Chapter 4: Fury's Edge
The hard line of his body pressed hers into the mattress, a silent acknowledgment of the blade now lying useless on the floor. “You fight like your father negotiates,” he murmured, the heat of his breath a counterpoint to the ice in his voice, “all flash, no finish.”
She drove her forehead toward his, a sudden, brutal movement that he caught mere inches from impact, his fingers tightening in her hair. “And you talk too much for a man with a knife to his throat,” she spat, the taste of his skin still on her lips from the balcony, a memory that burned hotter than her shame. He laughed then, a short, harsh sound that held no warmth, only a dark kind of recognition. With deliberate slowness, he dragged his thumb across the shallow cut her blade had left on his neck, then smeared the bead of blood against her bottom lip. “See?” he whispered, watching her eyes widen, “Now it’s a proper fight.”
He pinned her wrists to the mattress above her head, his grip absolute and unyielding. The fight left her body in a sudden, shuddering exhale as she stared up at the carved canopy, the cold iron of his hold a more effective shackle than any rope.
"See how it feels?" he asked, his voice low and close to her ear. The metallic taste of his blood still stained her mouth, a dark covenant from their failed negotiation. Every ragged breath she took pressed her closer against him, a cruel intimacy in their stillness.