Page 12 of Irrevocably

I’m not a man who is surprised often, if ever, but I was surprised to see that, can’t deny it.

She was cleaning the knife when I came into the bathroom, and at first, I thought she had it for protection. Then I saw the blood dripping from underneath the cuff of her blue sweatshirt, and when I pulled the sleeve up, I saw the cuts. Straight, neat, both the same length. Like the one on her wrist that I saw as she got herself ready for the party on the beach.

Deep enough to bleed but not deep enough to cause any real damage.

Deep enough to hurt.

Pain is a tool I use often and well, so I know when someone else is using it. And she is using it. She made those cuts herself.

After my parents were killed and Lazarus left me for dead, Enzo found me and took me to live with him. It was a hard life and his lessons were painful ones, but I learned to embrace the pain. It taught me endurance and gave me strength, but most importantly, it made me understand control.

You’d think a good little girl like Astrid wouldn’t need to learn those same lessons, but she’s obviously not a good little girl – not the bland, uninteresting little girl that I first thought she was.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I tell her, and oddly enough, it’s true. I certainly would if I was ordered to, but I don’t actually want to. I need her alive right now, but that’s beside the point.

“Then why are you here?” she demands. “What the hell do you want?”

I glance back down to her neck, where a bruise is half-hidden by her scarf, dark against her pale skin. A bruise I put there that night at the beach.

An unexpected kick of heat goes through me at the sight, and I have to pause and take a silent breath.

Sex is nothing for me but a physical release, and there’s plenty of that to be had in Enzo’s house, with women who are paid good money to be available for his soldiers. I’ve never wanted any of them – I’ve trained myself not to want anything at all – but I take them now and then, because I’m a soldier not a monk.

But this … heat is something I’m unfamiliar with. Normal women don’t interest me, so I shouldn’t like the sight of my marks on her skin or be curious about why she enjoys pain and isn’t afraid of me or the death I could potentially have inflicted on her. Yet … I want to know. Was that truly surrender I saw in her eyes as I choked her? Did she like it? Did she want more?

“Did you hear me?” Astrid pulls against my hold again. “Are you even listening?”

There’s a flush in her cheeks now, and it’s pretty. It makes the ring of grey around her black pupils stand out like silver, and it goes down her neck, beneath the scarf, under her sweatshirt. A strange urge seizes me, to jerk the scarf away, rip her sweatshirt open and see just how far down that pretty pink goes.

But I’m not here for that. I’m here for one thing and that’s information. And I’ve decided on a different approach this time, since choking her didn’t seem to work.

I let go of her wrist, resisting yet another mad impulse, to lick her blood from my skin, and reach for a paper towel from the dispenser instead.

“I’m sorry.” I make my tone as apologetic as I can as I wipe the blood off my fingers. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you. I just saw the blood and…” I trail off and give her a rueful smile. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to startle you. I only wanted to find you to apologise for what happened on the beach.”

She blinks, clearly taken aback. “You wanted to apologise?”

I ball up the paper towel, toss it in the bin, then grab another and hold out my hand. “Let me clean that up for you,” I say, nodding at her arm.

This approach has put of her off-balance, and she doesn’t know what to do now, so I take her arm once again, and after running the towel under the tap at the sink, I begin to dab at the blood on her skin. She stares at me as if I’m an alien straight from Mars, but she doesn’t pull away.

“I don’t have any excuse for my behaviour,” I go on, continuing to wipe her blood away. “I was out of line, way out of line. It’s just that my sister is involved with the Hellhounds and I’m trying to get information about them.” Another purposeful pause and a change of tone. “I’m worried about her.”

Astrid blinks again, her mouth slightly open. “Oh … I … I mean, why didn’t you just say that?”

“I should have.” I throw the towel I’m holding away, grab a third, wet it, and then clean up the rest of her forearm. Her skin is very pale and very smooth. It feels like silk beneath my fingertips. “But she’s been missing for a couple of days, and I’d had a few beers, and I guess I was going a little out of my mind.”

A crease appears between Astrid’s fair brows. “If you’d told me, I could have talked to my friend Wolf. You know, the guy who hugged me.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t thinking properly,” I say. “I fucked that one up, didn’t I?” I make one last pass of the towel over her skin without touching the cuts, which have clotted nicely, then I release her arm, straighten, and toss that towel in the bin along with the others. “Let me buy you a drink to make up for it.”

She’s edging away from me, pulling down the sleeve of her sweatshirt and eyeing me warily, not trusting me one inch. “You know, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she says, shrugging the strap of her backpack higher on her shoulder. “I’ve got a lot of work to do and⁠—”

“Oh, come on,” I interrupt easily, turning with her as she edges around me, trying to make for the door. “It’s just one drink and it won’t take long. I’ll even promise not to choke you afterwards.” The door is at my back and I’m blocking it. She can’t leave unless I move.

Her jaw is tight, her chin lifted. Suspicion glitters in her eyes. Little Tinkerbell isn’t stupid. She wants to believe in my change of mood, but she can’t quite let herself yet.

I find myself pleased by her doubt, which is odd considering I need her to believe me. Or maybe I don’t need her to. Maybe I’ll just grab her by the throat again, push her up against the door, take that little knife of hers and cut pieces off her until she gives me what I want.