by Katee Robert
“Agreed.” It’s not as if the Paine brothers and their people aren’t already watching my every step.
“Good.” Harlow nods. “It’s getting late, so it won’t be tonight, but I’ll see what I can do about tomorrow. I’ll send for you when it’s arranged.”
No doubt the meeting will include the fancy tea setup she favors. For someone so badass, Harlow sure loves that tea cart and forcing us all to drink that shit. It’s actually pretty good, but I’ll never admit it. “Works for me.”
We parts ways when the hall branches, her heading downstairs and me heading to the room that’s become mine. I was never meant for captivity. If it weren’t for the daily trips to the Amazon faction and tower, I’d be going out of my mind by now.
I half expect Shiloh to be in the room when I get there, but it’s empty. I frown. She better be okay. Abel seems to have a choke hold on the Raider faction, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still loyalists meandering around with itchy trigger fingers, just waiting for one of his people to pass by. No matter how capable she is, she’s not bulletproof.
If Broderick weren’t such an ass, he wouldn’t have let her walk out alone. He doesn’t see clearly where she’s concerned. Obviously he has a thing for her, but instead of admitting it, he veers too far in the other direction, holding her at a distance even though they’re supposedly such good friends. I don’t know how other people treat their friends, but I don’t avoid mine like they have the plague.
Though most of my friends are actually family.
Fuck.
I’m spiraling. This is ridiculous. I march into the closet and pull off my work clothing, switching to a pair of leggings and an oversized white shirt that looks like something that should be on a romance novel cover, complete with deep V down the chest. It’s ridiculously dramatic, and normally wearing it cheers me up immediately.
Nothing happens this time.
“I shouldn’t have let her walk out of that bar, either,” I mutter. It doesn’t matter that the power imbalance seems permanently off when it comes to me and Broderick. I could have kneecapped him and marched out of there on Shiloh’s heels. It’s not like it would have been hard.
The door to my bedroom opens, and the woman herself walks in. I don’t breathe a sigh of relief. I truly don’t. It’s just a tiny soundless exhale as I survey her, and I’m certainly not looking to make sure she’s okay and unharmed.
She shoots me a long look. “What’s got that expression on your face?”
I shrug. “It’s my face. I’m a person who has expressions.”
“Whatever.” She strides past me, pulling her shirt off in the process.
“What are you doing?” The question comes out too high, too fast, but what the fuck?
She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t stop. “I moved my stuff in here earlier. I’ve been sleeping in this room anyways, so there’s no point in taking up space in the barracks.”
“Um.”
She stops in the doorway to the bathroom, wearing only a black bra and jeans. It’s not even a fancy bra—no lace, and it’s a perfectly serviceable style—but my mouth goes dry at the sight. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No.” The word is out before I can think of a reason I should have a problem with it. Surely there’s something? Yes, she’s with me pretty much twenty-four-seven, but maintaining some level of space is important… Isn’t it?
I haven’t been this thrown off by a pair of tits since I was fifteen and Casey LaRue showed up at school in a V-neck with a pushup bra on. I was so busy staring, I ran into an open locker like a complete fool. I was dating her less than a week later, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the few times in my life when I forgot myself so completely, I acted totally out of character.
Shiloh is about to make me add to the list. Especially when she turns around and her hands go to the front of her jeans. “I need a shower.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “That wasn’t an invitation, by the way.”
“Oh.” Surely I can do better than this? I’m still trying to come up with a word that isn’t two letters when she kicks the door shut, closing us off from each other. The click of a lock makes it clear that she meant it.
The water turns on.
Right now, she’ll be sliding off those jeans. Probably unhooking her bra and shimmying out of her panties.
I press my lips together, but all the thwarted desire comes back tenfold knowing that she’s naked in the next room. Before I can talk myself out of it—and really, why would I bother?—I slide off my leggings and drop onto the bed. I waste no time dipping my hand between my thighs and stroking my clit. Fuck, I’m halfway there and all I did was look at her.
I should take my time, but I’ve never been all that good at doing things I should do. I trace my opening and then spread my wetness up to my clit. Light circles, designed to tease me right to the edge. A tiny moan slips free. Will Shiloh masturbate in my shower? I really, really hope she does. That detachable showerhead is a piece of art and should be appreciated fully.
Maybe I’ll show her sometime…
The image roots itself in my mind. Both of us naked in the shower. Pressing against the back of her lean body as I maneuver the showerhead to her pussy, to her clit. I already know what she sounds like when she comes. I’m going to hear that cute little whimper in my dreams tonight.
I can’t wait to coax another out of her.
I come hard, not bothering to muffle my moans. I’m in my room, after all. It’s her damn fault for teasing me.
I’ve barely brought myself down when the bathroom door opens and Shiloh appears, wrapped in a towel. She stops short, her gaze going from me on the bed to my hand buried between my thighs. “Monroe,” she says slowly. “Were you just masturbating to the image of me in the shower?”
“To clarify, I was masturbating to the image of both of us in the shower.” I give my clit one last circle, shiver, and withdraw my hand from my panties.
