My beautiful Christopher stands naked before me, glaring as if he would kill me.
Is it wrong that I’m half hoping he’ll try? Nothing would give me greater pleasure at the moment than forcibly reminding him where he belongs. With me. To me.
I take a step forward. “Christopher, you need to calm down and—”
“No! Just fucking no.” He’s raised his hands in front of him, one curled into a tight fist.
My own hands twitch in response, but I slide them into the pockets of my slacks and run my gaze coolly over Christopher’s magnificent physique. His golden skin and high cheekbones are flushed, the amber lion eyes that are a gift of his combined Japanese, Cherokee and English heritage glittering dangerously—a dangerous animal in nothing but rage and bare skin.
“No? After what you’ve done, that’s all you have to say to me?”
“Oh, I have plenty more to say.”
I’ve ignored Aimée so far, but now I focus on her with every bit of detachment I can muster. She’s sitting up on the bed behind him, clutching the sheet to her perfect breasts as she watches the drama unfolding between Christopher and me. The fear in her crystalline green eyes and the tears sliding down her porcelain cheeks are gratifying—I do love a slave’s tears—but they also wound me in a way that makes my chest go tight and my hands clench into fists in my pockets.
I make myself turn from her and raise a brow at Christopher. “Is that so?”
“Fuck right,” he snarls. “To start with, there will not be any ordering me back—ordering us back. No cleverly devised punishments for my infractions, and sure as hell not for hers. I know damn well what I’m guilty of. But the thing is, Damon, I am done. Done with the slave bullshit.” He pauses, wiping his lush mouth with the back of his hand. “Fuck. It’s not bullshit. I know that. But I can’t do it anymore.”
“That’s fortunate, because neither can I,” I tell him, grinding my jaw against the anger I must keep under control. I am every bit as enraged as he is, for once. “Certainly not the way it’s been in the past.”
“Why the hell are you here, anyway?” he demands. “I’ve always come and gone as I pleased, contract or not. It’s our little dance, isn’t it? One we’ve been doing for four years. You’ve never come after me before.”
“You never took her with you before.”
His golden eyes gleam with dark fire as he takes a step toward me. “So this is about Aimée?”
“You know better than that,” I say flatly, fighting the urge to step back. I don’t like that he thinks he can intimidate me, and I like even less that he actually can. But I have to admit it’s also hot as hell. He’s absolutely gorgeous in all his lithe feline menace, which only infuriates me more. “Aimée is not the only different element this time. You and I both know it. But the fact that you would take another slave out of my House, that you would be party to her running out on her contract…it’s beneath you, Christopher.”
“God damn it, Damon. I left because I had to take her with me.”