Page 35 of Depraved

He slipped the spoon of macaroni into my mouth and smiled. “There you go. Not so hard, is it?”

The words “fuck” and “you” came to mind, but again—choose your battles wisely.

After another bite of food, I looked at the tag on his cut which was still on the bed. The Blood Brothers tag caught my attention.

“What does that mean?”

Granite turned to where I was staring then looked back at me. “Shut up and eat.”

I studied him while chewing. There was a burning curiosity, a need to find out more about him. Even though he had been nothing but cruel to me, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something more. Something I’d need to dig for if I wanted to find it.

I swallowed the chewed mush of pasta and had to really concentrate on getting it down. The spoon was in front of my mouth as soon as I swallowed, but I turned my face away. “I’ll make you a deal.”

Granite frowned. “You’re hardly in a position to make a deal here.”

“True. You’ll probably sit there and force-feed me until I’ve eaten every last morsel of food. But since you know me so well, you’ll know I don’t need to shove a finger down my throat to make myself sick. All I need is a few gag reflexes, and all this food will end up next to the chocolate vomit on the floor.”

Those forest green eyes narrowed, lacking any sign of amusement. “Don’t bargain with me, Alyx.”

“Why not?”

“Nothing good can come from making a bargain with the devil.”

“Is that what you are? The devil?”

“Look at those ropes tied around your arms, then you tell me.”

Silence filled the void between us, our gazes locked. Through the fear and alarm I so desperately tried to control, there was a crackle of electricity in the air. It caressed my skin, sending waves of energy through my body. Maybe I was the Stockholm Syndrome type, after all.

“For every mouthful of food I swallow, I get to ask a question.”

He snorted. “This isn’t a show and tell.”

My mouth remained closed when he held the spoon.

“Open your mouth, Alyx.”

I pressed my lips together in a clear show of defiance.

An inscrutable expression appeared on his face, and it rattled me, making me lose the hold on my fear for a moment. But then he placed the spoon in back in the bowl. “Fine. But no personal questions.”

I frowned. “That’s not fair.”

He shot me a warning glare, which silenced me.

“Ask me personal questions, and you’ll eat even if I don’t answer. That’s the deal.”

“How about you get to ask me a question if I ask something you don’t want to answer?”

He smirked. “Trust me. There’s nothing about you I don’t already know.”

The look in his eyes—all hooded and dark—and the way his tongue lapped his lips made me shift in my seat. The crackle of electricity went up a thousand volts, and my body started to hum, clearly affected by him in a way that wasn’t suited for this situation. The stare he gave me was almost primal, feral, as if he was a hunter with his eyes on the prey he’d been waiting to devour. Me.

I cleared my throat, painfully aware I had pushed this bargain as far as he would allow. “What does Blood Brothers stand for?”

He glanced at his cut then back at me. “It’s a tag members get when they’ve killed for the club.”

A shiver swept through me, my skin cold. From the blood on his clothes, I knew he was a killer, but seeing it proudly displayed on his cut kind of drove that fact home. The food that had already settled heavily in my stomach threatened to come back up, but I swallowed, closing my eyes as I willed it to stay down.