Roxy Harte Read Online Free Page A

now.”
    “Enough, Jackie!” Garrett demanded, kneeling beside me, pressing the napkin against my arm to stop the bleeding.
    Jackie stormed to the table, pressing herself nose to nose with him. “No, Garrett, not nearly enough! I watched while you destroyed this girl, I held her hand while you ignored her, and now, when you should be stepping up to the plate to reclaim your property, you are letting one stronger than you take her! I’ve seen you Garrett, as Ice you are every bit as strong as Fyre. If she needs to be mastered, you are every bit as able as he is to help her release her demons and embrace her darkness! Isn’t that why you said this is happening?”
    “Yes, Jackie, that’s what I said.”
    “If you go through with this, little girl,” Jackie seethed, turning on me, shaking me unexpectedly, waking me from my stupor with her angry shriek, “I’m wiping my hands free of it—I hope the three of you can figure out how to fix this disaster once it explodes in your faces, because I’m wiping my hands free of all of you! Do you understand?”
    “Leave, Jackie,” Garrett stood and pushed her hard enough to move her, screaming, “If you feel that way, get out!”
    He didn’t have to ask twice. Jackie stormed away, making me jump when the screen door slammed, announcing she was gone. Startled, I blinked, feeling like I’d missed something. Squatting before me, Garrett’s concerned face came into focus, but he wasn’t really in focus, I saw just his blurred form, enough to realize that it was him, lifting my arm, dabbing at the bloody mess I’d made on my arm. My brain squeezed in on itself when he demanded, “Why did you bite yourself?” I couldn’t answer. My shrug Page 11

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    didn’t seem to please him.
    With Jackie’s departure, my head cleared a little, though she’d had nothing to do with it. I watched Garrett clean my arm with a square damp pad reeking of alcohol, and once wiped and disinfected, it didn’t look horrible, just a red, angry-looking circle of teeth indentations. I watched him repack the contents of the kitchen first-aid kit I didn’t remember him bringing to the table.
    “I need to feed you,” he said.
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “Lord Fyre told me to make certain you ate.”
    That got my attention. I couldn’t resist challenging, “Do you always do what Lord Fyre tells you to do, Garrett Lawrence?”
    His eyes narrowed as if he might not answer the question, as if I might have made him angry with the question. I swallowed, realizing too late that when it came to matters between Thomas and Garrett, I was walking on eggshells and hadn’t even realized it.
    Just when I thought he was going to not answer, he did, his eyes still narrowed. “Sometimes I do.
    Sometimes I don’t. It’s a complicated relationship even I am sometimes loath to understand; however, he was once my master, and old lessons are hard to unlearn.”
    His answer made me wish I hadn’t asked the question, especially when he started to speak again, but closed his mouth. I didn’t ask what he might have said. We both looked at the table at the same time, seeing how much trouble Jackie had gone to for my homecoming—fresh, warm breads that looked homemade, grilled salmon, glazed green beans, fresh corn on the cob, bowls of cut melons, green leaf salad, and citrus salad. “Please thank Jackie for the trouble she went to, but I can’t eat, really.”
    “You have to start eating soon,” he said, but he didn’t argue the point, instead lifting me and carrying me through the house and up the staircase to my bedroom, without directions.
    He lowered me onto the bed, and then pulled his shirt off. “Did Fyre tell you that I’m going to make love to you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you want me to make love to you?”
    “More than anything in the world—yes.”
    “No games tonight then, Kitten. Just me making love to you and you