Blackbird

  “Out?” I whispered. “You would let me out?”

  A wicked smirk pulled at his full lips. “Like I said, that will only be once I trust you. By that point, I won’t be worried about you trying to run.”

  There would never come a time where I would want to stay.

  “If we don’t ever get to that point, you won’t leave this level of the house,” he added quickly, diminishing my hopes of running from him. “Once you’re out of this room and have picked a new one, you’ll have a closet that we will fill. Until then, you’re only allowed the robes because you need to understand that you are mine and that means your body is mine. I want you comfortable in nothing around me.”

  My head shook as he spoke. Again, something that would never happen.

  “Your body is mine, but that doesn’t mean you’re here for sex, Blackbird. If you’d been bought by someone else, you might have ended up as a sex slave. Most of us don’t see the women we buy that way. You’ll help cook and clean, take care of the house . . .” He lifted a shoulder in an easy shrug. “You’ll take care of me and I’ll take care you.”

  I blinked slowly, trying to process what he had told me. “I-I-I,” I stuttered, then stopped trying to speak, because I didn’t even understand how to phrase the question in my head. Instead, I said, “You said no one else was here.”

  He nodded. “Yet.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Yet? Who will be coming here?”

  “You are only one of many women who will end up in this house.”

  “How long do we each stay?” I asked, and embarrassed heat filled my cheeks when he barked out a laugh.

  “Forever, Blackbird. My mentor has thirteen women in his home.”

  Thirteen?

  It felt like I had been punched. “Thirteen? I don’t—why? Why do you—why can’t I just go then? Who wants or can handle that many wives?”

  “Wives?” he asked condescendingly. “No. Women. Life partners. I will never marry any of you. I will never enter into a relationship with any of you. As I said, I own you, just as I will own them. There is nothing more to it.”

  Tears burned at my eyes, and my fingers automatically went to play with my ring before I remembered it wasn’t there. As I had so many times over the last week, I wondered how I had ended up here.

  I was supposed to be getting married soon.

  We wanted to have kids and move to a large plot of land where we could have horses, cows, and goats. And instead of a farm and the man of my dreams, I got the devil and twelve other women.

  “You aren’t meant to have multiple life partners. There’s supposed to be one and that’s it,” I whispered, and clutched at my chest, trying in vain to pull the invisible weight from it. “A life partner is someone you love and want to spend the rest of your life with. Not someone you claim to own. You can’t force someone into that—or multiple people for that matter.”

  One dark brow arched in response. In challenge.

  I gripped at my chest harder, still searching for the weight pressing down, and tried to force my tears back.

  And then it struck me. The man said if I ever gained his trust, I could leave.

  I knew what I had to do. I had to do whatever it took to get out of here. To get out of this nightmare and back to my life with Kyle.

  The man suddenly snatched my left hand from my chest and brought it closer to him, as if inspecting it.

  I slowly looked up at him, but never asked what he was doing.

  “What is your name?” he asked gruffly.

  Was he testing me? I thought of the furious look on his face before, and said, “B-blackbird?” making it sound like a question.

  An amused smile played at his lips for a second before it was gone. “No, what is your name?” he demanded.

  “Briar Chapman.”

  His eyes drifted to the side, away from me, and after a moment he dropped my hand. “Not anymore. Your last name is Holt, do you understand?” He didn’t wait for me to respond before he turned and left.

  Once the door slammed shut and locked, I glanced at my hand.

  What had he been looking at?

  Chapter 10

  Day 7 with Blackbird

  Lucas

  I stared at the screen of my computer as minutes came and went, unable to make myself do what I wanted—and knew I shouldn’t.

  She’s just getting into your head. They probably all will. They’ll all lie.

  I thought about the paper with the notes on it about Atlanta, and tried to tell myself that that was the truth. That everything Briar had said about parents and a fiancé had been a lie.

  But I had seen the grief when she’d said his name. I had seen the faint tan line on her finger from a ring. And now I was about to break the rules and destroy myself to find out the truth about her when it was the last thing I should ever know.

  I pulled up a news page and went to the list of breaking news links. My eyes darted down to the second one, and my hand tightened on the cursor.

  Missing Georgia woman, ‘Briar Chapman’, details.

  Just below that, another.

  Georgia Governor, Judy Armstrong, speaks out about missing future daughter-in-law.

  Forcing myself to breathe, I clicked on the top link and dropped my head to stare at the desk.

  I was fucking shaking.

  I tried to talk myself out of looking at the news story, but before I could click out of the web browser, I caught sight of the picture of a smiling blonde and felt the same pull I had every time I had looked at her this week.

  Dread deepened as I read every word of the article. Certain parts stood out: hard worker, loved by all, weeks away from wedding, graduated summa cum laude from University of Georgia.

  “Christ,” I hissed as I continued on, and found where they had interviewed Georgia Governor’s son, Kyle Armstrong . . . her fiancé.

  Everyone was sure she wasn’t a runaway. Her fiancé explained that they’d been headed out to brunch with his parents when a friend had come asking for help, and Briar had gone into work at the last minute for said friend.

