His face battled with a smirk and understanding. He settled on a frosty grimace. “Of course, I expect it. If you didn't, I’d say you were already dead inside. No one wants to die.”

I had no reply to that. A chill darted over my skin. For the first time, we were talking. So much had happened since we met. There was so much between us that it felt as if we’d been fighting this war for years—which maybe we had, and we just didn’t know it.

“What do you mean to do with me?” I whispered, dropping all pretence and opting for truth.

He jerked, his eyes tightening at the softness in my tone. “I’ve told you.”

I shook my head. “No, you haven’t.” I looked away. “You’ve threatened me. You’ve made me come in a room full of men, and you’ve told me the method of my death. None of that—”

“You’re saying that isn’t being honest about your future?”

I glared. “I wasn’t finished. I was going to say, before you rudely interrupted, what else is there?”

His mouth parted in surprise. “Else? You’re asking what else there is to this debt?”

“Forget the debt. Tell me what to expect. Give me that at least, so I can prepare myself.”

He cocked his hip, trailing the whip through the rotten leaves by his feet. “Why?”

“Why?”

He nodded. “Why should I give you what you want? This isn’t a power exchange, Ms. Weaver.”

I bit my lip, wincing at the sudden hunger pains in my stomach. What did I have that he wanted? What could I hope to bribe him with or entice some feeling of protectiveness and kindness?

I have nothing.

I hung my head.

Silence existed, thick and heavy like the rolling dusk.

Amazingly, Jethro murmured, “Come down, and I’ll answer three questions.”

My head shot up. “Give me answers now, before I come down.”

He planted his boots deeper into the mulch-covered dirt. “Don’t push me, woman. You’ve already gotten more conversation out of me than my fucking family. Don’t make me hate you for causing me to feel weak.”

“You feel weak?”

“Ms. fucking Weaver. Climb down here right now.” His temper exploded, smashing through his iceberg shell, giving me a hint at the man I knew existed.

A man with blood as hot as any other.

A man with so many unresolved issues, he’d tied himself into untieable knots.

My heartbeat clamoured as Jethro’s ice fell back into place, blocking everything I just glimpsed.

I sucked in a breath. “Hypocrite.”

He seethed. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.” Standing on awkward legs, I hugged the tree. “Three questions? I want five.”

“Three.”

“Five.”

Jethro moved suddenly, stomping to the base of the tree, gripping the bottom branch. “If you make me climb up there to get you, you’ll be fucking sorry.”

“Fine!” I moved carefully, wondering how the hell I would climb down. “Call me Nila and I’ll obey.”

He growled under his breath. “Goddammit, you push me.”

Someone has to. Someone has to smash that hypocritical shell.

I waited, face pressed against knobbly bark, fighting against the weakness in my limbs from exhaustion and hunger.

The mere thought of climbing down terrified me.

Jethro paced, crunching the undergrowth beneath his black boots. He snapped, “I will never say your first name. I will never be controlled into doing something I don’t want to do ever fucking again—especially by you. So, go ahead, stay in your tree. I’ll just camp down here until you either fall or wither away. I don’t revel in the thought of you dying in such a fashion. I don’t relish the conversation I would have when I returned empty-handed with just a diamond collar sliced from your lifeless neck, but never think you can make me do something I don’t want to do. You’ll lose.”

He smashed the whip against the tree trunk, making me jump. “Is that quite understood?”

His temper seethed from below, covering me like a horrible quilt of scorn. I pressed my forehead against the bark, cursing myself.

For a moment, he’d seemed normal.

For one fraction of time, I didn’t fear him because I saw something in him that might, just might, be my salvation.

But he’d been pushed too far by others. He’d reached his limit and had nothing else to give. He’d shut down, and the brief glimpses I saw weren’t hope—they were historic glints at the man he might’ve been before he’d been turned into…this.

I climbed.

It was a lot harder going down than going up. My eyesight danced with grey, my knees wobbled, and sweat broke out on my skin, even though I was freezing now the night had claimed the day.

I battled with him and lost.

Time to face my future.

The closer I came to the ground, the more fear swallowed me.

I cried out as Jethro’s cold hands latched around my waist, plucking me from the tree as if I were a dead flower, and spinning me to face him.

His beautiful face of sharp lines and five o’clock shadow was shaded with darkness. The hoots of owls and trills of roosting birds surrounded us.

“I have a good mind to whip you.” His voice licked over me with frost.

I dropped my eyes. I had no more energy. It was depleted. Gone.

When I didn’t retaliate, he shook me. “What? No reply from the famous Weaver who swore at my father and brotherhood and earned the right to run for her freedom?”

I looked up, stealing myself against his golden eyes. “Yes and what was the point?”

“There’s a point to everything we do. If you’ve forgotten it, then you’re blinded by self-pity.”

A ball of fire rekindled in my belly. “Self-pity? You think I pity myself?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think. I know.” Letting me go, he grabbed the saddlebag resting against another tree and pulled out a blanket. Spreading it over roots and crinkly leaves, he ordered, “Sit, before you fall.”

I blinked. “We’re not—we’re not leaving for the Hall?”

He glowered. “We’ll leave when I’m damn well ready. Sit.”

I sat.

WHAT THE FUCK are you doing?

I couldn’t answer that. I had no clue.