I frown at that image. Bleeding…

Adrian cuts off my train of thought when he lifts my hand to his nose and a muscle moves beneath his jaw as he sucks in a long breath. “Were you touching yourself, Lia?”

“No…” My voice is strangled, hushed, and a bit hoarse, as if I’m still trapped in that nightmare.

“Don’t lie to me.” His tone is calm but threatening. “I smell your cunt on these fingers.”

“I said no.”

“That’s your first strike. Lie to me again and I’ll punish you.”

Memories from the nightmare strangle me by the throat and suffocate every ounce of air from my surroundings.

He’ll strip me bare and fuck me now. He’ll take me like an animal and leave me without anything. He’ll confiscate my power and my will.

His hold on my wrist is firm and heats my flesh like a thousand flames, intending to burn me from underneath my skin.

My lips tremble and I dig my nails into the ceramic edge of the tub to keep myself in a bent position. “Please…don’t…don’t…”

Adrian releases my hand and I stumble until my back hits the glass door of the shower. I remain there, both palms flattened on the cold surface and my bare feet curling against the tiles.

“What is wrong?” He’s speaking with the Russian accent, not the American one from my nightmare.

“N-nothing.”

He stands up all wet and…naked.

He’s completely naked.

Although I caught a glimpse of him in the bathtub, nothing could’ve prepared me for this view. His thighs are muscled and taller than I predicted. Fine hairs form a trail on his taut chest and down to…

I snap my gaze up before I start ogling his cock. In my attempt to study anything but him, I’m caught off guard by his tattoos. I saw one earlier, but I didn’t see the other. Both his arms are marked. Full sleeves of black ink intertwine over his arms like a labyrinth.

Just like in the nightmare.

While I could’ve hallucinated about biting my hand, this can’t be made up. I’ve never seen Adrian unclothed, so there’s no way I’d guess he has inked arms.

I reach for the nearest thing I can find, which happens to be a ceramic soap bottle, and point it in his direction. “Stay away from me!”

“Lia,” Adrian says the name softly.

“I’m not Lia! I’m Winter!”

“Calm down.” He continues approaching me, stalking toward me with silent footsteps that I can barely hear.

“I said stay away from me!” I shriek, my voice turning hysterical.

He stops, raising one hand. “Fine. I’m staying away, so put that down.”

I shake my head frantically, nails sinking into the solid ceramic. “I’m leaving. I’m not spending another minute in this godforsaken place or with you!”

A shadow passes over his features, thunderous and quiet, almost as if he’s…angry. Why the hell would he be? I’m the one who’s angry. I’m the one who was forced out of my safe cocoon to be here.

“Give me that bottle, Lia.”

“No! And stop calling me Lia!”

My hands flail about and I hear the crack before I see it. The bottle hits the wall and crashes against it. White liquid soap drips down my hand and onto the ground, and then a trail of blood follows.

A broken ceramic piece has sunk into my skin. A sting of pain explodes on my flesh before blood flows from my palm. I release what remains of the bottle, letting it crash to the ground.

“Fuck!” Adrian hurries toward me, plucks the piece out, leaving a small gash that burns when soap mixes with the wound.

Adrian throws the bloodied ceramic piece in the sink and wipes the soap away. His brow furrows over his darkened eyes and his lips thin into a line.

I squirm against him. “Let me go, you monster! Let me go!”

“Stop,” he orders and I flinch, going limp.

The word, although singular, is so authoritative that my muscles have locked together at hearing it.

Adrian grabs a beige towel, runs it under the sink, and presses it to my palm. He releases a breath when the blood doesn’t soak it for long. As if he’s worried about me. As if my well-being means shit in his agenda.

Why is he acting like this? I just can’t understand why he’s not the callous devil he should be.

His attention doesn’t break from my palm as he speaks, “I don’t know why you’re behaving like this all of a sudden, but why don’t you tell me?”

“Are you trying to pretend that you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

I purse my lips. A second ago, I was so certain it wasn’t a nightmare, but now, I’m not so sure. However, the bite mark and the tattoos couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination.

“You raped me just now.” My voice starts low, then grows in volume. “You forced yourself on me, even when I begged you to stop!”

Adrian’s hand pauses at my wound and he meets my gaze with his darker ones. For the first time since I met him, I really, really wish I could see behind those eyes. Just to know what’s happening in there. What type of thoughts go into his abnormal brain?

“I didn’t rape you,” he says ever so casually.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“You should.”

“I know what I felt.” It was too vivid of a nightmare, too…real. So real that I can still feel his thrusts in me.

“If I wanted to fuck you, I wouldn’t need to rape you for it.” He glides the towel over my hand. “What made you think that I did it?”

“I just told you, I felt it.”

“Felt it how?” His voice is too calm for this conversation. Too infuriating. I want to reach into his armor and yank him out—that is, if there’s anything to yank out. Sometimes, he seems like a shell.

A nothingness that can’t be touched or altered.

“What type of question is that? I just felt it. Besides, I bit my hand when you raped me and look!” I show him the teeth marks on my non-injured palm. “How do you explain this?”

“You could’ve bitten your hand while you were sleeping.”

“That’s not possible, because I sleep completely still. Besides”—I motion at his ink—“I saw your tattoos when I never have before this moment.”