Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,100
Isaac clicked his tongue. “And yet you think your love is different from mine? Let’s face it: we’re apex predators. We’re bred for something different, you and me.”
My heart hammered in my ears as Isaac started walking toward me, still casually playing with the whip to keep the threat fresh in my mind.
“And what’s that?” I refused to back up a step, but I calculated the distance in my mind.
“To take.” Isaac’s eyes gleamed with a savagery that chilled me to the bone. He was talking about Slate that way—the man who had unlocked the tender side of me I hadn’t even dared to acknowledge. “To have. And I had him first. You lost.” Isaac raised his whip overhead, and with one flick, circled the tails around himself. “If I want him, he’s mine. That’s how it works.”
No. I’d walk into a fire for Slate. It was nothing to face down this piece of shit who thought he owned the man who had pledged himself in all faith and innocence to me.
I’d keep my boy safe at any cost.
“Leave now.”
I didn’t have weapons to back up my words—just the flogger in my bag. Even if I did, it would be stupid to get into a hand-to-hand fight here on the street.
The whip wasn’t my first choice in the dungeon, much less right now. I was relying on instinct I’d learned from watching others with far more experience.
Isaac said nothing, lazily flicking the whip around his head once more. Like he was waiting for me to come to my senses and leave. As if, I thought and stared him down.
“Fine. You had your chance.” Isaac’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward.
It was on… and seconds from now it would be over. I had to make sure this ended the right way, for Slate’s sake.
The whip arced through the air toward me. The tip seemed to shimmer in the lamplight, and I heard it cut through the air with a keen whine as I jumped out of the way. Isaac’s arm flexed and he turned side-on, bringing it up and around.
Before he could aim it my way again, I dodged and rushed forward, stripping him of the use of the weapon. I was too close now. That was the trouble with bullwhips—they needed space in the dungeon as well as on the street.
“Shit,” Isaac hissed. His arm was up in the air, so he brought the handle down toward the top of my head.
I grabbed his arm above the elbow, forcing it back so I could twist and get a grip on his wrist, too. He yelped as I forced his hand open, and the handle clattered roughly on the ground.
I hated every moment of contact I had to make with the sick motherfucker—and disabling him required me to get closer than I’d ever wanted to be.
But I asked myself what Seb would do and then moved on autopilot to do exactly that. I pretended I was trying to mollify someone at the club who was too amped up to listen to common sense.
I jammed my foot in the back of Isaac’s knee and the flat of my palm to his shoulder blade, bringing him down to the concrete sidewalk. I didn’t let him slip from my grasp, though. I had him exactly where I wanted him.
“Fuck you!” Isaac hissed and writhed, but with his arm behind his back, he couldn’t do much more than flail at the air and curse my name.
He wanted a fight—to cause a scene he could twist for his own purposes. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Isaac?”
At the sound of Slate’s beautiful voice, low and urgent, we both froze like boys caught with our hands in the cookie jar.
When I looked toward his house, he stood just on the other side of the front gate, still in his little leather shorts and dull black harness. The padlock dangling from his collar made my whole chest knot with pain. Metal glinted in Slate’s hand, catching my eye. He was holding a kitchen knife.
Isaac saw it at the same moment. He thrashed, nearly getting free. “Get off!”
I leaned my knee against his back and gripped his other bicep to keep him exactly where he was. “He’s not going to hurt you, you idiot,” I hissed. If Isaac thought that Slate was capable of it, he’d never truly known him—and that made me glad. “Even if you deserve it,” I added under my breath.