Page 33 of Fallen Dane

She laughs softly, but there’s no real humor in it. “I should have done just that.”

Whitney is quiet for a moment, then sighs.

“I thought that night that you were the man I was going to marry.” She turns in my arms to face me fully. Her eyes search mine. “I begged my father not to make the deal with Gerald. I wanted you. And part of me still hates you for that.”

I understand that. A part of me hates her for making me want her, too.

The other part of me hates myself for letting the Ravens control me then. I’d like to say I wouldn’t make the same choice again, but I know how the game is played. Play the wrong card at the wrong time, and you end up dead. I have different power now that I’m playing with a whole different deck.

“The arrangement with Gerald was already done.” I fight to keep my tone neutral. “Your father had accepted his offer.”

“But you had the money. You had the power in your family’s name.” She pauses. “Why didn’t you?”

The hurt in her voice causes an ache in my chest. I don’t know what the fuck that feeling is, and I don’t like it one bit. But what’s done is done.

“The Council had wanted the match.” My voice is cold and direct. “I was twenty-four years old with three kids and had already lost a wife. I was still proving myself within the Ravens. There was nothing I could do then.”

“So you didn’t fight for me.”

“You were raised in this world just as I was, Whitney.” I’m losing my patience, but I cup her face so she will hear my fucking words. “I wanted you, Whitney. But they would have killed both of us. Surely you know that. Now I’m the one who sends the Talons to drag back or kill the ones who run.”

“And now?” Her voice is barely a whisper.

“Now you’re mine because I paid for you and married you. The Ravens can’t take you from me.” I stroke her jaw with my thumb. “I take what I want, kitten. But I’ve learned to play this game.”

“So if the Council told you to give me up,” she says slowly, “you would do it?”

The question hangs between us. She’s testing me. And I don’t like being tested.

The truth is that I would kill every member of the Council before I let them take her. But that’s madness, and I don’t even want to acknowledge that reality to myself. That would be admitting that she has power over me, and I can’t do that.

“The Council won’t tell me to give you up. You’re my legal wife. You belong to me by every law the Ravens recognize. I control your fate with the Ravens, and your place is here with me now.”

She trembles against me, and I search her face in the silence. I can’t read what she’s thinking when she was so easy to read before. Then, she turns back around in the bath, leaning back against my chest.

“I understand.”

The words sound more like she’s trying to convince herself. She needs to believe she’s safe with me. That I’m the one in control of her future and there’s nothing that will happen to her. Whatever Harrison is planting in her head, I’ll get it out of her soon. Then I’ll deal with him.

I’m going to break one of his bones for every single second he’s made her worry.

I tighten my arms around her and kiss her temple. It’s a first for me. There has never been another like Whitney. I’ve never held a woman longer than it took to fuck her.

I’m Dane Sinclair. I’m always in control.

But my wife has taken hold, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I’ll start by dealing with Harrison Lockwood.

Chapter 7

WHITNEY

It’s been one week since the bath where, for a brief moment, I thought I could convince myself he might choose me over the Ravens.

But I know he won’t.

And I can’t figure out a way to murder Harrison on my own. I can’t get to him. I don’t know how to reach him without Dane knowing. I can’t trust Dane not to turn me over to the Council for murdering Gerald, so I can’t ask him to help me murder a member of the fucking Council.