CHAPTER ELEVEN

Murder.

It was the key element in my thought process. The slow and violent death of the person responsible for the terror in her eyes. I wanted to hunt them down like a rabid animal, to cause them unimaginable trauma mentally before starting on the physical. The sheer number of ways I would carve into them, but never allowing them death. It would be months of pain by my hands. Maybe years. I would dedicate my life to their suffering.

My fingers curled on my thigh. The knuckles bleached white. My nails bit into my skin and I thought of the dozens of fine scars marking her palm. The raw ones still so red and tender.

It baffled me.

The churning volcano of rage bubbling up my chest had no place. It had no base. No foundation. The girl meant nothing to me. I didn't even know her fucking name. To willingly want to disembowel and destroy every person responsible for causing even a tear was frustrating.

Maybe it wasn't her.

Maybe it was the idea of any innocent person being hurt that got me.

Maybe I was actually just a really nice guy and I never realized.

I almost laughed at the theory even before it finished.

I was not a good guy. I didn't ride into battle for the weak and helpless. I wasn't a saint, nor could I lie to myself into believing it.

I glanced away from the glass of orange juice placed next to my empty plate and fixed my gaze on Cyrus standing by the door.

"Check on her."

I would have gone, but I had already proven I was getting suspiciously too lost in this stranger. I needed to get my head on straight.

"And she's said nothing useful about herself?" On my right, Vance lowered the horn-rimmed glasses perched on his angular nose to pin me with his dark eyes.

I shook my head, but my attention was on Cyrus leaving the room.

I should have gone to get her.

"Should we take her to a bus station?" Oliver prompted, looking hopefully to Vance to agree.

"It might be best." Vance folded the arms over his glasses and set them next to his coffee mug. "She can't stay here, and we can't keep her."

I disagreed but let them finish.

"It's not safe for her here anyway," Oliver pointed out. "Look at what happened before."

I couldn't argue that.

I'd lost five other women there already, not including my mother and grandmother. Women didn't live long at Lacroix House.

"I'm not marrying her," I reminded myself, and them in case they had any ideas to that effect. "And she's not staying."

Oliver beamed. "Oh, wonderful. Wonderful, Thoran. I'm so happy to hear you've thought this out logically."

I had. I'd spent the last few hours before dawn going over the pros and cons of keeping her. The cons had won by a landslide when the only pro I could list was because I wanted to.

"But not yet," I said.

There were too many unanswered questions. Too much mystery. It may not have been any of my business who she was or why she was running, but I needed to know because nothing about her made sense. Not a thing.

"Not yet?" Oliver mimicked weakly. "Why not yet? What are we waiting for?"

It crossed my mind to point out that I didn't need to explain anything to him or anyone.

My house.

My rules.

Thankfully, it didn't come to that when Cyrus returned and the conversation dissipated somewhere to the back recess of my mind.

It was just him for a moment. His dark shape the only one in the doorway. I felt myself beginning to rise when she appeared behind him, head tipped back to take in the faded colors that once represented the ascension to heaven through a maze of pink and blue clouds. The plaster was dry and cracked. The cotton candy colors were patched with age and cobwebs, but hints of its previous grandeur was still visible beneath the neglect.

She followed the arch over to the windows and blinked. Her head cocked to one side to study the three sheets of grimy glass overlooking a stone patio. I thought of her comment about following the windows and wondered if she just liked architecture; the house was one of the most elaborately designed in the country. But she studied the frames and where the center glass opened. She seemed lost in her thoughts, an opening for me to take in her small, bare feet and long, slender legs. She was clad in only my sweater and miles of soft, creamy skin. Skin I knew was fully naked under that top. It did nothing to curb images of me pulling her to straddle my lap and prop her up on the table in the place of my plate. My hands physically itched to feel her warmth under my touch.

As if sensing the hungry prowl of the thing living inside me, pools the cool blue of a summer sky pivoted directly in my direction and held.