  . . . never worked a Sunday . . . Armstrong thinks friend might be in danger, too . . . friend’s father brought in for questioning.

  Friend’s father.

  Her father.

  Shit.

  I shoved away from my desk and gripped at my hair. My breaths came out in hard rushes and sounded like I was in pain. I wanted to be. I wanted to be in the worst kind of pain, only to find something that hurt more.

  They had grabbed the wrong girl.

  Briar hadn’t been lying. She’d been taken by mistake.

  Her words and her life triggered something I’d locked deep inside me, and I was quick to force it back before it could overwhelm me, like I knew it so easily would . . .

  Not the same, I told myself.

  “Why do you want to . . . to keep someone locked in a room whose life and body mean nothing to you? Because they mean something to me.”

  Her broken voice floated through my mind, making me want to tear at my heart all over again.

  A dozen responses to her question had crossed my mind then, and were flooding it now. If I voiced any of them, it would be dangerous on too many levels.

  I went back to the desk and scrolled up until her smiling face was on my screen, and let out a heavy sigh as I stared at the girl I would never deserve.

  Coward.

  I was a goddamn coward.

  I hadn’t even looked in Briar’s direction when I’d put her plate of food inside the doorway for lunch or dinner the day before. And though I doubted she noticed since she was usually facing away from me when I entered, I still knew.

  I knew everything I wished I didn’t.

  If I would’ve seen her face—the broken way she looked at me—I would have said things that couldn’t be voiced. Would’ve apologized for things I couldn’t be sorry for.

  And despite my need for more time away from that face and those shattered eyes . . . I
couldn’t take it.

  I stepped in that next morning with her breakfast in one hand and a chair dragging from the other and immediately her singing halted. Her body visibly tensed as she took slow, calculated breaths before looking over her shoulder at me.

  The hatred that poured from her hit me hard enough that a weaker man would’ve stumbled. Instead, I let that calm wash through me until I felt nothing. I needed to feel nothing if I was going to get her through this.

  If she was surprised that I was coming toward her, she didn’t show it.

  If she wanted to hide her fear, she needed to work harder.

  “Blackbird,” I murmured gruffly, set the plate on the edge of the bed, then stepped back and positioned the chair so I would be within reaching distance of her. Once I was settled in it, I dipped my head toward the food, and said, “You might as well eat, because I’m obviously not leaving yet.”

  She held my stare with narrowed, hate-filled eyes for a few seconds as her shoulders lightly shook before finally turning around and taking a bite of her food.

  “We need to work on your progress,” I said once she’d taken a few bites.

  Her hand halted on the way back to her mouth, and her eyes widened. “My progress. What progress?”

  I relaxed into the chair and folded my arms across my chest. My eyes dipped over her robe-covered body in silent answer before I said, “We need to get you out of this room.”

  It was immediate, the hunger that replaced the confusion, and then the fear and revulsion that replaced that hunger. She wanted out of the room just as badly as I needed her out of it, but she wasn’t ready. I knew she wasn’t, but I needed to push her or she never would be, and never wasn’t an option. There was an expected timeline she had to follow, and I couldn’t afford for time to run out with her still in this room.

  The hand that wasn’t holding a piece of fruit slowly moved up to grasp at where the robe covered her chest, as if to make sure nothing could be seen. The shaking of her shoulders gradually grew stronger and stronger until her entire body was trembling.

  “I can have a conversation with you and not scream for help or try to run,” she said on a breath. “Can’t that be enough?”

  My head tilted, and my voice hinted at the driest amusement when I asked, “Do I really need to tell you that that isn’t how this works?”

  But she didn’t respond, and she didn’t move. She sat there shivering with her hand still clasping the robe together and that piece of melon still suspended in air.

  “Why are you shaking, Blackbird?”

  A harsh, mocking laugh burst from her chest. But again . . . nothing.

  “Briar,” I said in a low murmur, and waited until her frightened eyes snapped up to meet mine. “It’s just a question. I’m sitting in a chair and you could be eating breakfast. So why exactly are you shaking right now?”

  The melon slipped from her fingers and fell to the plate as a stunned breath filled the space between us, and her small frame jerked with a full-body shiver. “Because of w-who you are and what you’ve done.”

  “What have I done?”

  She looked at me incredulously, and tried to voice the words again and again before they finally came out. “The other night I thought you were going to rape me, and you said you woul—”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, and my voice swam with honesty.

  “Right now? Or today? Or does that include tomorrow too?” she asked as her voice cracked and tears filled those broken eyes.

  I bit back my initial response and instead echoed, “I’m not going to hurt you. But we need to get you out of this room.” I shifted forward, and watched every movement of her body as I rested my arms on my knees and clasped my hands together.

  Her chest hitched and her body jerked, but she didn’t move away from me.

  “Now, tell me why you’re still shaking.”

  “Because I can’t do this,” she said immediately, her voice weak. “I can’t do what you want me to.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she asked, “Is this a lesson?”

