do and shoved around, I shed the proper demeanor that had been forced down my throat since I was a child, and I lost myself to the feel of it.
I’d felt powerful for the first time in years. Felt whole again because I knew there was a woman inside me that didn’t take shit from others.
She was there for only a flash of a second, it seemed. Callan stole her back the second he walked in the room and recognized her. Recognized me.
Obviously, it didn’t go as well as expected. When I’d tried to leave Callan’s room, Connor had fought me back inside it. Once I knew escaping wasn’t an option, I lost my ability to remain level headed. And that’s when I started breaking whatever I wanted.
It was stupid of me. I knew that. But I was done being the kept woman my parents had made me, only to have Callan do it when I was older.
I was done.
Finished.
Sick of it all.
But then Callan had come home and forced my body to betray me. He pulled the worst out of me and then laughed when his aggression was stronger than mine.
When had he become so strong? I don’t know what I expected. The boy from my past? For us both to slip into roles we’d known so well? As easy as shedding the present to slip into another skin that didn’t fit anymore.
Mine did.
His didn’t.
I could still hear him laughing against my ear because he knew, no matter what I did, he’d win. He’d waited for this, for the moment when Lisbeth Rose tried rising from her ashes just so he could burn her down again.
And it had burned.
The pain of it agonizing.
The truth of him stealing away every instinct I had to fight with unsheathed claws.
After he was done with me, he had me taken to a servant’s room and locked away for safe keeping. I think that hurt the most because it meant that he’d gotten what he wanted. What he had been pushing me towards all along.
This was his game and I was just a pawn, a squat player that could move only one step in whatever direction I pleased, while he swept in to claim the entire board.
I’d been in this room ever since.
Throughout the night, Gretchen stepped in at least once an hour to check on me. She didn’t bring up my emotional state, or what she knew I’d witnessed at the arena. Instead, she walked me to the bathroom when I needed it and brought me water and cold compresses for my face because my tears wouldn’t stop falling.
Disappointment had twisted her usual scowl, the click of her sensible shoes the only lecture she had to give me.
I’d left my pride in Callan’s room, there against the wall where he’d ripped open a curtain to reveal all the things I’d never known.
My father was a murderer and a rapist, and I’d happily built my life on the bloody pedestal he’d built for me.
I’d been happy for the silence of the servant’s room, for the time alone to digest the truth of the crimes my family were involved in that had financed my spoiled childhood.
Eventually, I’d fallen into an exhausted sleep, but only sporadic bursts of it at a time. I was restless and hurting, angry and confused.
I’d assumed Callan had feasted on his prize after the fight, and I hated to admit how much it hurt to know what he was doing. But then he told me he never touched her, he admitted that it was all just a sordid ruse.
Could I trust him?
An intelligent woman would have written Callan off the minute the truth came to light. Yet, I couldn’t make sense of the things he’d said to me. I’d seen goodness in him, hadn’t I? I’d heard sincerity in his voice when he spoke to me in the silence of his shadowed room. When he’d asked me if he was good enough. I’d witnessed the care he took of the servants. The care he took of me when I was injured.
Even if he had been the cause of some of those injuries.
How could a man like that turn around and be so cold? So callous?
And why did my heart hurt so much?
I think that was the worst question of all.
Why did it even matter?
It was morning by the time the door opened again, and while I’d expected Gretchen to walk through, it surprised me to see Holly.