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No.
I force these thoughts from my mind. I have to stop making up excuses for Luci’s betrayal. If he has any good intentions behind what he’s done, thenhe’llhave to be the one to prove it.
And hopefully before it’s too late.
Valentine steps closer, drawing me out of my thoughts as reaches to tilt my chin up toward him with the bend of one long finger, his touch sending another shiver down my spine.
“Don’t worry, my pet,” he says with a snort, “your time hasn’t come, yet.”
“Oh,” I exhale as relief floods my body, not meaning to say anything aloud.
He drops his hand, turning from me to walk back to the door. I bend to pick up the black robe before reluctantly following after him, feeling more than a little self-conscious even as I slip the robe back on over my shoulders.
Valentine stops at the door, looking back at the girl floating in the strange liquid.
“You’d do well to remember her,” he says, his eyes fixed on the crystal case. “She crossed me once, and look where that landed her. She certainly makes for a magnificent trophy, but she could have been so much more.”
“How so?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Valentine’s eyes slowly shift to me.
“Despite what you may think, or what the others have told you, I could have made her my queen.”
“What stopped you?”
Valentine sneers in disgust at this question.
“Look at her, Evelyn,” he spits. “The ungrateful, bitch. What man can make a woman his queen who carries the love of another in her womb.”
My stomach twists angrily inside me, threatening to make me spew what little it has in it. I guess that confirms at least one of my suspicions, the baby wasn’t his.
But then, whose was it?
“Come, I grow tired of this,” Valentine growls, pulling open the door, as he holds out his hand toward me, “and take off the robe. You have yet to earn the right to continue wearingmyclothing.”
I quickly slip his robe off my shoulders and place it in his outstretched hand as I pass him, making my way out into the hall.
“Good girl, at leastyouknow your place,” he says, closing and locking the door behind him before leading the way back through the halls as I try to take mental notes. “Obedience and submission are some of the most alluring traits when it comes to female kind, don’t you agree?”
“If you say so,” I murmur in absentminded agreement, as I continue to try to make a mental map of the halls.
“I do say so,” he growls, snapping my attention back to him as I realize how my response probably sounded. “Whether or not you agree now, you’re young enough to learn. You haven’t yet been tainted by the bonds of others.”
Tainted?
Again, his choice of wording makes me feel ill.
I’ve always known men like him existed. Men who could have as many women as they wanted, but expected their ‘queen’ to be untouched by another. Yet, somehow, actually knowing one in real life is so much worse than even I imagined.
I keep these thoughts to myself, forcing myself to bite my tongue as we walk. Several of Valentine’s men round a corner up ahead, and these angry thoughts are chased from my mind as I’m suddenly made even more self-conscious by the way they turn to look at me.
Just like Valentine, they make no effort to hide their lust. I glare back at them, but this only serves to make them even bolder as they smirk back.
Dropping my gaze to the floor, I wrap my arms around my chest in an attempt to give them a little less to look at.
Is this kind of behavior encouraged by Valentine? If so, I wonder how much of a role they’ve all played in the demise of Anna and the other women.
It makes me sick to even think it, but I have to be careful. For all I know, they could be just as dangerous as Valentine.
