Chapter 100: Chapter Six

Hope

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, rubbing my wrist with my right hand. My skin felt funny, and I was still hot, so, so hot that I wanted to cry. I would sell my arm for a glass of water.

Elf? Was that some sort of derogatory word? Like an immortal curse word?

Alex’s eyes pierced right through me as if he was staring through my body and glaring at the far cement wall, the faraway look would be creepy if he didn’t look so beautiful while doing it.

I studied his bow-shaped lips, the way they parted just enough to suck in a breath of air. His chest rose and fell in an even cadence, and then his eyes snapped shut. “Cassius, damn you!”

Why was he shouting?

It was almost as if he was afraid of me.

My lips twitched.

Add superhuman hearing to his many lists of attributes, his eyes flashed and a snarl curled his beautiful lips as he leaned forward close enough to kiss me. “I do ~not~ like you.”

“Um.” It was hard not to feel rejected when a being who looked like ~that~, told you that they didn’t like you. Not to mention he had spent the last five minutes cursing everyone and everything to Hell only to yell elf at me about a million times before finally pouting on the opposite end of the bed with his arms crossed over the deeply muscled rivets of his stomach. “I’m sorry?”

His eyes narrowed and then snapped shut before he let out a breath and started pacing in front of me. “You,” he spat the ~you~ like a curse. “Are not normal.”

I jerked like he’d slapped me. And the compliments just kept coming.

“Weaker than the average human,” he pressed his lips together in a hard line, “Defenseless, weak, nothing but an elf.”

I frowned. “You mean like the ones who make cookies? Those elves?” My stomach growled on cue. My cheeks heated in embarrassment.

He glared down at my stomach and then back up at my face. “Did you just ask if you were a baker of ~cookies~?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “Oh!”

Alex jumped at the word.

“Or a shoemaker.”

“Let’s see.” Alex pressed a hand to his forehead. “So when I say elf…”

I nodded.

“You either think of cookies or shoes?”

“Yeah,” I croaked. Well, when he repeated it like ~that~. “That about sums it up.” I pulled at my itchy sweater. “Why is it so hot in here?”

His lips twitched.

“Are you doing this?”

“Not on purpose.” He sneered, and a piece of reddish-blond hair fell past his shoulder, narrowly missing my face. I could smell it all the same; the scent of rain filled my nostrils again, and I inhaled because I really couldn’t help myself. “Believe me, if it was on purpose, I wouldn’t be in such extreme pain that I’m actually tempted to do it.”

“Do what?” I just had to ask. I knew it was impossible, but my body felt numb from the inside out, like the minute I’d breathed him in, I’d taken a drug. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth.

His eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “You.”

“Do me what?”

“Do you.” He emphasized the you and then the heat spread down my thighs again, tickling, aching. “Understand?”

I gulped. Then nodded. Then gulped again.

“Gods!” Alex turned on his heel and in a flash was at the door again, hitting it with the palm of his hand. “It won’t work, damn it! Cassius, are you even listening to me?”

Well, this was fun.

I was trapped in a cement room that was turning into a sauna by the minute, with a siren who was so in love with himself that I had no doubt in my mind if he could screw himself — he would — and I was going to die of thirst.

Fun day.

So glad I woke up and went to work early in a vain attempt to show the immortals my punctuality and ended up trapped with a sociopath.

Alex let out a pitiful groan, his blue eyes snapped to mine one last time before he clenched his fists together and spoke. “The only way we’re getting out through that door is if I make you my mate.”

“No.” I shook my head as if to add more emphasis and repeated. “No, I don’t think so, I unvolunteer.”

“First…” He rolled his eyes. “That’s not a word.” I could have sworn he mumbled ~idiot elf~ under his breath. “Second, do you truly believe I want you?”

I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears as my chest cracked a little. No. I didn’t. Because nobody had ever truly wanted me, not that I was stupid enough to admit it to him. I still had my pride, even if it was such a small amount, it was staggering. “No.”

He swallowed; the motion of his throat moving caught my attention, his skin shimmered with a sheen of sweat.

His lips parted and then a bead of moisture slid along that smooth neck and trailed down his perfect chest.

“Hot?” I asked crossing my arms.

“Sirens don’t get hot,” he snapped, seemingly upset about his own body temperature. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“Completely. Like I said.” He leaned back against the pillows. “I can do this all day.”

“Me too.” I closed my eyes. It would be easier to hate him if I didn’t have to look at him. It was hard to hate someone so beautiful, even if the inside was ugly.

The minute my eyes slid closed the heat intensified. I was going to die in that cement room with a siren by my side and all because my organs burned me alive from the inside out.

The smell of rain intensified.

It was absolute torture.

Finally, in an effort to cool down, I peeled the sweater from my body and tossed it on the floor.

But if anything—the heat merely intensified. What was happening to me?

Alex released a series of ugly curses before locking his blue eyes on mine. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“What?” I sighed. If he hated me so much, why was he talking to me?

His hungry gaze roamed down my body. “Stripping in front of a man who takes his pleasure wherever he can. Whenever he can. However he wants.”

“But you don’t want me.” I shrugged. “Ergo,” I held out one hand. “Die of heat stroke.” I held out my other hand. “Or take off my ugly sweater.” I shrugged. “Seemed like the only choice I’ve been given since being trapped in here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “If I want you or if I despise every inch of you.” With a snarl, a faraway look passed across his perfect features, he was sweating more now, heavily, and I wished it looked horrible on him, but somehow it enhanced every single muscle on his body. “We cannot leave this room unless I make you my mate. The doors unlock the minute I claim you.”

I gulped. “That sounds….” Primitive. Exciting. Horrible.

“Elf.” He spat the name. “I would rather die than mate with one of your kind.”

“I’m not an elf or whatever you call it,” I waved my hand in the air. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me like I singlehandedly destroyed the entire universe by merely existing.”

Alex sucked in a breath, and his eyes roamed over me again. He leaned forward and then jerked away as his eyes flashed with something familiar.

My chest flipped because of the way he had looked at me, as if he’d seen me before and my body physically responded to him like it knew him. Maybe it was a siren thing.

I, however, was still ready to die, and it seemed the hotter I became, the more irritated Alex got.

It didn’t help that he smelled like fresh rain, that my brain had me completely convinced that if I just touched his skin, it would soothe me.

Which was stupid.

I mean he was just as hot.

Physically.

In every way.

I exhaled slowly and swiped his phone before he could stop me, which meant he probably let me since he didn’t seem to be the type who had slow reflexes.

I turned off his heavy metal rocker music or whatever the heck it was and put on classical music.

“I’ve entered into Hell,” he muttered to himself. “And violins shall escort me there. Funeral music, how poetic.”

“You should like this music, after all, weren’t you born before any of it was created?” I joked. “You are old.”

That pissed him off.

Nostrils flaring, he sat up on his knees—“Did you just call me… old? Me?”

A little thrill of triumph traveled along my nerve endings as I inclined my head in query. “Is there anyone else in the room?”

“That’s it.” He whispered the words almost too low for me to hear. I’d crossed some sort of invisible line I hadn’t even known existed.

He stalked me like I was his prey. I scrambled away from him, but he didn’t stop until my back touched one of the walls, and he was a mere inch from me.

My body swayed toward him. I couldn’t help it.

“By God, you’ll not deny me anymore, human.”

A buzzing filled my ears as my body hummed.

“Bow.”