My lips parted, somewhat in shock, because he wasn’t lying. He truly believed that, and I knew in that moment there was no going back for me either. Ronan would never leave me alone.
“Surprised you, have I?” he mused, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. Then he reached around and rested his hand on my back and guided me toward the water. “Come. Let’s eat.” I moved mechanically at his side as he led me onto a riverboat. It was the only one in the harbor. A wooden board bridged the gap between the walkway and the ship. In my ear, the piece crackled once more, reminding me Nathalie was there and had heard every word.
“Hot damn, are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this bond business?” Nathalie said. “He might be a demon and a stage five clinger, but—”
I reached up and flicked the earpiece, knowing it would get my point across.
Nathalie groaned in my ear right as Ronan gave me a look. I didn’t bother giving either of them a response.
The riverboat was upscale. Only half a dozen two-top tables were seated on the deck. Twinkling lights ran along the edge of the overhang. A waiter was already standing at one of the tables, a neutral expression set in place. She was a few inches shorter than me, but she had pointed ears. Half-fae, if I had to guess. Explains how she managed to land a job at a place like this.
Ronan and I sat across from each other with only a two-foot table between us.
I squared my shoulders as she placed the menus on the table and then poured each of us a glass of water. The wind whipped over the lake, batting against the thick siding around the deck that was designed to keep the worst of the cold away.
“Welcome, Mr. Fallon,” she began. The rest of her speech was lost on me.
My eyes narrowed on Ronan, who was now smirking widely. As if sensing my rising ire, he lifted a hand and said, “Thank you, but we’ll need a moment to look over the menu.”
She bowed her head graciously and moved to give us space.
“You took my last name,” I said. Both my hands were clenched into fists on top of the table in an effort to not reach for my guns.
“I didn’t have one,” he said with a shrug. “Where I come from, we’re known as the son or daughter of our parents. That’s not the way of your world, though, so I adjusted.”
“How gracious of you.”
“I thought so.”
My fingers twitched, and it was like he knew what I wanted to do, even if I was stopping myself. “If I thought I could shoot you enough times to keep you down, I would.”
He inclined his head, not at all bothered by my death threat. “But then you’d never find Bree, assuming it worked—which it wouldn’t.”
“Unfortunately.”
The server chose that moment to reappear. “Have you had a chance to look over the—”
“I’ll have whatever is most expensive on the menu,” I said. “Since Mr. Fallon here is paying.”
The waitress opened, then closed her mouth. Ronan simply continued to smile. I wondered if he knew it was pissing me off.
“Make that two,” he said, “And a bottle of your best red.”
She nodded once and went to place our order, leaving us.
I squared my shoulders like we were at a showdown and not dinner.
Considering he was holding my sister hostage to get me there, it wasn’t far off.
It was why I didn’t expect his next statement.
“Tell me about your life.” He demanded it. Expected it. It wasn’t a question at all.
“If you already know everything, I don’t see the point.”
“I know pieces of it. Things that I’ve gathered and then filled in the blanks. I want to hear it from you. I want to know you.”
“You want to own me,” I corrected. “I don’t understand the point in getting to know me.” He chuckled.
“They’re one and the same in this case. You showed me that. The only way I’ll have you is if you choose it. So indulge me. I want to know everything.” He settled back with one arm sitting loosely on the table and the other on his lap. Three inches to the right of my left hand was a silver knife. I could put it through his hand if I wanted. Wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like a bitch. Maybe test that dedication he claimed to have.
The only problem—if it wasn’t as strong as he claimed, then I’d be fucked. Again.
“Everything is a tall order,” I mused, instead reaching for my glass of water. I took a sip, the crisp cold hitting my throat and grounding me.
“Then start at the beginning. What’s your earliest memory?”
I stiffened. Ronan lifted a brow.
While I could push it down and be obstinate in this, there wasn’t much point. He already knew, to an extent.
“The day we learned magic existed.”
“‘We’ being the humans?”
“Yes,” I said softly. He looked like he wanted to say something about it but didn’t. “I was sitting next to my sister on the floor in our living room, playing with Barbies. We were watching cartoons when the tv started blaring. My parents ran into the living room right as the sound cut out and the screen changed. The forty-three seconds that played after that changed the world.”
I didn’t tell him what I’d seen. If he looked through my past, he certainly saw it himself. Everyone had seen it that day. Never before had a massacre like that taken place on public television. Hell, I was only a child. I barely knew about such things. My parents weren’t the type to even curse in front of us. They didn’t raise us sheltered, per se, but we weren’t exposed to the darker facets yet. We were only children, after all.
“You’re talking about the public execution of your leader and his guards.” That was one way to phrase it. Although I suppose they might not have presidents where he came from.
“Yes,” I said, though it wasn’t really needed. He got the idea.
“I heard he brought it on himself by starting a slave camp for those of magical kind,” Ronan continued. Years ago, I might have bristled. To me, the insinuation that we somehow deserved what came after was . . . I didn’t have words. Just rage.
But I wasn’t a child anymore, and I’d heard those whispers enough times to not lose myself to the anger.
“Rumors,” I said stiffly, shrugging one shoulder. “The evidence was scattered, and either way, the crimes to a few hundred never justified the crimes to millions.”
He tilted his head. “I never said it did.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he insinuated it, but the waitress reappeared, two plates in hand.
“Duck confit on a bed of greens,” she said, not clipped, but pleasant enough. She set the dishes in front of us, and Ronan dismissed her with a wave of his hand before she could ask if we needed anything else. I reached for my fork, thankful for the excuse to stop talking.
“You feel wronged on a very personal level by the events that occurred, but it sounds like both sides were ultimately wronged. Magical beings had been hiding for hundreds of years because humans had tried to hunt them to extinction. Only when they forgot did it give them enough time to grow. The attack on their presence had been renewed, and they exacted their vengeance on the man they viewed as responsible.”
I stabbed my duck harder than needed, and the plate beneath it clanked when the metal prongs of my fork hit it.