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Stalking around me, he raked a hand through his hair, his voice like a snake wrapping around my shoulders. “Bet he didn’t tell you that. Bet he didn’t tell you a lot of things. You say you’re his, but do you know how far he’ll go for those he loves? How much fucking shit he’ll endure just so you don’t have to?”
I rubbed at a flood of goosebumps over my arms. “I know enough.”
“You know enough,” he repeated with scorn, nodding as if I’d said something ridiculous. “Bullshit.” He paced around me again, his eyes all over me. “Did you know I told him to stop volunteering? To stop trying to save us all?” He wiped a hand over his mouth, his body turning jerky with history. “Some nights, he’d shit blood for hours after they were through with him. He stopped eating. His nightmares kept us all awake. He could barely walk after the guests finished using him. Yet he never once stopped protecting us. Never once turned his back on our pain, even when his was greater.” He spat on the ground, his voice slipping to rage. “So you can understand why I’m protective of him. Why I’m not inclined to believe you. Why I will do whatever it goddamn well takes to keep him safe.”
“Well, that’s rich.” I snorted. “You left him for eleven years.”
He slammed to a stop.
Lightning-fast, he grabbed my cheeks, digging his thumbs against my cheekbones. “Do you think that was a fucking choice?!” His lips pulled back over his teeth. “You don’t get to question me when I’m finding it hard to believe a single fucking thing you’re saying, when you’re out here in the dead of fucking night, ru
I gasped and grabbed his wrists, trying to pull his hands off my face. “Let me go.”
His thumbs just pressed harder against my cheekbones, threatening to crack them. “Not until I get the truth out of you.” He bent forward, grazing his lips over mine. Dry and papery, death and destruction all in one. “I’m very skilled at getting the truth out of people these days.” He kissed me again, a fleeting threat. “So, I suggest you use these pretty lips to tell me what I really want to know.”
I fought him, but he just held me as if I was nothing. Nothing more than a moth about to be squashed. “Did he take you for his own? Did he use you like he’d been used? Did he break you like they broke him?” He shook me. “I hope he did. I hope he found a way to get retribution. To prove to himself he’s more than just a fuck toy. Is that why you’re ru
My teeth clacked together, biting my tongue. Blood filled my mouth as pain bloomed along my cheekbones. I scratched at his wrists, digging my nails deep. “You have it all wrong.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“I’m not ru
“Try again.” His hands slipped from my cheeks and clamped around my temples, crushing my skull. “Go on, hurry up. My patience is almost gone.”
Tears oozed from my eyes as I continued to fight. Fight against an unmovable wall with no heart. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’ll do a lot worse if you keep lying to me.”
“I’m not lying!” I kicked at his legs. “Let me go!”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know!” Fear once again crashed through me. Where was he? Was he okay?
God, Kas! Where are you?
“Convenient.” He crushed my head harder, a vise ready to crack me in two. “One last chance.”
“Stop it!”
“Tell me what I want to know!”
“Stop hurting me, and I’ll—”
“I’ve had enough.” His fingers feathered out over my head, delivering pinpricks of agony as he pressed harder, building pressure and shoving me into blinding pain. “I’ll find him myself.”
“Please—!”
Jareth—if it even was Jareth—suddenly disappeared.
A blur barrelled into him, his hands ripped from my head, his fingers taking strands of hair with him as he was snatched away and yanked into the dark.