DEREK MORRISON CAME BACK FOR REVENGE

Chapter 2

His voice was quiet but it cut through the room like a blade, and all four of them went still.

Madison's face flushed red, her hands moving to pull the slip higher, to cover herself, but she stopped halfway and looked at him with something raw and desperate in her eyes. "Is it that we are not beautiful enough for you? Is that it? Are we not good enough?"

Brooklyn's voice cracked when she spoke. "All this time, Derek. All this time we have been here with you. Side by side, every single day. And you just keep pushing us away like we are nothing. Like we mean nothing."

Savannah's jaw tightened, her arms dropping to her sides, and when she spoke her voice was the quietest of the four but somehow it carried the furthest. "What are we missing? Tell us. Just tell us so we know."

Derek looked at each of them in turn, really looked at them, and for a moment the room was quiet except for the sound of their breathing, uneven and shallow. "You are beautiful," he said finally. "All four of you. Anyone with eyes can see that."

"Then why—"

"Because I do not have time for this." His voice was quiet but it cut through the room like a blade. "I have spent fifteen years on this mountain. Fifteen years learning, training, waiting. And now I am finally leaving, and when I do, I have things I need to accomplish. People I need to find. Questions I need answered. And women—" He stopped himself, exhaled slowly, and met each of their eyes in turn. "Women are not part of that plan. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I do not know. But right now, today, this is not something I can carry."

The silence that followed was heavy and thick, the kind of silence that pressed down on a room until someone broke under the weight of it.

Sophia's hands trembled as she pulled her robe closed and tied the sash tight around her waist. Madison tugged the slip down and crossed her arms over her chest. Brooklyn fumbled with the top of her dress, her fingers shaking as she fastened the buttons one by one. Savannah stood there for a moment longer, completely still, completely exposed, and then she turned away and picked up the shirt she had left by the door.

Brooklyn's jaw tightened, her eyes went glassy, and when she spoke her voice trembled just slightly at the edges. "Fine. Fine, Derek. If that is how you feel, then we will wait."

"Wait?" he repeated.

"Yes. Wait." Sophia stepped forward again, fully dressed now, and this time there was no softness in her expression at all, just cold determination. "However long it takes. Months. Years. We do not care. But the moment you leave this mountain, we are coming with you. All four of us. And if you ever...ever get close to another woman, if you so much as look at someone else the way you refuse to look at us, that woman is going to regret the day she was born. Do you understand me?"

Madison nodded sharply. "We will make sure of it."

Savannah's smile was thin and dangerous. "She will not even see us coming."

Derek opened his mouth to respond, to tell them how insane that sounded, to argue, to do something, but before he could get a single word out the sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor outside heavy footsteps, fast and purposeful, the kind that belonged to someone who had traveled a long distance without rest.

The door opened again.

A man stood there, broad-shouldered and dusty from the road, his cloak marked with the seal of the supreme massager guard, and in his hands he carried two scrolls, one sealed with red wax and the other with black.

And that was when the scroll arrived.