Page 550 of Coal Hearts

Henri went terrifyingly still. “You’re right. I’m not.”

“Pity.” The Master chuckled. “But oh well. Eight new treats to sample. Tell me.” He rubbed his chin and looked at the jewels on the stage. “Have any caught your eye because I have first dibs on the blonde and would hate to find you being annoying and paying yet another fortune to keep her out of our reach.”

“Nope. She’s all yours,” Henri muttered.

“You bloody bastard,” I hissed under my breath, my rage pouring free.

Peter’s head snapped up across the ballroom. Rachel shot me a wide-eyed look as she kneeled by the stage waiting for Victor.

Oops.

I hadn’t meant to say that.

Henri wasn’t the one I was furious with.

It was this.

This sick energy percolating in here. The rancid lust from horrible men and petrified fear from captives.

Rolling my shoulders, I whispered, “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.” Henri sighed with stark weariness, not reacting to my fire.

I hated that he didn’t react. If he snapped. If he snarled. If he burned with me...there’d still be a chance. A chance he was still in there...still the one person I couldn’t stand to want and the one man I needed above all others.

“I am a bastard.” He nodded.

I hated the monotone, the dead tone.

Twisting to look at him, my temper sparked again, driven by loss and loneliness. “You know what? You are a bastard.”

He froze.

His grey eyes flared.

The other Master huffed and looked back at the stage.

God, Ily...now what have you done?

But something pushed me, needled me.

He had to snap somehow. He had to wake from whatever misery had drugged him.

Slowly, incredibly, a flare of silver light appeared in his shutdown stare. “You’re agreeing with me now? After trying to come onto me all month?” Bending over me, he breathed into my ear, “I might be a bastard, but I’m the only one ensuring you stay alive.”

“How? By ignoring me?”

“By staying the fuck away from you,” he snarled.

Finally.

Passion.

Pain and passion and spark.

I raised my chin. “So you’re not a bastard...you’re just an asshole.”

God, Ily!