patch.

His thumb passed over the white hair on my wrist, which had risen again without my leave.

He stopped.

He did not say a word about it, but his hand went very still.

Then he unrolled a fresh strip of gauze from his pocket, which he must have brought, and wrapped it around my wrist twice, firmly and gently.

His breath was slow and even.

Mine was not.

When he had tied it off, his thumb stayed on the inside of my wrist for a moment longer than the knot needed.

"Thank you," I said, and I hated myself for it.

"Don't thank me." He let go. "Go up. Nico will take you."

At the top of the stairs Nico was called away by a shout from the courtyard, and for the first time I was alone in the corridor.

I did not go back to my room.

The double doors at the end stood a hand's width open, and behind them was a study with a green lamp lit on a desk.

I slid inside.

There were papers, a map pinned to the wall, and a drawer left an inch ajar.

I eased it open.

My phone lay on top of a ledger, its screen cracked at the corner.

I snatched it up and pressed the button.

Nothing.

It was dead, and so was the charging cable coiled beside it, which had been cut clean through.

Behind me, very quietly, someone laughed.

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