Billionaire's Captive Complete Trilogy - Stasia Black Page 0,31
many hours cultivating my precious roses…
I want to rage. I want to throw things and roar and scream.
But not while I have such precious cargo in my arms. I hold her to me and rub her back as the mud sluices out of her hair, the powerful water cleaning her.
And that’s when I notice that it’s not just mud swirling down the drain. There’s blood, too. I pull back from her and she lets out a little whine of protest, but I have to see what she’s done to herself.
“You’re hurt!” Long scratches wind up and down her arms.
She looks down at herself impassively and shrugs. “The rose thorns. It’s fine.” And then she flashes her big, luminescent green eyes at me. “I don’t mind the pain sometimes. My mom used to say that feeling pain meant she was still alive. It’s why she loved roses. They always come with thorns. Beauty plus pain. They were her.”
Then her eyes blink woozily and her forehead collides with my chest again. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“That’s right, honey. That’s good. I’m going to know everything about you. But first, let’s get you clean and warm.”
She nods into my chest, so much shorter than me that her head only comes up to the bottom of my chin.
My chest squeezes, and not just because she’s wrapped her arms around me. I’ve never— I mean, this isn’t what I was— I’m supposed to be the one—
“You’ll never be cold again,” I lean over and murmur into her hair, and she nods again, like she believes me.
Thirteen
Daphne
When I wake up, it’s the middle of the night and I’m shivering in spite of the fact that there are blankets piled on top of me.
“Daphne?”
It’s him. The Beast. The same one I ran from earlier today. Gods, I’m so cold. My teeth are still chattering. I can’t remember why I ran. I think he yelled and it all seemed scary? Or maybe I was scared of myself? All the things he’s made me feel since coming here?
“S-so c-cold,” I manage to get out through clattering teeth.
The fire is blazing in the corner. Even without glasses or contacts, I can make out that much. And when he moves from the chair by the fire, I can see his dark, hulking form moving closer to the bed.
But I’m not afraid. Not now and maybe not ever again. Not of him. Not of the man who brought me in from the cold and so tenderly held me and washed the mud out of my hair. Who tucked me in bed and murmured to me in that deep, rumbling voice of his the entire time. I don’t even remember the words he said, just the deep, reassuring bass of it.
A giant, cool hand presses against my forehead and I wince. I’m trying to get warm here, and he touches me with his freezing hand. I pull away.
“You’re burning up,” he rumbles. Of course I am. My immune system was depressed from stress and no sleep and the stint in the tower, and then a run in the freezing rain…
I frown groggily and peek one eye open at him. Then I squint. I don’t even remember closing my eyes. Huh. Funny.
He starts to pull away and walk out of the room.
“No!” I sit up in bed and hold out a hand to stop him, then the room whirls dizzily. I grab my head and wince. Ugh, my head feels full of cotton and I’ve got a deep, thudding headache.
“Don’t go,” I still manage to grind out. And then, more plaintively than I’d probably prefer if I were feeling one hundred percent, “Don’t leave me alone.”
But I feel like crap, so even as I collapse back onto my pillow, I still hold out a wan hand. The scratches on my arm are looking better, the healing salve he rubbed on earlier doing its work. “Please. Stay.”
And then I lose the fight to hold up my arm and it drops to the bed, too.
He hesitates a moment in the doorway like he’s second-guessing himself but then he comes back to the bed and sits beside me. I nestle against his hip. He radiates warmth.
“You’re so warm. Lay down beside me?” I murmur. “I just need to get warm.” A shiver wracks its way down my spine.
“What we need is to get your fever down.”
Then he does the last thing my feverish brain expects. He leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. Every