“I see.” She moves slowly, crossing to stand next to the bed.
Before I can decide how I want to play this, Shiloh grabs my wrist and lifts my hand up until it’s even with her face. The same hand with fingers still wet from my orgasm. She leans down and draws my pointer finger into her mouth. Her tongue, the slight sucking motion…
I shift on the bed. “Tease.” My voice is too breathy, too affected.
Shiloh ignores me and gives my next finger the same treatment. Tasting me. Cleaning every bit of evidence from my skin. It doesn’t take a large jump to picture her tasting me from the source. I shift again.
She flicks her tongue against my fingertips and releases me. “I’m very angry at you.”
“You came in that bathroom. I didn’t. If anyone should be angry, it’s me.”
Shiloh raises a dark brow. “I wasn’t aware orgasms were transactional with you.”
She has me there. I sigh. “Okay, fine. They’re not. I enjoyed making you come for the sake of making you come.” I’d like to do it again. And again. And again.
“Thought so.” She absently trails a finger over her collarbone. “You’re seducing me to hurt Broderick.”
There’s no reason to lie. She’s a smart girl, and she’ll see right through it. “That’s part of it, yes, but I’d seduce you even if he weren’t involved.” I wouldn’t say I have a particular taste in partners. I don’t think attraction can be boiled down to something as mundane as liking a certain hair color or body type or gender. There’s too much nuance for that. Yeah, I liked the look of her face when we first met, but what really draws me to Shiloh is her steadiness and the way she cuts through whatever bullshit I throw at her without so much as raising her eyebrows. She feels unshakable…or she did until she was coming.
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
“That’s not the right question to be asking.”
“Oh yeah?” Shiloh smiles a little. “And what question should I be asking?”
It strike
s me that I’ve never seen her with her hair down. It’s longer than I thought, well past her shoulders. I glance at her legs, note the intense scars there, and look back at her face before she can get self-conscious. They’re obviously the reason she only wears jeans. They don’t look like knife wounds or anything like that. Best guess, they’re burns, but they’re too regular to be from something like a fire.
Understanding dawns.
Someone burned her legs. On purpose.
Rage surges in me, so strong that it takes my breath away. I forget my intention to ignore her scars. “Who did that?”
She doesn’t ask me what I mean. She just shakes her head and moves toward the closet. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
Shiloh pauses, looking at me like she’s never seen me before. There’s something on her face, something shocked and a little angry. “Why are you upset? It was a long time ago.”
A long time ago can mean anything, but I heard Harlow say that Shiloh has been with the Paine brothers since their first year of exile. She can’t be more than thirty, if that, and if she’s been with the Paines that long, this must have happened when she was a teenager. Maybe younger. “How long ago?”
She sighs. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
Since she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, I should let it go. One does not successfully seduce another person by dredging out their past trauma. That kind of depth isn’t required for sex, and judging by the sheer number of scars, neither of us will be in the mood if I know the full story. With that in mind, moving on is the only thing that makes sense for my goals.
Instead, I open my mouth and tell the truth. “No, love, I’m not going to let this go.”
Chapter 10
Shiloh
I wasn’t thinking when I walked into the bathroom without a change of clothes. I can only blame Monroe’s presence on my sheer lack of brain cells and planning. I never let anyone see my legs for this very reason. It creates questions that dredge up stuff I’d rather not think about. For the nearly eight years I’ve been with the Paine brothers, I’ve learned valuable lessons.
The first being that trauma doesn’t make you special. Everyone has some flavor of it. Mine was horrific, but it’s nothing compared to what Broderick has experienced, let alone some of the others who joined up over the years.
More, I don’t want to be pitied.
I sure as hell don’t want to take a walk down memory lane to the first eighteen years of my life. I’ve worked hard to move past that time, to forget as much as I’m able. I knew coming to Sabine Valley would be difficult for a number of reasons, but I never expected this.
An Amazon demanding to know what happened to me.
The irony would make me laugh if I could find breath in my lungs. Monroe’s sitting on that bed, looking sexy as hell in that ridiculous shirt, and ready to commit murder. If only she knew the truth.
She crosses her legs and studies me. “Tell me.” After the briefest hesitation. “Please, Shiloh.”
I’ve never felt so naked, and this towel covers me from mid-chest to nearly my knees. Monroe can be conniving and manipulative, but I haven’t found her to be overly cruel. At least not to me. I don’t understand why she’s so insistent on this. “Why?”
“So I can kill them, preferably rather slowly, but I’m willing to do it quickly if you’d rather they not suffer overmuch.”
I blink. Wait for the punchline. But Monroe is still staring at me with that intent expression, not a single smile in sight. “You’re serious.”
“Of course. I never joke about murder. People might not take me seriously when I need to threaten them.”
But… That doesn’t make any sense. As far as she’s aware, I’m not one of her people. She has absolutely no reason to go to battle for me. If anything, as a newly minted Raider, she should be happy for whatever harm I experience. I’m the enemy, after all. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll use small words.” She smiles a little as she says it, but her green eyes stay icy. “Someone tortured you when you were a child.”
