Blood Ties (Dinero de Sangre #2) - Lana Sky Page 0,32
I realize with a start.
Which means…
I see his arms strain as he wrenches on the faucet, sending the water streaming into the tub’s basin. Somehow, I can easily read his intentions. It’s like our minds are in sync, one and the same. I know exactly what he intends to do.
Kill me.
Kill me slowly.
Run! I scramble onto my hands and knees, my eyes on the door.
He’s already gaining on my position before I can even make a move. Cruelly, his hand latches onto a chunk of my hair, using it to drag me across the room to the tub. Then he yanks me onto my knees, forcing me to bend over the rim as the water churns below.
I can’t even suck in air before I’m submerged. The shock is more terrifying than the fact that I can’t breathe. All I can do is fight with everything I have.
I feel my legs kick against the floor as my fingers claw at his hand, nails scraping against his flesh.
He’s too strong. When my head is suddenly wrenched above the water’s surface, it’s entirely of his own will. I might as well be a gnat fighting against a mountain.
“Where is she?”
I sputter, more intent on breathing than compiling an answer.
With a growl, he shoves me down, and I’m under again.
Never, in my life, have I felt anything like this. My pulse is a thundering beat hammering through my eardrums, my lungs on fire, every nerve screaming, on red alert.
And yet, internally, somewhere in between his next vicious reprieve as he yanks me above the water, I realize that there’s no point in fighting. Let him win this round.
So, I make myself so limp he doesn’t seem prepared to resist.
“Shit!”
His voice echoes in tandem with a sickening thunk! Pain washes through my skull as pressure fills my nostrils. But this doesn’t feel like drowning.
It hurts too damn much. But then a flood of warm, hot liquid spills over my face, filling my nose and seeping into my mouth. He must be pouring it onto me, I realize, because I’m staring up at the ceiling now, choking on the substance that my brain belatedly identifies. Something far too thick to be water…
Blood.
“Ada, shit—” He grabs me, hauling me upright. This time, his method of suffocation comes in the form of a delicate, white substance that he presses frantically against my nose. “Tilt your head! I said, tilt your fucking head up!”
I obey him solely on impulse, the need to breathe outweighing all else. My mouth is open, though, gulping at the air, despite the pressure on my nostrils. He’s holding them both shut, forcing my head back against his shoulder.
Frantically, my gaze darts around him, trying to discern the source of the substance still dripping down my face. Blood. So much blood. I’m covered in it, and droplets of red speckle the floor.
“Why the hell did you do that?” His voice echoes off the walls, losing its emotionless cadence. Rage and confusion add color to his tone, enhancing his mysterious accent and giving his baritone a threatening timbre it usually lacks. “You’ll be lucky if you didn’t break your fucking nose—”
“I hate you.” It feels important to say that despite everything else.
He has me on his lap, I think, his legs sprawled over the floor beneath me. One of his hands loops around me from behind so that he can hold the tissue to my nose, while the other has both of my wrists in an iron grip.
To stop me from slapping him.
“I hate you.”
“I know,” he says, monotone once more. His chest rumbles against my back as he speaks, his breath on my ear, his grip unwavering.
“I will never forgive you for this.” A sob edges my words. I sound like a child, wailing and desolate.
“You won’t,” he agrees, forcing my chin even higher.
My nose is the source of the bleeding; I can tell now. I must have hit it off the tub. It throbs, sending pain lancing through my skull with every beat of my heart. Is it broken?
How fitting if it is. He took my mother away, my family, my life.
Why not take my beauty, too? It’s the only thing of value I ever had, and it’s somehow managed to outlast the other bastions of my life as a Pavalos. What use am I without my father to control my every movement and my mother to lurk obliviously in the background, pretending that she doesn’t realize the hell we’re both living under?