The Other Brother (Snow and Ash Book 3) by Heather Knight Read Free Book Online Page A

for the letter, but he crumples it in a ball and tosses it back on the table.
    “Out with it,” he demands.
    “I told you,” I say through gritted teeth. “Nothing’s wrong. God!”
    “You’re lying. I told you not to lie to me.”
    I breathe in, and my breath shakes.
    “Don’t lie to me,” he says more softly. “You’re upset about something. I need to know what.”
    I cross my arms and look away. “Look, maybe I’m just in a mood.”
    His face twists, and his scars pull his eye down. “Don’t fuck with me, goddamn it! We’re going to stand here until you either get over your mood or you tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
    My jaw works, but nothing comes out.
    He sighs, and his shoulders slump. He turns his face away—the scarred side.
    It dawns on me that he thinks this is about his face. That’s the last thing I want. It’s not true, and I can’t let him go on believing that.
    “I stopped by your office today,” I mumble. “I was going to surprise you with lunch.”
    “Sgt. Aguilar informed me,” he says, and in his tone is a definite go on.
    I slide my eyes away. He’s unbelievably stubborn. I almost think it’s more agonizing to stand here and fight about what’s not wrong than to tell him and get it over with.
    I shrug. “I wanted to surprise you, so I went down to the deer park.”
    He goes still.
    “I saw you.” I narrow my eyes. “You killed those people like it was nothing. I was standing by that old restaurant, and I saw the whole thing.”
    “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
    “Bringing you lunch. Surprise! How can you do that? Just walk up and shoot a guy with a bag over his head?”
    He curls his hands into fists. “You had no business being there. What I do for the army and for this territory is no business of yours.”
    “None of my business?” I huff. “You make like you’re this nice guy, but you’re not, are you? You can blow some guy’s head off and then go home and eat dinner. That’s sick, Kent. Sick!”
    He lets a breath out through his nose. If he were a dragon, I’m pretty sure I’d see fire. “I do what needs to be done. It’s my job!”
    “I don’t like it.”
    “You don’t get to like it. You shouldn’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Your place is here at the house. Got it?”
    “Good-bye women’s rights. Welcome to the Stone Age.” I swallow back the sour taste in my mouth.
    “You married me, Bianca. Me, the whole man. Not just the one that fucks you. I’m a colonel and a Barry, and you’d better get used to it.”
    I look away.
    “Do not come out to the field again. Ever. Do you understand me?”
    “Yeah, I won’t be back. Trust me.”
    He reaches for me, and I recoil.
    His eyes widen, then narrow as he goes white about the lips. I think he’s going to yell at me or grab me or roar or something. Instead, he spins on his heel and stalks back to the bathroom and slams the door shut.
    I let out the breath I’ve been holding. That wasn’t so bad. I mean, he didn’t hit me or anything. So he’s pissed. Good. Let that be a lesson to him.
    I go back to my desk and start a new letter to Letitia. My hands shake, though.
    When Kent comes back several minutes later, he’s dressed in his sleep pants and droplets of water cling to his face. He still wears his scowl. “We have to talk.”
    I sigh and fling down my pen. “What now?”
    “Come over here,” he says, pointing to the bed.
    “No.”
    He blinks slowly, then crosses the room, sweeps me up in his arms, and deposits me on the comforter.
    “If you think I’m going to have sex with you after all this, you’re sadly mistaken.”
    “You were wrong,” he says, his voice steady. There’s a furrow between his brows, but his eyes look troubled, not angry. “You had no place interfering with army business—”
    “I didn’t interfere!”
    “—where you don’t belong. But that’s my fault too, because I never told you that.”
    That