บททั้งหมดของ A Prey For My Enemy: บทที่ 101 - บทที่ 110

_Tatiana_His hand closed around my wrist, firmly as he pulled me out of the car.He didn't need to haul or yank me along; his grip acted like a locked iron cuff, forcing my legs to match his relentless stride. The car door had barely clicked shut behind us before the freezing sea wind slapped my face raw, whipping wild strands of hair across my mouth. I twisted hard, tilting my weight to slip out of his reach, and buried my nails straight into the back of his hand.The skin broke, but his fingers didn't budge. He wouldn't even grant me the satisfaction of a tightened grip to punish my rebellion. I was treated like a featherweight piece of luggage, pushed forward as if I meant absolutely nothing to him.His steady, rhythmic steps on the gravel infuriated me.Somewhere to my right, the cliff dropped straight off into a black abyss. Ahead of us, the dark glass of the fortress loomed, a concrete and stone structure growing directly out of the rock face. Below, the ocean battered the jagg

Tatiana I woke because the light had changed. I opened my eyes, and the room was gold. Morning light poured through a window I did not recognize, across sheets that smelled of lavender and soap and absolutely nothing of smoke or blood or the metallic tang of fear. I lay very still, my cheek pressed against a pillow that was softer than anything I had touched in months, and I waited for the panic to arrive. I waited for my heart to start its familiar, frantic battering against my ribs, for my lungs to forget their shape, for the cold sweat to gather at the base of my spine and remind me that safety was only ever a temporary illusion.It did not come.I breathed in, slow and deliberate, and the air tasted clean. I breathed out, and my body sank deeper into the mattress as if it had finally been given permission to stop preparing for flight. I had slept through the night. Eight hours. Maybe nine. Unbroken. No nightmares. No footsteps in the corridor. No voice whispering my name in th

Tatiana "You succeeded. I also lost all feeling in my hand. Small price to pay, apparently."He made a sound then, low and rough, and it took me a moment to realize it was a laugh. Not a chuckle, not a polite social noise, but a real, surprised laugh that rumbled in his chest and vibrated against my shoulder, and the sound of it was so unexpected, so devastatingly human, that I felt tears prick my eyes again. I turned my face into his sweater and breathed him in, cedar and soap and the faint, clean scent of the man beneath the armor, and I let myself have this moment. I let myself have the sun and the roses and the rough wool and the scarred hand that was still holding mine with a gentleness that seemed to cost him everything.We sat there until the sun climbed higher and the kitchen clock chimed somewhere inside. He shifted, preparing to stand, and I felt the loss of his warmth immediately, a cold draft where his shoulder had been. He stood on the step below me, which put us at eye

I had insisted on helping, which was my first mistake. I had never been allowed to cook at home—my mother had believed that kitchens were for staff, and my culinary education had consisted of ordering from menus and occasionally pouring wine. But here, in this small cottage kitchen with its worn brick and wide windows, I had decided that I was going to make pancakes. How hard could pancakes be?Very hard, apparently.The batter was lumpy. The pan was too hot. The first pancake burned black on the outside while remaining raw within, and when I tried to flip the second one, it folded itself into a sad, doughy origami and stuck to the ceiling with a wet splat. I stood there, spatula in hand, staring up at the batter dripping slowly onto the counter, and I felt Kain's presence behind me before I heard him."Hidden talent number four," he said, his voice perfectly even. "Ceiling decoration."I spun around, my face burning. "You said you'd cook!""I am cooking." He nodded toward the stove,

"What was that?" I asked, my heart beating a little faster."Nothing," he said, and his voice was gentle, but it was the kind of gentleness that closed doors. "Routine. The perimeter is secure."I didn't believe him. I looked at his eyes, at the way they wouldn't quite meet mine, at the tension that had returned to his jaw, and I felt the first cold finger of dread trace its way down my spine. "Kain—""Come," he said, taking my hand again, his thumb brushing my knuckles. "The sun is setting. I want to show you the view from the east balcony."The sunset was the color of bruised peaches and burnt honey, spreading across the horizon in layers of rose and gold and deepening violet. We stood side by side at the railing, his arm around my shoulders, my head resting against his chest, and for a while I let myself forget the guard, the whispered conversation, the shadow that had passed over the afternoon. The air was warm, smelling of salt and pine and the distant smoke of a cookfire, and th