The kid inside never fully got over the need to impress—even though deep down he knew it was an impossibility.

“We’ll be watching, Jethro. You don’t want to disappoint your family.”

My eyes snapped to Bonnie Hawk as she licked residual cream from her fingertip. Tilting her head, she quirked her lips into a secretive smile.

My muscles locked. Being the head of the family, she continued to hold the last say—the last piece of power over anything we did. She knew more about me than even my father. I might crave my father’s respect, but I would never get over knowing I would never earn Bonnie’s.

She would die and never grant me absolution of being satisfied with what I’d done.

I was the firstborn son.

I’d bowed to conformity and rules all my fucking life.

Yet, it was never enough.

Nodding stiffly, I muttered, “I won’t let you down, Grandmamma. I won’t let anyone down.”

I’ll make you see that your frailty only increases my power. I’ll make you see that fire is better than ice, and I’ll fucking show you how youth comes before wisdom.

I’ll make you see.

Just you watch.

That night, I retreated to my wing at Hawksridge Hall.

I turned off the lights.

I sat in the dark and welcomed the shadows to claim me.

Before me rested my arsenal to ‘fix’ the things wrong inside me.

And just like my father had taught me—just like I’d done countless of times before—I found the frost deep inside and permitted it to chill me, calm me…

…

make me impenetrable.

I KNEW IT was too good to be true.

The last three nights and two days of being Jethro-free screeched to a bitter end when he came for me at daybreak.

I wasn’t asleep but mid-text with Vaughn.

The early morning sun had a horrible habit of highlighting the stuffed birds around the room, sparkling on death and reminding me that my future only held carnage—no matter how alive I felt. No matter how strong I’d become from taking power from Jethro, in the end, it would all finish the same way.

With my head in a bloody basket.

I should’ve been petrified—wallowing in misery at the thought of how a successful career and life in the limelight had suddenly become so limited with options. But…strangely…I wasn’t.

If anything, I was more focused now than I’d ever been. More aware of consequences of choice and the brutality of the world that’d been hidden from me. I’d been raised to believe in fairy tales—my father deliberately kept me naïve. Why? I hadn’t figured that out yet, but now my eyes were open, and it was…refreshing to know the world wasn’t pristine and taintless.

All my life, I’d pretended to be perfect. And all my life, I’d nursed the truth inside that I was far from it. The Hawks were crazy—there was no other explanation for their fixation on something so far in the past—but they were passionate about it.

Passion had trickled from my world as if every dress and collection had been vampiric—sucking my will to keep striving for greatness in my designs.

If you felt this strongly about it, maybe you should’ve gone on holiday. Had a break from being a Weaver.

But that was the thing. I would never have admitted it to myself, because I would never have recognised it. My vertigo spells, my lacklustre acquiescence of my father’s wishes—I couldn’t see how lost I was from my true self. I’d never been given the time to figure out who I was—only what was expected of a daughter born into the Weaver empire.

The beauty of distance meant I saw my life without being immersed in it. It all boiled down to the fact I’d never had anything of my own. I’d shared my life with a twin, who I positively adored, but who outshone me in every way. I’d been drowning with self-doubt and nervousness. I’d crippled my instincts and skills, terrified of letting others down.

Oh, my God.

I clutched the phone harder.

I’m a better person away from the people who love me most.

That meant I excelled while living with people who hated me.

It was fucked up.

It didn’t make sense.

But how could I argue against something that was true?

VtheMan: I know everything, Threads, and I’m coming for you. I’ll bring the army. I’ll kidnap the fucking Queen if it means I’ll get you free. Just stay alive, sister. I’m coming.

My attention reverted back to the current issue.

Vaughn.

Father must’ve told him what happened. I didn’t know how much he shared—hell, I didn’t really know how much he even knew himself—but I feared for my brother. I feared for myself.

Vaughn was volatile and likely to do anything to get me back. Every day since I was born, I let him baby me, protect me from life experiences I really should’ve faced rather than hide from. That protectiveness sometimes came across as too much, and before, I secretly loved it. I loved being so significant to someone—their entire reason for living.

But everything had changed.

I’m not the same person I was a few days ago.

If I was bluntly honest, our relationship seemed a little much now. Blurring lines that had kept me firmly in my place as daughter and sister with no need to spread my wings and hurl myself from the nest.

“Get up.” Jethro paced to the huge windows, wrenching open a sash pane letting the pretty English morning into the stuffy room. I breathed deeply as sunshine bounced around, merrily painting corpses of winged creatures.

Yesterday, I’d named some of the prettier ones. Snowdrop, Iceberg, and Glacier were all addressed in honour of their tormentor and mine.

I needed to reply to Vaughn, but I tucked the phone beneath the quilt, eyeing up my nemesis. “Nice to see you, too.”

His nostrils flared. “Don’t get uppity, Ms. Weaver. I don’t have time for nonsense.”

I stretched, deliberately taunting him. “Nonsense? You can’t talk. All of this Weaver and Hawk charade is utter nonsense.”

Jethro stomped over. Dressed in beige corduroys and black shirt, he looked as if he had a meeting with his local backgammon club. The requisite diamond pin glinted on his lapel. “Shut up and get out of bed. Now.”

My heart thundered. His golden eyes were icy and steadfast.

The intensity and raw visceral desire I’d seen in the forest was gone. Hope fizzled into dirty bubbles in my chest. I’d thought we’d climbed to a new dimension with what happened in the woods. I thought I’d showed him that he couldn’t undermine me without undermining himself.

How wrong I’d been.

Squinting in the sun, I whispered, “What did you do?”

He reared back as if I’d slapped him. “Excuse me?”

Shuffling in the covers, I eyed him closer, trying to figure out what had changed. Nothing outward looked different. He was the perfect resemblance of a country gentleman. But his tone was smooth as silk and just as unbreakable.

