Wood creaked, and his knuckles stood out stark and white. "I didn't trade your soul. I didn't even put it on the table."
"Only because you don't think you could get away with it." She stood and held his gaze challengingly. "But you would if you could. You said it yourself--you'd be stupid not to."
"In a world without consequences," he snarled. "You wouldn't be tempted? Not even a little? You could decide how the houses run, and you wouldn't have to be my queen. You could be queen all on your own."
They sounded like Cerys's words from his lips. The perfect justification for why it would all be in her best interests as well as his. She could help, change things. Pretty lies, because no one really wanted things to change. The men in power benefited from the situation, and the women in Two knew nothing else. The only way to really change it would be to burn it all to the ground.
Pretty lies. Dallas had to know that on some level, but he'd still considered Cerys's offer, honestly considered it, and Lex's anger died, choked out of existence by the misery that overwhelmed her.
She focused on a thin sheen of bubbles tracking across the table. "I was fifteen when I left Sector Two. One of the maids told me Cerys had found my buyer--sorry, my patron. So I ran. I lived on the streets. I starved, I stole. I did everything but sell myself because I saw how that went down and I swore it wasn't worth it. Even if I died instead, it could never be worth it." Her eyes burned, and her vision blurred. "Shows what I know. I did it anyway, right? Sold myself."
Dallas exploded.
That was the only word for it. The chair shattered under his hands, and he flung the pieces away, upending the table in the process. Plates crashed and shattered, the bottles clattered and rolled, spilling beer across the carpet as Dallas bit off one word at a time. "You are not a whore."
She stood there in the mess, bits of food and broken glass on her shoes, as the first tears fell. "No, I'm worse. I didn't give you anything as simple as my body." He had her heart, her soul, everything.
Glass crunched under his boots as he took a step toward her, but he stopped with a jerk when she backed away. A scowl twisted his features. "Don't you fucking do that."
It wrenched a laugh from her. "Do what? Cry like a girl?"
"Don't twist everything." He took another step, slow and careful this time. "Don't back away from me like I'm some dangerous animal. You haven't even seen me scary."
She wasn't worried he would harm her--partly because he never had, and partly because no blow could ever hurt as much as his words had.
And if she told him that, he really would lose it. "How?" she asked instead. "How could you ever want to ask me to go back there?"
"Because it's not the same," he snapped, and finally it was honesty pouring from his mouth. Painful, brutal honesty. "You'd have the power over all of them. You'd be my equal!"
The icy chill seized up, solidified, leaving Lex frozen. Her wrist itched, and she absently rubbed her thumb over the ink marring her skin.
His equal. Someone who brought enough value to the transaction, who was good enough for him. If he'd made those kinds of judgments about her before, he'd never admitted them. But maybe now was different, now that he wanted to do more than collar her.
The leather was suddenly constricting, unbearable. She couldn't breathe, couldn't even think until she reached up and unbuckled it.
Dallas's teeth clacked together. "What are you doing?" he asked too quietly.
The collar fell away in her hand. "If grabbing at power just to have it is what it takes, I'll never be your equal."
"You're doing it again." He wasn't looking at her, not anymore. His gaze was fixed on her hand. On that scrap of leather. "You're looking for a fucking excuse. You're chickening out."
"Oh, honey. I wish I was." She could get angry, yell at him about this like she had the party for the prospects from Three. But she'd hate herself for giving in, because it would only happen all over again. "You have no idea, Declan."
He growled, his hands curling into fists. "So you're gonna walk away over something I didn't even ask you to do? What the hell else would you call that?"