Fuck.

The things those eyes did to me harbored on dangerous. I should have been terrified by their sheer power, but all I felt was want. A deep, carnal need to watch them darken with every thrust of my cock—

I blew out a slow breath before I blew something else. I mentally shook away the satin web of heat wrapping around me and pushed a little too aggressively to my feet. The chair under me screeched against the marble, echoing with violence through the silence.

Her flinch didn't go unnoticed, but I let it go as I moved to pull her chair out. The one next to me. The only other one with the soft cushion. I tried not to think of her bare pussy leaving marks on the seat as she gingerly lowered herself down onto it.

"Thank you," she whispered, and I resisted the urge to tell her not to thank me. If she had any idea the thoughts flooding my mind, she would think I was sick and run out of the manor screaming.

"Hello," Oliver said the moment I stepped back to regain my place. "I'm Oliver."

I saw her mouth take its natural shape, the familiar layout it was used to before she pressed her lips together and cleared her throat.

"Katie."

I had to school my face to mask my annoyance.

While I had nothing against the name Katie, it wasn't hers and every bone, cell, and nerve in my body was desperate to know it. To taste it in my mouth. I wanted to growl it into her ear as I pinned her under me and fucked us both over the edge.

There was something definitely wrong with me.

Maybe I needed to get out more.

Maybe this was my body's way of reminding me it had been six fucking years since I'd had a woman. Six years of fighting to keep a pile of rock and glass and ignoring everything else.

"Where are you from, Katie?" Vance piped in, helping himself to a slice of toast.

The woman at my side — Blue as I decided to call her — shifted, gaze lowering to her empty plate. "I moved around a lot."

Vance glanced up, a square of butter posed on the edge of his knife. "With no clothes or belongings?"

In her lap, her fingers picked at the sleeve of her top. I could just make out their nervous fidgeting over the edge of the table.

"I lost them."

Vance seemed to accept this with a slow bob of his head as he slathered butter over his bread in slow, gliding motions. "Well, that's quite unfortunate, isn't it? Who was your friend?"

"He wasn't my friend," she retorted quick and sharp.

"Where did you meet him?"

She drew in a breath. "He was the friend of a friend."

"A lover?" Vance pressed immediately.

I watched the deep crease in her brow and the annoyance bright in her eyes when she pursed her lips. "No."

"Is there a lover we should keep an eye out for?" Vance plowed on. "A husband? Someone looking for you at this moment."

It was there.

A flicker.

A sliver of hesitation that had me narrowing my eyes.

"No." Whispered. Barely audible, but even less convincing.

So, that was it. A husband, maybe a boyfriend. Some fucking douchebag who hurt her. Someone she had literally abandoned her entire life to get away from.

My gaze went to the tightly coiled fists in her lap, and I knew she had reopened the wounds in her palms.

"Where were you headed?" Vance asked around a mouthful of toast.

"Can you stop interrogating the poor girl please?" Oliver interjected. "Let her eat."

Vance set his toast down on his plate and dusted the crumbs from his fingers. "This is not an interrogation. I'm simply having a conversation with a woman who just showed up in the dead of night dressed like an escort."

"Enough." The word came out of my throat when I had no memory of thinking them.

It didn't surprise me that Vance would know what she was wearing despite not having been there to see it. The whole manor would have been buzzing about it. The last woman to grace the halls of Lacroix House had been Penelope and that was over a year ago. This woman was an anomaly. A gorgeous one and in that dress, she was hard to forget.

But I would not allow him to disrespect her.

"She could be," Vance pointed out. "She could be anything. A spy perhaps."

"A spy?" she murmured as if the word was foreign.

"Yes, a spy," Vance shot back. "There are many who would love to get access to Lacroix House. Sending a beautiful woman in distress is exactly what I would do."

"I think there is a time and a place for this type of talk and it's not at the breakfast table," Oliver shot in. "She's not going anywhere. You can wait."

