Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 126(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 126(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
“Someone has been a naughty girl.” Bjornsson’s words ignite my anger and something else I’m not willing to admit.
“Fuck you!” I scream against his hand, trying to break free of his hold. It’s pointless.
“Sorry, Angel, but you belong to me.”
CHAPTER 17
BJORNSSON
Lars barely has the car stopped when I’m out the door, Angel clasped tight to my chest. I go through the entry, and the big, heavy doors close behind me as soon as I clear the threshold.
“Don’t open those for anything. Double guards at all the exits. If Angel gets out, the guards where she escaped die.”
“What? No!” Angel shrieks, kicking and pounding her fists against my back.
The guard salutes me and runs off to spread the message. I take the stairs three at a time.
Inside my room, I throw her on the bed. She scrambles halfway across the mattress before I catch her foot and drag her back.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I untie the rope belt around my waist with one hand and quickly wrap it around one ankle and then the other.
She flails in my grip, all sharp heels and toes. I take a couple blows to my arms, but they feel like nothing. “Let me go. You can’t keep me here. This is America! Eagles! Flags! Fireworks!”
I pause in the process of tying her ankles together. “Fireworks?”
She blows a column of air toward a hank of hair that’s fallen over her forehead. “Fourth of July things. Freedom, you know?” She flicks her bound ankles upward. “Opposite of this.”
I bite down to prevent myself from laughing. I’m pissed and horny, not amused. “I gave you freedom, and you shoved it back in my face. Now you’re getting caged in the tower.”
“This is the second floor,” she snips.
“I see that after I tie your wrists behind your back, I’m going to have to gag you.”
“Better not,” she growls through bared teeth.
Energy races through me at the fight she’s putting up. Someone like Angel, someone with fire in her veins, makes the ultimate capitulation all the sweeter. My dick throbs under my vestments.
“Fight me, Angel. Fight me all you want, but you’re still my captive.”
“Until you tire of me.”
I affix the end of the rope around the post of my bed frame and then cross over to a dresser. The top drawer has two more similar ropes. I grab them and return. Angel is busy trying to untie my knots. She’s not having any success. I capture one wrist and bring it to my lips. “That will be a cold day in hell.”
She hisses and tries to wrench out of my grip. “I guess it’s snowing there right now because you are obviously done playing your games with me. Just let me go. Santino will take me in. Laurel wouldn’t turn me away.”
I clasp both wrists in one fist and jerk her upright until her nose is rubbing mine. Softly, menacingly, I say, “I’ll burn Santino and your Laurel to the ground. You belong to me, do you hear me? You’re mine. Not Santino nor the Bishop nor the High Power can take you from me.”
“I don’t know who any of those people are, and I don’t care.” She won’t stop resisting. “What was it? Some bet about how fast you could take my virginity?”
I grab her with both hands so she can’t hurt herself. “You’re still an innocent, Angel. You’ve not even had a taste of what I can do to you, what I will do to you, and when I’m done, you will not leave me.”
I whip the rope around her wrists and then loop the end around the top of the four posts of the bed so that she’s required to rise on her knees. Her chest heaves and her cheeks are red. She’s angry and aroused. I can smell her wet heat. I know if I touched her between her legs, she’d be soaked. She enjoys the fight. I step back and start removing my robes.
She gasps when my chest comes into view. “Why do you have so many scars?”
I run a hand over the welts left from whips and knife wounds. There’s a puckered bullet hole in my shoulder and one in my right hip. My back is even worse. I’ve lived with these marks for so long I’d forgotten about them or, at least, I hadn’t anticipated there would be a reaction to them. All of the men here come from the same background, the same violent experiences. Scars are nothing but signs of survival.
“These are my battle scars, Angel. Proof of my allegiance to the church.”
“What kind of church is this?” Her anger seems to have evaporated, replaced by confusion. “Are you even a priest?”
“In this territory, my Abbey serves as a place that keeps the balance. Kane Santino is on one side, and people like Soritz and Butcher Marks are on the other. If you don’t have one faction, the other group gains too much power, and the entire territory can collapse upon itself. People respect the Abbey because of these.“ I run my hand over the scars on my chest. “In order to belong to the Abbey, you have to take a vow of celibacy. It’s called the Church because we follow the High Power and because we pledge our lives to carry out its orders.”