Page 69 of Brutal
Nate lifts an eyebrow. “That sounds like an order.”
“It is.”
He almost smiles. “You’re not in a position to issue those.”
I don’t move. “Try me.”
Nate stares at me, and I see the shift behind his eyes. He isn’t worried about right and wrong. He isn’t warning me as a brother. He’s reassessing the danger.
Delaney isn’t just a woman asking the wrong questions anymore.
She is something that can move me.
That makes her useful to men like Nate. And right now? I hate him for it.
“You don’t get to use her,” I say.
“I didn’t say I would.”
“You thought it.”
He smirks. “One of us has to think.”
I smile again. “Keep telling yourself that.”
He shifts his weight. “If she matters this much, you should have stayed away from her.”
Right.
As if distance could undo what’s already happened. As if I could go back to before I knew what her mouth felt like under mine. Before I knew the precise silvery shade her eyes turn when anger and desire crash together. Before I knew she would walk straight toward the dark if she thought there was truth inside it.
Beauty in the beast’s house.
Beauty demanding answers.
Beauty with no idea the house has teeth.
Maybe she should be afraid of me. Maybe that would save her.
But it’s too late for maybe.
Nathaniel lifts his glass again. “What exactly do you intend to do?”
I think of Delaney standing in her apartment.
I think of the old tale everyone gets wrong. The beast is never dangerous because he’s ugly. He’s dangerous because he’s starving. Because once he loves something, he wants it inside the walls where nothing can take it.
Mine is not a noble instinct. It is ancient. Male. Brutal.
I want her away from this. I want her out of reach. I want her where no one can touch her.
I want, and want is a bad place for a man like me.
I step past my brother and toward the door but then stop and look back.
His green eyes are fixed on me.
“Call her my weakness again,” I say, my voice low, “and I’ll show you exactly how strong I am.”