“You say that like children aren’t harmed every day in this country—in this city, even.”
“Not in the Amazon faction.”
I roll my eyes. I can’t help it. There is the Amazon superiority complex I get hints of from her on occasion. The deep belief that Amazons are somehow better than anyone else, that they aren’t capable of being just as monstrous as the rest of the world. She doesn’t know how wrong she is. “Amazons are no different than other people at their core. That means you have predators just like the rest of the population, and sometimes predators harm children.” Sometimes those predators torture their own children for eighteen long years before that child escapes and runs for their life.
Sometimes.
“You’re right.” She nods slowly. “It’s not unheard of. But we value our children highly. As such, the punishment is…” Monroe trails off, her gaze going distant for a moment. She blinks and she’s back, and angrier than ever. “Child predators don’t stay in our faction for long. Not alive, at least. The punishment isn’t worth the risk. My family has made sure of that.”
My mouth goes dry. She says it so simply. As if that’s really the truth and not some fantasy she’s spun because true harm has never come from inside her household. She’s never hidden and held her breath, hoping her parents don’t come looking. “I never thought you’d be that naive.”
“It’s not naivety. It’s fact.” She tucks her blond hair behind her ears, staring intently at me. “It does happen from time to time. I won’t lie and say it doesn’t, but we don’t bother with the song and dance of a public trial or jail time when it comes to someone who harms a child. The investigation is handled quietly to avoid the child being ostracized. Once the facts are assured, someone from the royal family handles it.”
She’s serious. She really is naive. No matter what she thinks, Amazons truly aren’t different from other communities when it comes to monsters in their midst. I’m more than proof of that. And the royal family taking care of it the moment they know? Don’t make me laugh. “Child abuse is prevalent, and most victims never come forward.”
“In the rest of the world, yes.” She shrugs. “I don’t blame them. The justice system leaves a lot to be desired. Predators rarely see the consequences they should.”
She truly believes that. That it’s as simple as a victim coming forward and removing the predator, as if there aren’t people conditioned to silence by the time they learn how to speak. I open my mouth to keep arguing, but I don’t have the heart for it right now. More, I can’t say anything that won’t reveal far too much about me and my past. Finally, I settle on, “I’m not an Amazon, so I don’t see why it matters.”
“Aren’t you?” Before I can react to that statement, she continues. “Do you know where we get our name from?”
“The all-women Greek warriors.”
“You’re a warrior, Shiloh.” She grins suddenly. “Even if you’re technically a Raider. If you ever feel like flipping sides, we’d take you in a heartbeat.”
Been there, done that, never want to go back. “Pass.”
She nods. “I figured you’d say that. Now, stop trying to change the subject and tell me.”
Better to get it out and be done with it. Malone is like a cat. If I try to dodge this subject indefinitely, it will activate all her predator instincts, and she’ll latch on to it. Better to give her just enough truth to satisfy her. “Give me a minute.”
“Take your time.” She says it almost gently, as if she recognizes I need more armor than just a towel to have this conversation. To have any conversation. I go to the small dresser that I shoved my stuff in earlier before Monroe and Broderick got back and pull on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. It’s late enough that I doubt even Monroe will get up to no good before she passes out.
Back in the bedroom, I find her exactly where I left her, cross-legged on
the bed. As tempting as it is to start pacing, I refuse to give even that much energy to the memories weighing me down. I sink onto the edge of the mattress and stare at the door. “My story sucks, but it could be worse. Poor little rich girl with her religious zealot parents who wanted to burn the sin right out of her.” Parents who held prestige by proximity to the Amazon throne, by being distantly related to some past Herald. I’m still not sure why they latched on to sin as the thing I contained. For all that Sabine Valley harkens back to ancient practices, the only faction that’s truly religious is the Mystic.
Most everyone else gives some kind of nod to the various gods but doesn’t dive deep. Unfortunately, my parents were the exception. Best I can tell, they picked a god at random and devoted themselves entirely to her. Astrea. Goddess of many things, but among them…purity.
A purity I never had when they looked at me.
I take a deep breath, hating that it shudders a little. “For all that, they didn’t have much in the way of creativity, so they used a curling iron.” Sometimes, in my nightmares, I can still smell the scent of my skin burning.
They did so much worse than that, but I’m not about to get into that now. Or ever.
I can’t help glancing at Monroe. She’s got her expression locked down, but the fury in her green eyes makes them almost glow. Rage. Not pity. That’s something, at least. There is more than one reason I don’t like talking about my past, and it’s not simply to avoid being pigeonholed by the location I happened to be born into. I don’t want anyone’s pity. I survived. I’ve done more than survive.
Monroe finally says, “No one helped you.”
That gives me the strength to answer. “No. No one helped me.” Not even the Amazon queen who at least had some hint of what I was experiencing. I was hardly the picture of childhood health the one time she laid eyes on me. “I got myself out when I turned eighteen.”
“How old are you, Shiloh?”
My throat feels too tight. “Thirty.”
“How long have you been with the Paines?”
