VALERIUS'S POV
The doors slammed open under my palm so hard the hinges shuddered. For a heartbeat, I expected chaos.
Anything that would justify the way Himari's words had carved straight through my spine. I expected her eyes shut, while she laid motionless.
However, I found her sitting.
Nara was curled on the corner of the couch beside the embedded waterfall. Her knees tucked up, with her fingers winding absently into a lock of her brown hair as if she had no idea she had nearly been assaulted an hour ago, or that I had murdered a man right in front of her.
Her honey-brown eyes lifted to mine the moment I stepped in.
Calm. She looked too calm for someone in my room. She looked too calm for someone who is a captive.
I had moved her to my room after what had happened. I won't be using the room anymore. It'd be inappropriate to share a room with her. However, no one would near this floor.
The bruise on her cheekbone was darker now. They were purpling, angry, and ugly against the softness of her skin.
It was a stain that should not exist.
"What," she asked, blinking once, "are you doing?"
She didn't sound like someone who wasn't alright, or someone who would faint soon. She sounded annoyed. As if I had interrupted her nap.
My guts twisted violently.
I stepped forward, with my pulse still pounding from the sprint across the halls. "Himari said you collapsed."
"I sat down," she corrected, lifting her chin. "Not collapsed. People faint when they're weak."
"Were you shaking?" I asked, to make sure Himari had a good reason for giving me such a false alarm.
She rolled her eyes. "I did, but I stopped."
This girl had the arrogance of someone who had no idea the world she was in. She barely had an idea that one wrong breath around the wrong man could end her.
She had walked into my world and started behaving like it belonged to her. Give orders around like this place belonged to her father.
I exhaled slowly.
"When I instructed my housekeepers to give you what you needed," I said, allowing the edge in my voice to sharpen, "I didn't ask them to let you misuse it."
Nara blinked once, and then twice. Then, she frowned at me like I was the unreasonable one. "I want to take a walk."
A walk? After being attacked? After watching me break a man's neck? After nearly screaming the walls down?
I stared at her. Could she be mentally impaired?
She stared back, unmoved.
I sat on the far end of the couch, leaving a careful distance between us. The leather sighed under my weight. The entire room seemed to tighten as if watching the two of us measure each other.
"Being a captive," I murmured, "you sound very entitled."
She crossed her arms. "Being a captor, you sound less controlling."
Her tone was so casually disrespectful my brows lifted. I read about her before asking my men to kidnap her but I never knew the reality of her attitude could be this bad.
"You're just a child," I said calmly, as if that would justify every moment she disrespect me.
Her jaw snapped up. "I'm eighteen."
"Like I said," I murmured, "a child."
Her nostrils flared. "Then why did you kill someone over me?"
I went silent.
She didn't look away. I haven't been around her lately, but she could be brave. Or stupid. Possibly both.
Her eyes searched mine quietly, with accusations. She had stood there when my hand closed around the guard's throat.
She had watched, she had seen, and she had heard the crack. She knew exactly what I was capable of.
And yet here she sat, telling me she wanted to go for a walk.
"You think I killed him because of you?" I asked finally.
Her lips pressed together. "You snapped his neck."
"Because he touched you."
"He didn't touch me," she snapped. "He tried. He didn't succeed."
"That was enough."
"Well, you didn't have to kill him."
I turned my head, leveling her with a long, expressionless stare. "You're trembling now." Her fingers were shaking.
"No, I'm not."
"You are."
Her hand moved instinctively, and defensively, toward her bruised cheek. She caught herself halfway, then snatched it back, as if realizing she'd shown a weakness in the air between us.
I leaned back against the couch, stretching one arm along the top edge.
"You don't understand this world," I said. "You don't understand the codes. You don't understand the consequences."
"And you don't understand me," she shot back.
"I don't need to," I replied. "You're predictable."
Her mouth fell open. "I'm not predictable."
"Nara," I said lightly, "you're eighteen. You're all impulse and noise."
Her cheeks flushed into a furious shade of pink.
"That's…." she sputtered "rude."
I gave her a long look. "Truthful."
"You think you're so much older, so much wiser."
I raised a brow at her. This was the first real conversation I've had in years, and I can swear that I'm strangely enjoying it.
"I am older."
"Sixteen years older," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "Congratulations."
A small, unwilling amusement tugged at the corner of my mouth. She saw it. And she hated that she saw it.
"Don't smile at me," she snapped.
"I didn't."
"You almost did."
"No."
"You did."
Her irritation was nearly comical.
I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on my knees. "You should be resting."
She shook her head. "I'm fine."
"You're bruised."
"It's just a bruise."
"You fainted."
"I sat down!"
Behind her irritation, her breathing was still uneven. Her fingers were still tucked protectively close to her body. She was wounded, shaken, and confused but her pride was holding her upright.