Each emotion that passes through her eyes has the corners of my lips quirking up into a smile. It’s sick to get such pleasure from her pain, but I can’t help it when it comes to Snow. Recognition comes first, then confusion, and then the anger burns to life in the pools of blue. The look of thunder that crosses her face makes me choke on a groan. I have a feeling a fired-up Snow is a fun Snow.
“Elijah? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Do my brothers know where I am? Didn’t you get the hint not to fuck with us when Wynter shot you?” She crosses the room, rounding the table until she comes toe to toe with me, her neck craned back to look up at me.
“Why don’t we have a seat?” I gesture to the two plates full of food, one at the head of the table and the other to the left. My hand twitches to touch her, the pull almost too great for me to fight, but I quickly shove my hand back into my pocket.
“If you think I’m eating anything on that plate, you’re fucking insane.” She stamps her foot like an angry toddler, and I allow a chuckle to slip from my throat.
“You’re going to do as you’re told if you want any answers.” I shrug, stepping around her and taking my seat at the head of the table. If she wants answers badly enough, she’s going to sit her pretty ass down and eat the damn breakfast Mrs. Chambers prepared for us. I won’t have her going without food, so if she decides not to eat, I will be forced to make her.
I train my eyes on my plate, picking up my knife and fork as I survey the bacon and eggs covering the plate. Mrs. Chambers makes a mean breakfast. It was one of the only good parts of my childhood. Every time my father or uncles hurt me, she was there to clean my wounds and make sure I was fed. Even when they locked me in a closet for a week after I refused to kill someone when I was ten, she always made sure I had food, even if she was risking her own life by giving it to me.
A few minutes pass, and I start to think she’s not going to sit down, but then she appears in my peripheral vision, and she drops into the chair beside me. “Okay, I’m sitting. Now answer my questions.”
“Uh, uh, uh. The proviso was not you sitting, it was you eating some breakfast. It’s not good for you to skip meals.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t normally eat so much in the morning. Usually just a smoothie or some fruit.”
I nod. “I’ll make sure Mrs. Chambers knows for tomorrow morning. But today, you’re going to eat what’s on your plate if you want to get the answers to your questions.” She’ll likely get them regardless, seeing as I need to have her call Storm soon if I don’t want the whole Saint James family burning my house to the ground, but she doesn’t need to know that.
She tentatively picks up her own knife and fork and takes a bite of her eggs. My eyes track her every movement, right down to the way her lips wrap around the fork and how her throat bobs when she swallows. She groans in appreciation, and my hands tighten around my cutlery. Perhaps I hadn’t totally prepared myself for how tempting my little Snowflake would be.
“Storm knows you’re here,” I tell her.
“What?” she squeaks in surprise.
“You’re going to call him shortly to tell him you’re safe and that we’re taking good care of you.”
She drops her knife and fork, and they clatter when they hit the plate. The defiance in her eyes is almost my undoing, but I keep my features neutral. “I will do nothing of the sort,” Snow hisses.
I sigh, placing my own cutlery down and dragging her seat closer to my own before she can think to jump out of it, not stopping until her knees are flush against my leg. “I think you’re a little confused about how this is going to go, so let me spell it out for you. You are not here as some kind of revenge plot against your family, and your brothers did not hire me to teach you a lesson for always sneaking away from your security team. You are here because I want you to be, because you belong to me, and you have for the last ten years. You are going to do as you’re told and call your brother, or I will start thinking of creative ways to punish you. Given that level of transgression would likely lead to your entire family trying to take you away from me, I think the punishment for that would be harming someone you care about. So it’s up to you, Snowflake. You’re either a good girl and do what I tell you, or you’re bad, and someone you love gets hurt.” I shrug but make no move to return her seat to its former position.
Having her close to me is intoxicating, and if I have it my way, I’ll never give her an inch of space from now on. She belongs here. She belongs to me.
Snow’s eyes flare with a mixture of fear and anger, but her mouth remains pressed in a hard line. I at least expected an argument, but then again, her biggest weakness is her love for others. I never wanted to threaten someone she loves because by harming them, I would cause her immense pain, and I don’t want that, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep her here.
“He won’t believe I’m here of my own freewill,” she finally says.
“He will if you’re convincing enough. I know you can do it. I’ve watched you play the part of the good girl moments before you sneak off and let your wild side run rampant. I have no doubt in my mind that you can lie to your brother just enough so he’s not bashing down my door in a few hours’ time.”
She huffs, her eyes tearing away from mine at the same time she crosses her arms over her chest defiantly.
A smile tugs at the corners of my lips, but I quickly replace it with the mask I’ve worn my whole life. I can’t allow her to see my weakness for her yet. She can’t know how I feel until there’s nowhere for her to escape.
“Now, would you like to call him now, or do you want to finish your breakfast first?” I ask, nodding toward the barely touched meal in front of her.
“I’ll do it now.” She sighs.
I don’t like the way she’s not fighting me on this, and there’s something about her acceptance that isn’t sitting right with me. I’m under no illusions that this is going to be an easy transition for her, and the fact she isn’t screaming and yelling and throwing shit is disconcerting.
I nod once and tug my phone from my pocket. When I took it off Do Not Disturb this morning after sneaking out of her room, I had ten voice mails from Storm, all of which were filled with strings of profanities. He’s mad, perhaps understandably so, but that doesn’t change the reality of our situation.
Snow reaches for the phone, but I quickly pull it from her reach.
“Ground rules. First of all, you should know that I have been following you for a very long time, so I know all about the codes you have if you get in trouble and need help. If you even think of using one of them, I will make good on my promise. Do you understand?”
Her mouth drops open in surprise and understanding flickers across her features. That’s why she isn’t mid-tantrum right now, she didn’t think I would know if she called for help. “I understand,” she whispers.
“I thought about writing you a script but figured Storm would see through it if he thought you were reading from something, so I’m going to tell you around about what I want you to say, and you’re going to say it. Okay?”
Snow nods, her eyes dropping to where her hands are bundled in her lap. I hate seeing her so dejected, but this is just how things are going to have to be for the moment.
“Good girl. Now, I want you to spin some story about how we’ve been sneaking around since we made the alliance, and you are so deliriously happy here with me that you want to spend some time exploring our relationship.”
“Absolutely not,” she snaps. “We do not have any kind of relationship. I don’t know what the fuck you think it is that’s going to happen here, but it sure as hell isn’t a fucking relationship.”
There she is.
