Hidden Currents by Christine Feehan Page B

fighting him, and in truth, she was tired of it, too.
    She looked toward the glass again, moistening her dry lips. Had Jackson come? Had her sisters sent the wind to tell her they were coming for her? She didn’t dare hope. A prickly sensation crept down her spine and she knew without turning her head that Stavros had entered the room. She let her head fall back on the pillow and braced herself for his touch.
    “I thought the storm might be making you nervous,” he said. “The glass always makes it seem as if you’re out in it, when really you’re safe.” His voice was very solicitous and she wondered, not for the first time, if he really believed himself in love with her. And if he did, it was a sick kind of love—ownership she wanted no part of.
    “It is a little nerve-wracking,” she admitted, surprising him. His eyes went wide at her answer. She rarely responded to anything he said or did, her only real way of keeping control.
    Stavros looked pleased. Immediately, as if to reward her, he crossed to her side and bent down to brush a kiss over her mouth. Elle forced herself not to turn her head. She didn’t respond, but she let him have her lips again, a big victory for him.
    “Were you missing me?”
    She swallowed the bile rising. “I was lonely.” She turned her head toward the glass. “And the wind . . .”
    “Don’t worry, my sweet. This house is a fortress. Nothing will destroy it.”
    He’d better hope his psychic barrier never came down, because if it did, she would take down his house and everything in it.
    “I have to use the bathroom.” She hated that she flushed red when she said it. He loved the humiliation of her having to ask. Sometimes he made her “ask properly”—asking “please” and thanking him afterward, even when he stayed in the room with her. She’d never detested anyone more in her life. At least she wasn’t so apathetic that she couldn’t feel her hatred of her captor.
    “Of course, Sheena.” His hands were gentle as he took off the cuffs on her wrists. “Good girl.” He smiled, rubbing at the bruises on her skin. “You didn’t fight this time and break the skin.”
    Only because she’d been unconscious, or asleep—she couldn’t tell anymore. Elle glanced again out the window, trying not to hope, forcing herself not to reach out to see if Jackson or her sisters were close.
    “Are you afraid of storms?” Stavros unlocked the cuffs on her ankles and rubbed her legs, his fingers lingering over her wounds.
    Elle took a breath and let it out, letting him see how fragile and vulnerable she felt. If it lulled him into a false sense of security, she would concede to him almost anything. She nodded her head. “I try not to be. I know it’s silly.”
    It was probably the most she’d exchanged with him since he’d first taken her prisoner. How long now? She didn’t know, but it seemed as if he’d become her entire life.
    Stavros helped her to sit up, holding her when she swayed a little, still holding the sheet over her body. “I’ve told you not to be modest around me,” he reminded her. “I like to look at your body.”
    Involuntarily she tightened the hold on the sheet. At his look of annoyed impatience, she took another stab at playing to his ego. “I don’t feel very attractive right now. My hair is tangled and my bones are sticking out.” She’d always been thin, but now she looked like a scarecrow. “The doctor said . . .” She trailed off, looking away from him. “I don’t like you seeing me like this.”
    “You’re beautiful, Sheena. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You’ve been ill, that’s all.” Stavros tugged at the sheet until she reluctantly dropped it, and then he helped her to swing her legs over the side of the bed.
    The room spun for a moment. She was weaker than she realized. She waited for the world to right itself and stepped upright onto the floor, leaning on Stavros a little more than she wanted. He wrapped his