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No good answer comes—either in my head or from him.
He stalks past me and flips something that shuts off all the screens that display the rooms in the house.
I thrust a finger toward them. “You can’t just turn that off and pretend you haven’t been spying on me.”
Though that seems like exactly what he’s doing.
His back still to me, he takes several deep inhales, resting his palms flat on the desk, head dropped low over the keyboard.
A few tense, silent moments pass before he finally shakes his head. “No, I don’t…” He raises it and turns back to me. “I monitored you that first day and night because I was worried about your foot and that you’d try to do something stupid, like climb out of the damn window. I only check it to make sure you’re asleep or in the bathroom before I bring anything in for you. Otherwise, it’s always off.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you only spy on me sometimes? That you skulk around in the only space that’s actually mine in this house while I’m likely naked in the connecting room?”
He flinches, his shoulders tensing, then turns away again, staring at the screens showing the rest of the property. “I wouldn’t—”
I offer a disbelieving huff before he can complete his objection. “Bullshit. You really are a beast, you know that?”
It happens so fast that I don’t have time to prepare.
He whirls toward me, his nostrils flaring, normally gray eyes a deep black, and leans in so close I can smell the sun and the sweat and the anger rolling off him. “If you want to see the kind of beast I really am, I’ll show you.”
WESTON
Beauty doesn’t understand.
She needs to.
I’ve tried to protect her from the reality of Barker Mountain, but Callista is far too comfortable pushing boundaries and demanding things I can’t give her.
The only way to put a stop to it is to show her what no one else has ever seen—the reason this peak spells death for anyone who sets foot on it.
She needs to truly see me as The Beast so she won’t fight me on stupid shit like the damn surveillance system.
I wrap my hand around her bicep and tug her toward the door.
“Hey!” Callista tries to plant her feet to keep me from moving her forward but yelps in pain, tugging her bad foot up with a wince. “Ow, fuck!”
Her distress and my role in it almost give me pause, but I can’t let any dangerous feelings for her stop me from doing what’s necessary in this moment.
Bringing my lips to her ear, her soft hair brushes against my upper cheek, and I inhale her honey scent, willing my body not to react the way it wants to. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be, Beauty. It’s clear to me you’re under the impression you can do and say anything you want while you’re here. Like you are somehow the one in control. I don’t think you have a fucking clue who I really am, but you need to see it.”
She recoils and tries to take a half-limped step back, gritting her teeth when her sole hits the wood plank floor. “Fuck.”
There’s no way she’s walking where I need to take her.
Which only leaves one option.
I lower my shoulder and toss her up over it.
She yelps. “What the hell are you doing?”
Her fists smacks my bare back, but I stride toward the back door, arm locked down over the back of her thighs to keep her in place.
“I am showing you who I am, so you’ll stop questioning everything and digging into affairs that aren’t any of your concern. You should have stayed out of this, Callista. You should have let your father and the Barkers deal with things on our own, but now that you’re trapped in the middle of it, it’s time you understood the ramifications.”
I should have shown her earlier, the very first time I got a taste of her rebellious attitude and knew she wouldn’t be a pushover.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, though.
