Warlord Wants Forever - Kresley Cole [41]
She gasped, eyes watering, but she couldn’t speak after his command. Her hands clenched. She’d never wanted to scream more in her life, and yet her lips parted silently in shock when he said, “I believe I’ll just order you to want me so fiercely that you can’t think of anything or anyone else—”
A voice interrupted from downstairs. “General Wroth, you’re needed at Oblak immediately.”
“What?” he bellowed. She felt his eyes on her as she staggered to the window seat, tears beginning to fall. She curled up, leaning her forehead against the glass.
“Your brother’s been badly injured.”
He pointed at her. “Stay here,” he bit out, then disappeared. She heard him downstairs, locking away her freedom again, then he was gone once more. Stay here? In the room or the manor? He’d been so thrown by the news that he hadn’t elaborated.
So stumbling, clutching at the wall as energy funneled out of her, she finally made her way to his study. She pulled aside the cabinet, finding the safe behind it. When she reached for the lock, her hand veered off course as though pushed by an unseen force. She bit her lip and tried again, fighting to simply brush the metal.
Commanded not to touch it. Just like he would command her to forget who she was, that she even had a family. Lightning cracked outside in time with a sob. He’d been about to do it.
It was true then. Vampires couldn’t be trusted—he’d seemed out of his mind with rage. Why had she gone against all she’d ever learned to be with him?
The years had been weighing on her and she’d been overwhelmed by the yearning to simply lean on someone, just for a while, to have a partner to watch her back and hold her when she needed it. Surely she’d convinced herself to accept him because he was strong and she had grown so weak. No longer.
There were ways she could get around his orders—nimble thinking, creative reasoning. As tears poured from her eyes and the lightning grew to constant furious bolts, she tore at the wall, at the very stone that housed it.
So he would use her? Like a toy. A mindless slave. Adjustments?
Toy, bait, whore…Just because you wanted to be fucked, he’d sneered.
Two millennia of people thinking they could use her. Always using her.
She’d take this safe with her teeth if she had to.
“You should see the other guy,” Murdoch grated from his bed when Wroth traced into his room.
Wroth shuddered to see his brother’s face torn and limbs broken like this even while knowing he couldn’t die from anything short of a beheading or sunlight. He shook himself. “What has happened to you?” he asked, his voice a rasp.
“About to ask you the same. My God, Nikolai, you look worse than I do.”
He thought about how he’d left Myst at the window, crying, staring out at the lightning storm that came from within her. It pained him so much to think of her hurting alone…. “We’ll talk of my problems later. Who has done this to you?”
“Ivo has demons. Demons turned vampires. They are strong—you can’t imagine it. He is looking for someone, but I don’t think it’s your Bride—they mentioned something about a ‘halfling’.”
“How many?”
“There were three in his party—other vampires as well. We took down two of the demons but one remains.” He glanced behind him. “Where’s your Bride?”
After a hesitation, he explained everything, seeking the same unburdening he felt when he spoke with Myst. His brother’s expression grew stark.
Long moments of silence passed before he said incredulously, “Wroth, you took away the free will of a creature that has had it for two thousand years. A good wager says she’s going to want it back.”
“No, you don’t understand. She’s callous. Incapable of love. It eats at me, her deception, because it’s the only thing that makes sense.” More to himself, he muttered, “Why else would she want me?”
Murdoch weakly grabbed Wroth’s wrist. “For all these years I’ve seen you continually choose the best, most