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Boone

The moment he leaves, I cross the room and lie down on the bed without bothering to check whether the door is locked behind him. I don’t approach the table or take a single bite of whatever he prepared for me. I simply close my eyes and will myself to sleep because unconsciousness is the only place where I don’t have to think about what tomorrow will bring.

I’m still sleeping when he comes into my room the next morning, and judging by the darkness beyond the window, the sun hasn’t even begun to rise. I wake when his hand rubs my shoulder. The candle he’s holding flickers against his face, throwing shadows across his features, and I react without fully understanding what woke me.

I flinch so hard that I roll onto my side and nearly tumble off the bed. I don’t mean to do it. I don’t even realize I’ve moved until I’m staring up at him with my heart pounding and every muscle in my body drawn tight. Knowing he’ll hit me has changed something, and now even the touch of his hand is enough to make me recoil from him.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit up with my back facing him. I don’t want him to see my face. More than that, I don’t want to see his.

“Get dressed,” he says quietly. Then he lifts the candle higher and looks at the clothes I slept in. “Or, in your case, change out of what you had on yesterday.”

I breathe in deeply and let it out slowly as I try to come to terms with where he intends to bring me. For weeks—months, even—I begged and pleaded until my throat was raw. I cried, fought, argued and did everything in my power to convince him to bring me down the mountain. I wanted it badly enough that I nearly froze to death trying to get there myself.

Now that he’s finally willing, it’s the last place I want to go.

I don’t want to see everything I’ll never have back. I don’t want to walk through the village and see familiar faces. I don’t want to stand inside my home, smell the woodsmoke, or see my father sitting in his chair. I don’t want even a few hours of pretending that any of it still belongs to me when I already know how the day ends.

Even if I make it home, Rhys will force me back up the mountain. Back to the castle. Back into this godforsaken room.

It’s better if I don’t go at all.

My father is on his own now. He’ll have to figure things out without me or die trying, and the thought should tear me apart, but I don’t seem to have enough left inside me for that anymore. I close my eyes and picture him hiding on the shed roof while that furious rooster screamed at him from below, both of us hungry and cold while I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt.

A small smile touches my lips, but when I open my eyes, there are stone walls and faded rugs instead of home. The smile disappears.

“Please, just leave me here,” I say quietly.

But Rhys has never once done anything I’ve begged him to do. He doesn’t stop when I beg him not to fuck me. He doesn’t unlock my door when I cry that I don’t want to be alone. He doesn’t allow me down the mountain when all I want is a few hours with the one person who matters most to me. He certainly won’t leave me in my room now, even when I ask nicely.

“Get dressed,” he repeats flatly.

I whirl around, an argument already forming, but the moment I meet his eyes, I think better of it. No matter how hard I fight or how long I argue, the result will be exactly the same. I’ll end up wherever Rhys wants me, and I’ll have expended every ounce of energy I have left accomplishing absolutely nothing.

I close my mouth and turn away from him, reaching for the armoire doors. If I stay on the horse, or perhaps if he hitches a wagon to the animal, I can avoid the people I know once we reach the village. I can keep my head down and avoid familiar faces, avoid the house sitting at the edge of the village and, somehow, avoid my father.

Maybe if I don’t see him, I can pretend there’s still something waiting for me down there.

“Boone?”

I pull my shirt off and reach into the armoire for something warmer. His hand touches my waist while I’m still searching, and I go completely still. When his fingers close more firmly around me and turn me to face him, I look down at the floor. His hand leaves my waist and closes gently around my chin, lifting my face until I have no choice but to look at him.

“This is the version of you I wanted,” he says softly. “Submissive and docile. Now that I have it, I hate it.”

I snort and jerk my face out of his hand, turning back to the armoire to pull the warm, long-sleeved shirt over my head. The turtleneck bunches awkwardly around my chin, and when I lift my hands to fix it, Rhys catches my wrists gently and lowers them.

He straightens the collar himself. His fingers move slowly around my throat, folding the thick material neatly into place while I stand there without moving. When he finishes, his hands linger against the collar, then fall away.

“My goal was never to break you,” he says. “It was to keep myself from feeling anguish when you inevitably left.”

My hands stop halfway to the sweater I was reaching for.

I turn slowly. “What?”

“I was happy before you came here,” he admits.

I stare at him.