Kill Me Softly (27 page)

Coming closer, Mira knelt and touched Cora's neck, searching for a pulse.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

None of the girls was asleep, drugged, playing, waiting.

They were dead.

They had been loved here. Killed here.

And some—some had tried to escape. Their torn clothes and bruises were testament to that.

“But it was too late,” Mira whispered. The forbidden room was a trap.

Mira wondered how he'd done it. Not with a sword—that was where the tale diverged from the reality. Felix was a Romantic; he had another weapon at his disposal.

Had he kissed their mouths, slow and soft? Had his lips brushed their throats like vampire bites, each touch siphoning away more life? Had he—had he—?

She couldn't let her mind go further. It hurt her to see the evidence, the years of seductions. She was crying and choking, wiping her eyes whenever the tears blinded her, refusing to let anything hide the truth from her now. She wanted to be horrified. It seemed sick to be jealous, too, but she
was
. It hurt to know he'd loved so many other girls; that she was not special, not unique.

He hadn't pressured her when they'd spent the night together. She'd thought it was because he was a gentleman. But of course he hadn't pushed her; he didn't have to. He knew this moment would come. When she'd need to know him—all of him.

A night when he would claim all of her.

No. Not tonight. Not her.

Mira turned from the room, her heart in her throat, love and sadness making it hard to breathe. She loved him. She really loved him—even in the face of this, she wanted to somehow deny it, make excuses for him. She was full of emotion and her heart ached like it would kill her.

She would go. She would run away and never come back. Leave her books behind, her clothes behind, her friends, her memories.

But not her life.

At the door, her hand on the knob—she heard the lock buzz open from the outside. She fumbled for the deadbolt—panicking even more when she saw how many locks there were: bolts and chains and—but the door swung toward her and knocked her out of the way.

Mira stumbled backward, red roses blooming on the toes of her worthless, pretty shoes, and faced him, on the dawn of her sixteenth birthday. Felix seemed sad, fierce, perversely loving, and angry.

But not at all surprised.

“I didn't mean—Felix—You don't understand—” she stammered, fighting to explain, to save herself, with a mind that had gone completely blank.

“Oh, Mira.” He shook his head, eyes burning with emotion; raked a trembling hand through his hair. “You had to come here.” His mouth was caught between a grimace and a tight line of pain.

“I just got here,” she swore, so vehemently she nearly believed herself. “I didn't see anything. I didn't touch anything. I just—let's go to dinner. Please. Or I can leave. If you want me to leave forever, I can leave—”

“I know exactly when you arrived, and exactly what you did,” he snapped. “I don't need a bloody key to tell me that. This is a casino; we don't trust anyone. We have surveillance like you can't imagine.”

Mira's eyes spilled over with tears. Admissions of guilt.
Damn it.
She wanted to stay cool and calm and lie, but she couldn't. She
couldn't
. The bedroom was full of girls he'd murdered and he was going to kill her next.

Something seemed to break in him when he saw her cry—but not the right thing. He was sorry—sorry for himself most of all—but nowhere in his face did she see mercy.

She moved toward him, hoping she could reason with him; grabbed the front of his jacket. “Felix—you have to let me go.”

He sounded weary. “I can't, Mira. I can't let you leave this room. Don't you understand?”

She didn't understand; she
refused
to understand.

The door was behind him. If she could get past him, fling it open, run—

She lunged for the door and he caught her easily; shoved her hard and sent her sprawling to the floor. Her skin flared red where it scraped the carpet; her elbow throbbed from banging into the desk. He'd never been forceful with her before, and the violence was a shock, even now.

Mira staggered to her feet—her hope dying as he turned his back to her and started securing the locks on the door. It was like a switch had been flipped in him; he seemed to grow calmer as he went through the motions. His hands shook less with every lock.

“I never wanted you to see this part of me,” Felix said. “I
tried
to be better for you. But this is what I am. When it comes down to it—this is all I am.”

“No,” she insisted. “It isn't. It can't be.
I love you
.”

A strange look came over his face—mournful, affectionate, resigned.

“I know,” he said. “They all did.”

And then he pulled her into his arms, seizing her with such determination that her struggle collapsed almost before it began. A few days ago, she'd been so weak from his kisses in the flower shop she'd barely been able to walk; now the strength she'd regained wilted beneath his. And like a conquering hero, or a bridegroom—or a lover-murderer—he carried her unwilling body to the bed.

He threw her down on the white coverlet and wasted no time climbing over her, pinning her down to keep her from escaping. The dead girls surrounded them, frozen in their positions, a limp, uninterested audience.

Mira's gaze swept the room, taking in every macabre detail. It was like staring at a wreck; she couldn't tear herself away—until Felix laid his hand over her eyes. “Don't look,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. “You don't need to see them.”

He'd released one of her wrists to cover her eyes, and now she reached for him, her hand trembling over his features. He cared about her—she knew he did. If she could just get through to him …

“You don't want to do this,” she said. “I know you don't.”

Felix grasped her hand, pried it away from him, and flattened her arm against the bed. His eyes bore down on her, sorry but hard.

“If what I wanted mattered,” he said, “this room wouldn't exist. This
curse
wouldn't exist. I want to be happy—to have a real chance at that, like everyone else. And I could, if someone would just
listen
.

