LITMIR.BIZ

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      “If you mean it, only once.” The remark was quietly spoken, and gave him pause. Her green gaze was blazingly direct. He ate the rest of his sandwich, forcing the gooey mess down his throat. Her gaze dipped to his throat, then lower, before it flickered away. Not quick enough that he didn’t notice it, though—or the faint bloom of color in her cheeks.

      Interesting.

      He lifted his hand to indicate the gloomy room. “Trust me, I’m sorry.”

      She nodded. “Yeah. You’re sorry you’re stuck here. That’s what you’re sorry for.” She turned back to the door, halted, then faced him. “You tried to kill me,” she said, her voice low and shaking with anger.

      He held up a finger. “No, I just wanted to destroy your shop,” he corrected her.

      Her eyes rounded. “With me in it.”

      He winced. “Yeah, well, that was my bad.” He did feel guilty over that. Just a little. Not that he’d let her know.

      Her lips firmed, and he focused on her mouth, those full, pouty lips that were pressed together so tightly. “You torched my apothecary. Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me? Or my clients? I have had to turn away people in need because of you.”

      He snorted. “Please. You create more damage than you know with your little witchy-woo spells and potions. I spend half my time cleaning up your messes.”

      She tilted her head back, her vibrant red curls a blaze of color in the gloomy, torchlit cell. “Oh, that’s right. You’re their doctor.”

      He’d have to be blind and deaf to miss her contempt, particularly when she talked about the shadow breeds like some stinky mess she’d stepped in and needed to wipe off her shoe. He smiled dryly. “I’m getting this vibe that you’re not really into the shadow breeds.”

      Her smile was brittle and tight, and she stepped away from the wall, strolling slowly toward him. “Werewolves, vampires, shifters...your kind,” she said, casually lifting a hand to indicate him, “you all deserve to die.” She said it so matter-of-factly, he almost didn’t take offense. “You consume humans, with little or no regard for our lives. You all behave as though we are of no consequence, and yet you think the problem is ours when we arm ourselves against you.” She shook her head. “Hypocrite.”

      His eyebrows rose. “I’m the hypocrite? You talk as though we’re the only ones capable of evil, yet you create the cruelest weapons for your precious humans to use against the breeds. Do you have any idea what your wolfsbane tisanes do to the intestines, to the stomach or throat? You think we are cruel, yet slipping a toxic corrosive to a living being is all in a day’s work for you.” As a shadow breed healer he’d seen the horrors humans had subjected the shadow breeds to, and had made it his mission to help them. “You’ve held me here for months, starving me of light. That’s the cruelest torture for one of my kind, yet you stand here and spout righteous indignation when you are guilty of doing the same yourself.”

      “You are so deluded. You are here because you tried to incinerate me.”

      “You’re fine,” he retorted. He still couldn’t figure out how that had happened. “I didn’t even singe you.”

      “Only because I had defenses, not because that was your intention,” she snapped, stepping closer. This close, he could see the rosy bloom of anger high on her cheeks.

      “And I’ve been paying for it ever since. Let me go. Let me get back to my life, to my work.” Hell, what had happened to his clinic in all this time? Had his brother, Ryder, stepped in? Or did it lie in ruins? Despite what everyone thought, he did care about the business, about what they did. Well, what he did. He had been surprised to discover what his father had been doing... His work was the only good thing about him. If he didn’t have his work, then he really was the selfish, destructive bastard everyone claimed him to be.

      He’d be just like his father.

      Damn it, he’d been confined in this prison for long enough.

      First there’d been the spiders, then the rats. She’d even covered the floor with snakes once. Sure, it had been an illusion, a spell, but he’d still felt trapped, and the hallucinations had been terrifying.

      Never piss off a witch.

      “And you’ll be paying for it for a long time to come,” she said fiercely.

      “If you hate me so much, why don’t you kill me?” he challenged her in frustration. “Just end this. Let me go, or kill me.”

      Because if she didn’t, he’d go mad. He was sure of it.

      “Come on, set me free. You can trust me. I’m a doctor.” He flashed her his most charming smile.

      She rolled her eyes.

      “Let me go, or end this,” he urged her.

      Her gaze flickered, then she masked her expression behind a cool, brittle smile. “Oh, but we’re only just getting started.”

      “Red, if you still want me around after five months, maybe it’s not revenge you’re after,” he said softly, suggestively. He knew he was poking the bear, but she started it.

      “You think I won’t hurt you?” She shook her head as she stepped even closer, and he measured the decreasing distance between them.

      “Oh, I think you could,” he said, leaning forward ever so slightly. “But I don’t think you’ll kill me.” The realization hit him like a spark of lightning, and he wondered why the hell he hadn’t figured that out much earlier. “You’ve had five months to do it—but you haven’t.” He tilted his head. “I wonder why not?”

      Something flickered in her gaze, and her lips tightened. He’d hit a nerve. Triumph washed over him. God, he’d finally found a crack, a weakness. “You. Can’t. Kill me.” He drew the words out slowly. “Am I paying for your daddy issues, little girl?”

      Her eyes narrowed, and that was all the warning he got—it was all the warning he needed. She swung at him. He caught her wrist, pulling her around with one hand as he yanked at the chain tethering his other.

      There was a loud crack. Bricks crashed to the floor as the old pulley tore away from the ceiling, and then he had her back pressed up against him.

      “Tut-tut, Red. You got too close.”

       Chapter 3

      Melissa didn’t quite know how he did it, but the bastard broke his chain. Just one, but it was enough to give him dangerous freedom. With one arm around her neck and the other wrapped around her waist and trapping her arms, he lifted her clear off the floor. She experienced a brief flare of panic. She tried to kick, tried to dig her heel into his instep, but he dodged her easily.

      “Let’s end this now, Red. One way or another. Let me go, or I’ll snap your pretty little neck.”

      “Let me go,” she gasped past the press of his arm against her throat.

      “What? You don’t like to be held against your will? Try it for five months,” he muttered, his lips near her ear, then grunted as she lashed out with her foot. She made contact, but her kick had no force behind it.

      The strength in his arms was frightening, yet he just held her. The breadth of his shoulders easily bracketed her own body, and she could feel his muscles bunch as he bore her weight. He could crush her. He could easily do as he threatened and snap her neck—but he didn’t. He held her. Then he did something that shocked her.

      He leaned forward and rubbed his chin against her neck. His beard brushed against her sensitive skin, at once soft yet prickly, and the rough sensation set her trembling. “Come on, Red. You know you don’t hate me.”

      Her breath hitched, and her nipples peaked at

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