  Her question slammed into me and made me lose my hold on that calm as everything I shouldn’t feel assaulted me again and again . . . The way those broken eyes made me want to beg her to forgive me. The way her screams made me want to tear out my heart.

  Within seconds my calm was back and filling me, and I let my lips slowly curve into a wicked grin. “You’ll know when I’m teaching you a lesson.” Once her hatred from my statement had dulled, I nodded toward the plate again. “Eat.”

  Only seconds had passed before she picked at the fruit she’d been eating, and after she’d taken a few bites, I slowly reached forward.

  She stilled as my hand neared the robe just above her breasts, and her chest’s movements became exaggerated when I slipped my hand inside to slowly drag the material off one of her shoulders.

  When I looked up, fear-filled eyes were watching my every move before darting up to my face when I withdrew my hand. As soon as my hands were clasped again, I mumbled, “Eat.”

  A full minute came and went before she shakily resumed, and as before, I slowly reached forward after she’d finished taking a few bites.

  Her breath rushed out when I grasped the other side of her robe. “Please, d-d—” she said breathlessly but didn’t continue.

  My eyes darted up to hers once her other shoulder was bared, and I forced myself to ignore the way they pled with me and the way they glistened with unshed tears. “You need to be comfortable around me, Blackbird. Eat.”

  After another minute, she grabbed for the piece of toast. But even then, she just held on to it as she continued to violently tremble.

  I stood from the chair and walked to the edge of the bed. Pressing my knuckles to her chin, I waited until she was looking at me, then slowly dropped my hands to where she was grasping the satin material against her breasts.

  “You want to leave this room, and I can’t let you leave it until we’ve passed this point,” I said in a low, soothing tone as I removed the tight grip she had on the robe and bent to whisper in her ear, “Close your eyes and clear your mind. You can do this.”

  But I wasn’t sure that I could.

  Because my calm was crumbling, and I couldn’t hold on to that nothing that I so desperately needed to cling to in order to get through this.

  This girl and those eyes were crippling me in a way I’d never known—and couldn’t afford now.

  I knew what I needed to do, and yet . . . I wanted to protect her from this, even though I was the one pushing her. I wanted to pull her closer so I could feel her body pressed to mine. I wanted to brush my lips across hers—

  Nothing. Feel nothing, I maintained as I fought between covering her up, and continuing with what I knew we had to do.

  I forced that calm and that nothingness, and the tips of my thumbs brushed against her breasts as I bunched the material in my hands. Just as I was about to release the robe and let the material pool around her hips, a song fell from her lips, hushed and broken, and the sound made me pause.

  I looked at her face to see it tight with fear, and again, I lost my weak hold on my calm. Only that time, I didn’t try to snap it back in place. I let everything I felt consume me as I pulled her robe back over her shoulders and stepped away.

  “Another day, Blackbird,” I mumbled and let her voice follow me out of the room.

  Chapter 11

  Push

  Briar

  Days dragged on, yet blurred together. I wasn’t sure how long I had been here and wished I had a way of knowing. I had started counting the breakfasts, but eventually I couldn’t remember which day had been the day before. I’d spent days crying before my body stopped producing tears and a numbness settled over my heart and mind. As the numbness receded a few days later, the boredom settled in.

  I spent whole days singing, others staring at the wall just wishing for a window so I could see the outdoors, and still others waiting in fear, wondering what the day wou
ld hold.

  There hadn’t been another lesson, but there had been two more failed attempts of trying to push me into being comfortable with a man I hated with every fiber of my being.

  He seemed frustrated by my lack of progress, but I didn’t know what more he could have expected. He was evil incarnate; he had paid for me after I’d been stolen from my life and the man I loved. He’d tried to teach me a lesson by making me think he was going to use my body . . . all because I’d refused to eat when I’d first arrived.

  I knew I needed to gain his trust, and part of that was doing what needed to be done to get out of this room, but it wasn’t as easy as he thought it should be.

  This wasn’t letting a man undress me as anticipation pounded through my veins and made me ache for him. This wasn’t letting the man I loved look at me, bare and vulnerable and ready for him. This was dancing with the devil and attempting to come out of it unscathed.

  The door opened, but I didn’t look toward it as my throat closed up, effectively ending the song.

  It took a few seconds, but I noticed there was a charge in the room that hadn’t been there yesterday or the day before, and it sent a chill through my spine.

  He was staying . . .

  I blew a steadying breath out before I found the courage to turn my head to look at him from where I was lying on the bed.

  His power, darkness, and masculine beauty stunned me, as it had every time I looked at him, but I didn’t react to it. I watched him as he watched me, and I looked up at the ceiling when his eyes fell from my face to my body.

  Sin. He was pure sin. I hated him.

  “Blackbird,” he whispered in that voice of his. That invigorating, throaty mixture of warmth and softness that hinted at regret was just another part of his attraction . . . another part of his deceit . . . another part of him I hated.

  “Devil.”

  His face came into view then, his lips twitching into a brief, amused grin before falling, and then he was saying the words I didn’t want to hear . . .