His heavy footsteps on the stairs thudded through my tender head and my palms started to sweat, the crop I had hold of and hidden behind me slipping until I tightened my hold.
Taking a deep breath, I stood and waited.
He looked shocked to see me out of bed, his eyes widening on me but a large smile making his green irises dazzle in delight.
“You’re awake.”
“No, shit,” I hissed.
He stalled, his foot hovering halfway between the steps but the twitch of his lips told me he found my anger amusing. “And back with a vengeance, I see.”
“What the hell do you expect? What the fuck is going on? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The words tumbled from me in a rush of fury.
Running his tongue across his lips he took the final few steps down. “Well, to say yesterday you couldn’t string two words together, it seems you’re adamant to make up for that today.”
“Don’t mock me, Anderson. What… why are you doing this?”
Shrugging casually, he took a step closer to me. His eyes narrowed and he inhaled sharply. “I suggest you put the crop down, Kloe.”
My heartbeat stilled for a second but I pushed my shoulders back. “You want it? Then come and get it.”
“Feisty.” He laughed. “I think I like it.”
His amusement amplified my fury and I felt the flesh of my lip pop under the pressure of my teeth. “Just tell me why.”
“Why?” He pursed his lips, musing over the word. “There’s lots of reasons I can’t explain to you yet, but mainly because you owe me this.”
Surprise made my eyes widen. “I owe you nothing, Anderson.”
He laughed, his head tipping back but when he looked back at me his face hardened, his eyes darkening to granite and his jaw clenched tight. “Four years you owe me, Kloe. That’s one thousand, four hundred and sixty days of you that belongs to me. And believe me, you’re going to pay for every single one of those days. And I’m going to make you beg for every – single - minute of that payment.” He took a step closer to me but his words had rendered me frozen to the spot. “Until every drop of blood that keeps you alive is spilled into my hands. Every burning touch on your skin that belongs to me will torture your soul with intolerable lust. And every single little breath you owe me will make you suffer in agonising pain. In blood - in lust - and in pain.”
Fear curdled the blood that ran through my veins. My mouth was so dry I was unsure if I could speak. “I don’t understand.”
I’d lost all motor skills, my brain helpless against the terror that rolled over me and my limbs numb with shock.
Reaching behind me, my breath stilling at his closeness, Anderson gently took the long, thin whip from my hand. “You promised me you wouldn’t leave me, Kloe.”
I stared up at him. He was crazy.
“And you had no trouble in breaking that promise.”
“I couldn’t…” I stuttered. “I was fired, Anderson. Because I grew close to you. I didn’t have a choice…”
His finger pressed to my lips, shushing me. “We all have a choice, Kloe. You just made the wrong one at the wrong time.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But we all have our little triggers, don’t we? Mine is broken promises, and yours… what is yours, Kloe?” He pulled a square of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “I appreciate your inventory of my food supply, by the way. Saves me shopping.”
Tears prickled my eyes, the situation that was becoming more and more clear turning my fury into horror. “So you’re going to hurt me because I made a choice to save you?”
He hadn’t expected that. His brow creased and he studied me closely, stepping even nearer to my trembling body. “Save me?”
“I was given the choice of leaving Seven Oaks or sanctioning your release. You needed that place. You needed what only they could offer you. You were so broken…” My own words laughed at me. Shaking my head, I released the breath from my lungs and sagged. “You’re still so broken. So alone.”
He flinched.
“Is that it?” I whispered when I caught his reaction. “Loneliness? Solitude? Is that why you’re holding me here?” I looked around the drab square of concrete, the metal of the chains making me physically recoil. “Somewhere I’d have thought you’d never want to spend another day.”
Leaning towards me, his narrow eyes filled with loathing and arrogance. “You still don’t get it, do you? After everything I told you…”
“You told me nothing, Anderson. You told me about Tamsin, but everything else you locked up tight. You refused me access to your emotions or your story. How the hell you expected me to help you in such a short space of time, and with such little give from you…”
“I didn’t expect you to help me, Kloe.” Anger made his face contort and my stomach twisted with disgust. “I wanted you to understand me.”
“I tried…”
He shook his head angrily, inclining closer until I could feel the heat of his rage upon my cheek. “No! You didn’t. You pretended to listen but you didn’t actually listen!”
“But this…” I stammered. “Killing people, holding me here. Why? WHY?”
He blinked at my temper and his characteristic cruel smirk curved the flesh of his soft lips. “I’m going to show you why. I’m going to make you listen. And I’m going to force you to accept what you should have recognised four years ago.”
I froze when he trailed his tongue up the side of my neck, a flood of goosebumps breaking out against the damp skin he left behind. “I’m going to make you understand me. All of me. Every ounce of the darkness that no one, not even you, can fix.”
My throat closed in when he pressed a tender kiss to the cool skin below my ear, the gentleness to it a huge contradiction to the vehemence in his words.
“And then I’m going to make you see yourself.”
His promise came with a warning. A warning that scared me like nothing before. “You can’t do this.” My own threat was weak, the fear of his vow making every part of me scream out in silence. Not because I refused to believe him, but because I did believe him. And I didn’t want to see the real me, the me I had refused liberation to. The me I knew lurked deep beneath the Kloe Grant I had conjured to deal with the horror of my childhood.
I couldn’t breathe as nausea clogged my throat. Anderson leaned back, his fierce studying gaze seeing into the very centre of me as his fingers softly curved along my jaw. “Shh,” he whispered. “First you get to see the me you should have seen so easily before, Kloe. And only if you survive that will you have to face yourself.”
Fear and shock grounded me when Anderson pressed a kiss to my lips.
“And I promise, if you accept who I am, who you really are deep down, and the truth that your soul is as dark as mine.” He drew his finger down my throat and along the hem of the unfamiliar t-shirt I wore. “Then I’ll let you go.”
My mouth fell open as I gasped for air.
“And I never break my promises. Not like you, Kloe.”
Giving me a wink he turned and walked back up the stairs, the heavy lock of the door making me wince.