Vance responded, which had Oliver arguing back. The two continued in their usual fashion, but I was watching our guest. She hadn't said a word but sat still and silent staring at her plate while an array of emotions deepened the delicate lines of her face. If she were a spy, she wasn't a very good one. Her every thought was broadcasted in 3D across her face, ranging from confusion to finally settling on horror then fear. It was the fear that interested me.

Fear that she'd been caught?

Fear that the person she was running from might find her?

Fear of me?

It did make it much easier to decide on my own course of action. Oliver wasn't going to like it, but our new houseguest just became a whole lot more dangerous.

She couldn't be allowed to leave now.

I kept the thought to myself throughout breakfast. I watched her push a small pile of eggs not even enough for a child around her plate with the metal tongs of her fork but never actually bring any of it to her mouth. She made no sound, barely raised her head, but I didn't miss the flicks of her eyes towards the windows like she wanted nothing more than to crawl out of them.

Oliver and Vance squabbled the way they'd done for years. Useless things that never got resolved, but they kept on about it at every opportune moment. Cyrus stayed at his post by the door, a perfect statue, but I knew he would have his gun out and fired before a person could blink. It was so normal. Or, would have been if the proverbial pink elephant wasn't in the room.

"Could you take our guest to her room? We've got some matters to discuss," I said to Cyrus when breakfast ended and two of the kitchen staff had cleared away the dishes.

Cyrus inclined his head and started forward to help her out of her seat, but I was already up, hand curled into the back of her chair. Her gaze was fleeting, scared leaping from me and away with a flick when she murmured her thanks.

I said nothing. Not even when she followed Cyrus from the room.

"I don't trust her," Vance voiced the moment they were out of earshot. "With everything happening right now, her appearance is highly suspect."

"She was running for her life. Coincidences happen," Oliver protested. "She seems much too sweet to be a ... a spy. The very idea is ludicrous."

"Not when we're in the middle of a war. It's perfect timing." Vance turned away from the man seated across from him to fix his dark eyes on me. "I think we should treat her like a spy."

"What does that even mean?" my uncle exclaimed. "You want to torture her?"

Thin lips pursed even as Vance lifted his chin defiantly. "I think we should let Cyrus do what Cyrus does best and get answers that way. If she's innocent, she has nothing to worry about. We'll return her bag, put her in a cab and send her on her way. If she's not innocent, well..."

"No. Absolutely not. That is barbaric and I will not—"

"Enough." I pressed two fingers into the growing pulse between my eyes. "We are not torturing her. We're not hurting her." I opened my eyes and pinned my adviser with all the brewing anger rising up inside me just from his remarks. "No one is touching her."

Vance drew in a breath as if he too were struggling with his temper. "Then what is your solution, Thoran? I understand she is a beautiful girl and distracting when she's wearing so little, but would you feel the same if she didn't look the way she does?"

I ignored the finely sharpened question.

"No one touches her," I repeated, shredding each word like a warning through my teeth.

Vance sighed and sat back. "If you wish to remain blind to the matter, I will not be held responsible for the outcome. I can feel there is something wrong with her and you know my feelings are always correct. She is running from something we do not want at our doorstep, or maybe she is the victim here and someone is forcing her, but whatever the case may be, you cannot allow your perception to be swayed by a pretty face."

"It's not about her pretty face," I said. I lied. "She saw the roses. How long before she tells someone if we let her go, or the person who sent her? It's already hard enough keeping thieves, treasure hunters, and idiots from breaking in over a simple rumor. Imagine the chaos if it becomes fact."

The two men exchange glances.

"Well," Vance dragged out the word over neatly folded fingers, "there is a reason the rumors are simply rumors. Perhaps there really is a simple way of handling it."

"I won't kill her."

The other man sucked in a breath. His nostrils flared. "Then I hope you know what you're doing because you are making all our jobs harder."