“Can I at least have shoes?”
Eric’s eyes narrowed. “Stop talking back,” he snapped, and the woman flinched. “You’re going to listen to what I tell you, and you’re going to stop arguing. Do you understand?”
The woman bowed her head. “Yes,” she murmured.
“Good. Now, get up. Don’t make me tell you again.”
The woman slowly got to her feet, still hunched, as if trying to make herself as small as possible.
Eric rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, stop slouching,” he barked.
The woman straightened instantly, as if pulled upright by a string. “I’m sorry,” she said, and turned.
Cillian finally got a good look at the woman. At first, he didn’t believe what he was seeing. It was impossible. Out of everyone who could have been here, one of the last people he expected to see standing next to Eric was Amber Crane.
But it was definitely her. The same short blond hair, the same pixie face, the same long frame. But she looked drawn in on herself. Her arms were wrapped around her, and she kept her head bent. She wouldn’t look at Eric as he waited impatiently for her.
Was Eric holding her hostage? She wasn’t bound or anything, but she certainly looked trapped and miserable. Was Eric coercing her somehow?
Cillian regarded her. He remembered her as someone strong and fiery. Whenever he had worked with her during training sessions, she had always had some sort of witty retort for him, something that would make him laugh. He’d admired her spirit, her confidence. Secretly, he’d always liked her smirk and the spark in her eyes, that determination.
Looking at her through the window, there was none of that. She looked like a shell of herself, her features taut, her eyes dim. He watched her flinch and shrink away whenever Eric spoke to her or reached out to touch her.
“Eric,” she said, and there was something in the way she said his name that made it seem as though she knew him. Had known him for some time, rather than a chance recent meeting. “Just take the car and go. Take whatever money you want and just leave me be.”
“I could,” Eric agreed, almost cheerfully. “But I’m not going to let you slip away that easily. Not this time.”
“What do you even want with me?”
He stroked his chin, eyeing her up and down. “Haven’t decided yet. I think that’s going to depend on how well you behave.”
“Eric—”
“Come on,” he said. “Stop stalling and let’s get moving. I’ve got places to be, and I’m not going to let you make me late. You hear?”
Silently, defeated, Amber bowed her head and nodded. Cillian watched the two of them disappear from the room.
Even after they left, Cillian stood motionless, feeling as though someone had slapped him. He couldn’t shake that defeated expression on Amber’s face. Out of everyone he knew in the Silverrose pack, she was one of the last people he would have expected to be that complacent, to not fight back.
His jaw tightened, his hand curling into fists. He was going to make sure Eric paid for whatever he had done to Amber to sap every last bit of fight out of her.
All thoughts of the Night Pack and learning more about their plans flew out the window. At the moment, they didn’t matter. The only thing Cillian cared about at that moment was getting Amber out of there. He wasn’t going to let Eric take her, especially not after what he had just overheard.
Slowly, he crept back around the side of the house toward the front. He needed to see what was happening in order to make a proper plan.
Just as he was beginning to run through the scenarios and how he could get Amber away from Eric without putting her in harm’s way, he heard a thump and then a loud, furious snarl, then sprinting footsteps.
Cillian ran.
Chapter 4 - Amber
The last eight hours had been hell.
Eric had rarely left her on her own. He had made her fix him something to eat, watching her with smug glee as she shuffled around the kitchen, keeping her head down. She had endured barb after barb in silence, barely speaking.
Amber’s mind kept spinning, and she kept trying to think of ways to escape. But every time she came up with a plan or decided to risk running, something deep inside her pierced through her, stopping her from making a move even as she screamed at herself that she needed to do something. It was as if just being in his presence had stripped her of any semblance of fight.
When he had left for hours, taking her car to ‘run errands,’ as he’d called it, the only precaution he’d taken to stop her from running had been to throw her suitcase and all of her shoes into the trunk. If she’d tried to run for it, she would have been going barefoot through the surrounding woods. She wouldn’t have gotten far. Eric would have caught her, and all it would have earned her was a punishment. So she had stayed put, just like he’d ordered.