by Penelope Sky
“Yes.” She kept her gaze out the window.
I turned to her, my heart slowing down. “You do?”
“You’re taking me to Lucian.”
My heart stopped beating altogether, just for a second in time.
“He’ll torture me. Then he’ll kill me by crushing my skull—just the way you do to your enemies.” Her voice dripped with indifference, like her own death didn’t scare her at all.
That night I came home, she must have eavesdropped. She must have been waiting for me, after all. “If you knew, why didn’t you do something?”
“Like what?” she asked. “If I told my brothers, they would get involved and get themselves killed. If I slit your throat in the middle of the night, your men would turn on me, or Lucian would hunt me down. If I ran away, you would just find me again. Or Lucian would. Unfortunately, there’s just no way out for me. There’s never been a way out for me. There’s no point in fighting it. You’re doing exactly what you said you would do—and I’m an idiot for thinking you would change.”
Her defeat hurt me, deep inside my chest. I’d never given up in my life, even when I was outnumbered and outresourced. But this woman had no chance. She’d never had a chance. Evan tricked her for a paycheck, and Lucian wanted to torture her. I used her to get what I wanted. This woman had been a slave for most of her adult life.
It was wrong.
She didn’t look at me once. “Every time I think there’s a glimmer of hope, I’m wrong. And those moments hurt far more than anything else. Hope is a dangerous thing. I would rather die and get it over with instead of wasting more time on hope.”
I hated the tone in her voice. It didn’t sound like her at all.
I kept driving, and I was approaching the edge of the city. Soon I would emerge into the countryside and approach his private estate. My foot stayed on the gas, but it itched for the brake.
I didn’t owe this woman anything. She’d been a power move since the beginning. I only used her for vengeance and as a poker chip. But every fiber of my being didn’t want to do this, even if this woman would never mean anything to me.
I pulled over to the curb.
She finally turned to meet my gaze, her eyebrows raised at the sudden stop.
I stared at the empty street ahead of me, knowing this was a bad choice. Keeping this woman would only hurt me in the end. I would never get back that skull diamond, and Lucian and I would be at war with each other until one of us killed the other. It was definitely the wrong decision to make.
But there was no other option.
I turned my head to meet her gaze, to see the emotion that immediately lit up her eyes. It was a beacon of hope, a desire for change. She looked at me the same way she did before, like I was her savior.
I liked it when she looked at me like that.
Her whisper filled the truck. “You aren’t going to give me back to him…”
I held her gaze without blinking, hating myself for being so weak. This woman turned me into rusted iron. She took a simple problem and made it into a huge one. All she had to do was move those pretty lips and flash those green eyes and I was lost.
I wanted to be the Skull King.
But she made me into a man.
“No,” I whispered. “I can’t do it.”
She threw off her safety belt then crawled into my lap. Her hands dug into my hair just the way they did when we were in bed together. Her plump lips pressed to mine, and she kissed me with the passion we always shared. As if nothing had happened in the past, we were lovers once more. Her fingers clawed at my body like she wanted to take me then and there, like she wanted me out of desire, not gratitude. “You promised me you would never let anyone take me…”
“Yes, I did.”
“And you never lie.” She rested her forehead against mine as she sat in my lap, her body tangled with mine.
“No…I don’t.” My hands moved underneath her shirt and felt the soft skin of her belly. Now I wanted to get her home and get her naked. It’d been days since she’d let me have her, days since I’d been buried inside my woman. I didn’t just want sex. I wanted everything that we shared.
“Then what are we going to do? Lucian won’t just let me go.”
“No, he won’t.” He would come at me as hard as I would come at him.
“What does that mean?”
It meant only one thing. “I have to kill him before he kills me.”
ALSO BY PENELOPE SKY
Instead of handing me back to Lucian so Balto can get everything he wants, he keeps me.
He pledges to fight for me until I'm free.
But as the weeks pass, freedom isn't as appealing as it used to be. This place has become my home.
This man is my home.
I'm not sure if I'd ever want to leave...even if Lucian was dead.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
1. Cassini
2. Balto
3. Balto
4. Cassini
5. Cassini
6. Balto
7. Cassini
8. Balto
9. Cassini
10. Cassini
11. Balto
12. Balto
13. Balto
14. Cassini
15. Cassini
16. Balto
17. Balto
18. Cassini
19. Balto
20. Balto
21. Cassini
22. Cassini
23. Balto
24. Cassini
25. Balto
26. Balto
27. Balto
28. Cassini
29. Balto
Also by Penelope Sky
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