“You’ve done something. A few nights ago you looked human…now…”

“Now?”

I scowled. “Now you just look like the cold-hearted robot who came for me at my runway show.”

Before he could answer, another vital question popped into my head. “Why now?”

“What?” His face twisted into a glower. “That doesn’t even make sense. Your questions are really starting to grate on my nerves, Ms. Weaver.” Running a hand through his hair, he said quietly, “If you rephrase that into a coherent sentence, I might answer, if it means you’ll kindly get out of bed.”

There he went all pomp and ceremony again. No curses. No snapping. No spikes of emotion of any kind.

He stayed away to distance himself, regroup.

I had affected him. So much so, he’d needed three nights to deal with it.

A hot douse of power shot through my veins.

“Why did you leave me on my own for days?” I held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. The wait-staff did an impeccable job of keeping me fed, and the downtime was rather welcome after the manic few years I’ve had travelling and working non-stop, but it is a little odd.”

He sedately placed his hands into his corduroy pockets. His eyes were completely unreadable—it was like trying to decipher a damn vault. “Please, tell me what you find so odd. Then perhaps I can help you.”

If I hadn’t seen the passionate man in the forest—if I hadn’t wrapped my lips around his throbbing cock and swallowed his cum—I might’ve shrunk back in reprimand. I might’ve feared the silence more than his temper, because it heralded something terrible coming.

But now…now I saw it for what it was.

It’s a coping mechanism.

We all had them. Mine was permitting my father and brother complete control over me. My only freedom from that was running until I passed out on my treadmill.

Jethro didn’t run, but he did use something extremely effective to push aside the tangled emotions I knew he felt and embraced the glacier he pretended to be.

“Never mind,” I whispered. “I understand.”

Beneath the power in my veins, a small cloud of depression settled. I’d worked hard breaking his arctic exterior. I’d thrown my all into showing him pleasure that he could find by giving in to me. The fact he’d been so affected that he’d had to shut down and hide should’ve pleased me.

But really, it reset everything. I was back at the starting line.

For a second, I slouched in defeat. Did I have the energy to go through the arguing and battle of wills again?

Tilting my head, I stared at him. He clenched his jaw, not giving anything away.

My spine straightened as resolution fortified my defeat. So be it. I would do it all over again. And again. And again. Until he realized he couldn’t win. Not against me.

I was strong enough to break him ten times, a hundred times. I was strong enough to kill him and his twisted family before he dispatched me. I meant to keep my vow that I was the last Weaver they would ever hurt.

Jethro crossed his arms. “Considering you no longer have any more frustrating questions, I presume you’ll oblige and get up, like I ordered.”

Without a word, I shoved back the covers and climbed from the warm sheets. “Where are we going?”

Jethro’s eyes fell on my naked legs. I’d worn black and pink shorts with a matching camisole to bed.

“Did I say you could ask questions?” Moving smoothly, he stepped away. Roaming sleek and sharp around the room, he gathered mismatched clothes that were draped on chairs and a sixteenth-century dressing table then came back toward me. Dumping them at the end of the bed, he said, “Get dressed. I’m going to count to ten. If you aren’t decent, I don’t care. I’m dragging you out of here naked or clothed—it’s entirely your choice.”

I wrinkled my nose at the attire. I had more of an understanding about my enemy, but I still feared him. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to be commanded or dragged—

“One.” His eyes glittered.

He couldn’t be serious.

“Two…”

Quickly, I reached for a peach t-shirt with Victorian lace on the collar and denim shorts.

“Three.”

Shit, how could I get dressed with him standing there? I couldn’t strip so blatantly.

He’s seen you naked. You ran through a forest with nothing on. He’s tasted you, for God’s sake. Seriously, why are you suddenly precious about it?

“Four.”

Biting my lip, welcoming my rational common sense, I hastily tore off the camisole and let it flutter through the air.

Jethro sucked in a breath at my exposed breasts. “Five.”

Tugging the t-shirt over my head, I dropped my hands to my hips.

“Six.”

Locking eyes with him, I shimmied out of the shorts, letting them puddle around my ankles. I had no underwear on.

I searched for the lust that’d burned in his gaze a few nights ago. I sought to witness just a hint of the Jethro who’d wrapped his fingers in my hair and driven his cock down my throat.

He merely cocked an eyebrow at my naked pussy and continued to count. “Seven.”

Anger siphoned through my heart. Stepping into the shorts, I snatched them up and fastened the zipper.

“Eight.”

Remembering Jethro’s tendency to use my long hair as handle bars and worse, as a leash, I quickly smoothed the black thickness into a messy ponytail and secured it with a hair tie from my wrist.

“Nine.”

The diamond collar sat around my neck—ridiculously expensive considering my understated outfit, making my breathing a little irregular. Slipping my feet into a pair of sparkly flip-flops on the floor, I was done.

I smirked. “Finished, oh impatient master.”

Jethro stiffened. “Record speed, Ms. Weaver. I’m impressed.” He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

I blanched. “What? No!”

He leaned closer, his temper shimmering just beneath the surface of his cool exterior. “Yes. I won’t ask again.”

For a second, I wondered if I could hit him over the head and run. So many scenarios of running had entertained me these past few days. I’d tried to pry the diamond collar off. I’d tried to open the window. I’d tried to pick the lock on the door.

But nothing worked. Aside from death, I wasn’t getting out of there.

I’m coming, Threads.

My heart seized at the thought of Vaughn charging in here trying to save me, only to be slaughtered by the men holding me captive. I couldn’t let that happen.

Gritting my teeth, I turned and plucked my phone from the tangled sheets. Reluctantly, I passed it to his awaiting palm.