CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       Imogen

      I ROLLED OVER and blinked as the early-morning sunlight fell over my face.

      Ajax wasn’t in bed with me, but that seemed to be normal with him. He hadn’t been there the past couple of days when I’d woken up either, though I hadn’t woken this early before.

      He must have been up even earlier.

      I slipped out of bed, finding one of his T-shirts on the floor and pulling it on over my head. The cotton was cool against my bare skin and it smelled of the dark, delicious male scent that was all him.

      It gave me a little shiver of pleasure.

      I couldn’t have put into words how happy the past couple of days with him had made me.

      After that day in the kitchen, when he’d said those things to me about Mum and sacrifices, I’d felt lighter than I had in years. And in the days that followed I felt lighter still.

      It wasn’t as if we did anything major. Just...spent a lot of time in bed, talking. Or watching TV. Or swimming in the pool. One evening I’d curled up in his lap in the library, his hand stroking through my hair as we read books together. I hadn’t wanted to move, not once.

      Being with him eased something frenetic inside me. With him it quietened, as if his presence lulled it.

      He still hadn’t talked about himself in any meaningful way, though, apart from that one comment about his brothers. His past and his thinking processes were still as much of a closed book to me as ever.

      Which naturally made me even hungrier to know about them.

      I crept out of the bedroom and paused in the hallway outside, glancing through the open doorway into the office next to the bedroom.

      Ajax sat at the computer, leaning back in his chair, his long legs outstretched. He wore nothing but a pair of running shorts, as if he’d just come back from a workout. His skin gleamed, those incredible tattoos outlining the muscles I’d explored with my hands and my tongue for hours the night before.

      He was so delicious. My palms itched, wanting to touch him.

       You’re never going to stop wanting him.

      I shook my head at the thought. Of course I would. I always lost interest after a while. Sex with him was new and fresh and so it was fascinating to me. Once I’d explored everything he had to offer I’d be ready to move on, the way I moved on with everything.

      Trying not to make a sound, I crept into the room and sneaked up behind him, hoping to surprise him.

      Leaning in, I whispered, ‘Caught you,’ in his ear.

      He didn’t move and he didn’t look round. ‘If you want to catch me, you’ll have to use something to mask your scent. I could smell you the moment you stepped into the hallway.’

      ‘You could smell me?’ I wound my arms around his neck. ‘Seriously?’

      ‘I’m used to people creeping up on me, little one. I’ve developed a few instincts to stop them from surprising me.’

      That made sense. I didn’t imagine he’d had a peaceful life.

      ‘But didn’t your father have guards to protect you?’ I nuzzled against his neck. ‘Like, lots of security? Mine did. I can’t go anywhere without my guards.’

      He was sitting there, apparently relaxed. But I could feel the sudden tension in his body. ‘My father thought I needed to protect myself.’

      There was a note in his deep voice that I couldn’t identify.

      I shut my eyes, brushed my mouth across his powerful shoulder, wanting to ease that tension somehow. ‘Why? Isn’t that what guards are for?’

      He didn’t say anything and it felt like the tension in him was seeping into the silence of the room, pressing in around us.

      This was a painful subject.

      Abruptly I wanted to talk about something else, ask him questions, distract him. I didn’t want to hurt him.

      But, before I could open my mouth, he said, ‘I had to learn what it meant to be Augustus’s son early. I’d always suspected he was a monster, but I had it shoved in my face when I was thirteen.’

      A chill crept down my spine.

      ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I murmured. ‘Not if you don’t—’

      He put his hand over mine where they rested on his chest and the rest of what I’d been going to say vanished from my brain. It wasn’t a move meant to hold me still. It was almost as if he wanted the touch of my skin against his as a comfort.

      ‘Dad took me to an old warehouse one day after school,’ Ajax said, the words toneless. ‘There was nothing in it but a man tied to a chair. I had no idea what was going on or what the man was doing there, but as soon as Dad walked in the man went white.’

      The chill down my spine solidified into ice.

      I might have been sheltered, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew where this was going.

      ‘I asked Dad what was happening and he said that the man in the chair was an employee of his who’d disobeyed him and then tried to leave. I asked Dad what he meant by “leave”, but Dad told me it would all become clear.’ Ajax paused, his grip on my hand tightening. ‘Then he made me watch while he beat the man half to death.’

      The ice filtered into my bloodstream, chilling me despite the warmth of his hand over mine and the heat of his bare chest.

      His father had made him watch... At thirteen.

      I laid my cheek against his shoulder, fighting the sick feeling in my stomach. My father might have hurt and manipulated me emotionally, but he’d never shown me his violent side. At least not until he’d hurt Cam.

      ‘Dad told me that I needed to see what happened to people who disobeyed him,’ Ajax went on expressionlessly. ‘And those who wanted out. Then he said that I was a King and I’d be one for life, and if I ever betrayed him or escaped, he’d kill me. And my brothers too.’

      I had no idea what to say. Because what could I say? To something as horrific as that?

      So I did the only thing I could. I tightened my arms around him and spread my palms out on his chest, pressing down. Then I turned my face into his strong neck, put my mouth to his skin.

      He’d been just as much a prisoner of his father as I had of mine, hadn’t he? Dad had used my mother’s death against me, while Augustus had taken Ajax’s inherent protectiveness and used that against him.

      And of course it had worked, because if I’d learned anything about Ajax it was that protectiveness lay at the very heart of him.

      It was why he’d kidnapped me. To keep his city safe.

      And by threatening his brothers his father had ensured Ajax’s loyalty.

      It turned my stomach.

      ‘I hate him,’