Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
He dropped into the leather chair that faced the fireplace, worn smooth from years of sleepless nights, he propped his booted feet on the bearskin carpet and used the tracking filter to find any movement. The servants were downstairs, existing like silent shadows. Katya was reading a book, safely tucked away in her private wing. Ash was seeing to Stone’s aftercare—Ah… There she was, in the kitchen.
He watched as she snatched an open bottle of wine and carried it out. Tracking her journey, he fed his twisted obsession with her a little longer.
Lisichka. He’d called her little fox. The word had escaped before he could cage it, soft and possessive and entirely too revealing.
The motion sensors tracked her path from the kitchen to the bedroom they assigned to her. He should stop. He didn’t need to see anymore. He’d seen enough. The way she’d looked at him, hungry and trusting and a threat to every fucking wall he’d built around himself.
Instead, he sank deeper into the chair and watched her infiltrate his private home like she belonged there. Her ease bothered him. How dare she feel so entitled to their personal domain. She had no clue how deeply the three of them valued their privacy and how privileged she was to earn an invitation during off-hours. The only reason he agreed to let her stay was because he believed in keeping friends few and far between while keeping enemies close enough to kill.
Shutting herself into the bedroom, she pressed her back against the door and twisted the gilded lock with trembling fingers. Did that make her feel safe? Little did she know he had every key.
Her body language lacked the confidence she exhibited over the last hour. Now, she appeared shaky and nervous. A clever little fox on the run from a big scary predator, running back to her foxhole because she wanted to feel safe again. From him. From this world she’d thrown herself into with zero caution.
Foolish little fox, signing over her soul and committing to things she couldn’t imagine.
That thin piece of wood wouldn’t protect her from any of them. Nothing could.
She tilted the bottle back, her throat working as she swallowed several gulps. She appeared just as triggered as him by their last encounter.
Wine dripped down her chin as she pulled the mouth of the bottle away and gasped. She wiped her full lips with the back of her hand. No grace, no performance. Just a raw glimpse of her true state. A woman unraveling.
He’d done that to her.
No, she’d done that to him.
Hunter had sought the library for solitude but found her instead, curled up like she belonged there. The earnest frustration on her face as she tried to meld two of the most challenging languages in the world stirred something familiar and forgotten inside of him.
Those lost memories slammed into him hard enough to recognized the need in her eyes, that desperation to adapt and fit in, to survive. It was the first time he saw traits in her that resonated with him.
And that subtle connection carved straight through his walls. He’d been there. He recalled his own frustration, fear, and doubt from a time when he needed to make the best of a difficult situation. He’d struggled with the language, worried the words might never make sense. But he needed to learn English. His survival depended on it.
Like hers. Only she needed to learn Russian.
Now, she was doing the same. She wasn’t playing games or drifting through the days here with naive trust. She was calculating angles. Strategizing. And he admired her effort.
She could have gone to the sauna or swam in the pool. She could have leisurely read a novel or watched television. The atrium was beautiful for indoor walks. But no. She’d used her free time to better her situation, asking nothing of anyone else, and taking the initiative all on her own.
And damn it all to hell, that told him more about the kind of woman she was than anything else so far.
“Resourceful little fox,” he muttered, webbing his fingers over the screen of his phone to better read the expression on her face.
She set the book on the nightstand with careful reverence, fingers lingering on the cover. His chest tightened. That book had been his lifeline once. His loyalty toward Ash was cemented in that uphill battle as his good friend patiently taught him word by painful word as the world burned down around them.
He owed Ash an apology for the other day. He’d been out of sorts and unwilling to accept that they might benefit to having the sister of Jordan Calder in their home. Seeing Ash touch her…it unlocked emotions in Hunter he wasn’t in the mood to face, and Ash walked face first into his fury.
Hunter was still debating if he could trust her, but the longer she stayed the thoughts of punishing her for her brother’s crimes made less and less sense.