“Mira,” he whispered. “Why does no one ever listen?”

“I don't know!” she cried. And then she remembered that it wasn't her fault; she could explain. She hadn't even wanted to come here. “The fairy! Delilah. She said I should—”

“It doesn't matter.” His voice was gentle, tinged with pain, with the regret that had seeped out sometimes when he was with her. “There's one innocent person in this room. And it isn't me, and it isn't you.”

The first girl,
she thought. The girl whose death had been an accident, before there'd been a forbidden room to invade, a secret to uncover.

Before his curse had broken him.

love destroys you,
he'd said once, and this was what he'd meant. She hadn't thought it would destroy her, too.

You shall go in, and take your place among the ladies you saw there
. …

“You can't keep me here,” she said, holding very still, as if he were an animal that would attack if she moved.

“You're wrong. I have to keep you here.” His hands clamped around her wrists, and his grip was so strong it felt like he could crush her if he wanted to. He was so much stronger than she was. He had his own strength and he had all the strength he'd stolen. “Don't fight me. Don't make this harder.”

“You expect me to just—lie here and
die
?” She strained against him, struggled to break his hold, to throw him off her. The skin of her wrists twisted, chafed in the shackles of his hands. Her shoulders surged upward, her legs fought against his weight. But he kept her pinned, as if it took no effort at all. The body she'd once loved to be close to was now a prison she couldn't escape. At last, she lay still, sweat slicking her skin, panting, her wrists aching.

Felix didn't seem angry that she'd tried to free herself. He knew she wasn't going anywhere.

And now she knew it, too.

Mira turned her face away so she wouldn't see the decision in his eyes. There had to be a part of him that loved her enough to listen. “If you care about me,” she said, “just let me go and I'll never tell anyone, I swear to god, I'll never—”

He stretched her arms above her head, laid his cheek against hers, so that his body covered her like a shroud. All she could see, all she could feel was him. “I would have done anything for you,” he said. “Anything you'd asked. But this—Mira, stopping this, sparing you … that's the one thing I can't do. I'm sorry….”

He was really going to—

She screamed—for help, mercy, anything—and he kissed her, his lips pressing hard on hers until the sound died in her throat.

The world turned gray for an instant, flickered with stars, like static. Felix kept kissing her—hard at first, and then softer as she stopped resisting, his lips as gentle as water, lovely and romantic, like this was a special night. More precious than a first time—because it was the last.

He ran his hands over her body, and there was something dizzying about his touch, something that made it easy to give in to, and hard to breathe. The softest death imaginable. She arched her back, and he bent his head to kiss her throat; and it was wonderful, like it always was—she never wanted it to end. It was horrible—it
would
end, and her world would end with it. She didn't want to lose him; didn't want to lose everything.

She hated that he could provoke these emotions in her, even when he was hurting her.
Murdering
her. She hated that her heart would fail her before it would fail him.

When Felix lifted up on his elbows to look at her, his face swam above her like a mirage. She wanted him to stop. Wanted him to touch her again, so softly, but to say it was all a lie. That he could forgive her for intruding, for uncovering his secret. That he was sorry for every horrible thing he'd done—and he'd never do them again. He could change for her.

He brushed the tears from her cheeks, and the tenderness of his touch was like a language she didn't understand. “It was so hard,” he confessed. “So hard to let you go once I knew you loved me. The feeling was so beautiful, so addictive … but I held back. I wanted to have something real with you. But you wouldn't let me. You had to be like everyone else. And ruin this …”

She'd always trusted Felix not to go too far, not to hurt her—even once she knew he already had. She'd forgiven his trespasses without an apology, any acknowledgment on his part that he'd done something wrong.

But he refused to forgive hers.

This time, he wouldn't hold back. He was going to take everything.

Felix kissed a farewell path along her body. Every touch stole her warmth, weakened the thread that bound her to life, that made her aware of the bed beneath her, and his weight above her, the scent of his cologne, the rasp of his breath as he coaxed yet another wisp of life from her body. His hair hung in his face, disheveled, wild, so different from before.

“At least you'll have your happy ending,” he murmured. “I can give you that. This won't hurt. It will be … just like the other times. And I'll always love you. I'll never forget you….”

“No …” she said feebly. “This isn't happy, Felix—please don't do this….”

“You'll be happier than I'll be when this is done. At least you can know love without having to destroy it. I have to go on. I have to keep playing this game until someone listens. And we both know … no one ever will. No one ever does. This has to be your happy ending, Mira. Because this is the only ending you have.”

Life and love swept away from her like a wave pulled into the sea. It was all Mira could do to hold on to consciousness.

She'd struggled at first—but she'd long since stopped fighting. One kiss and her resistance began to drain away; two and the weakness, the strange euphoria set in. Three kisses and panic warred with resignation in her mind, the only part of her that still seemed to function.

She felt like she had in the Knights' too-warm swimming pool: her body floating, gravity disappearing, only the brush of a hand against her skin reminding her that she had a body at all.

There was one thing she couldn't forget. One thing no amount of numbness could steal.

The pendant lay bundled against her chest like a chrysalis, a razor-blade butterfly waiting to be freed. She could feel it even as her senses abandoned her. The danger it represented weighed heavily on her heart.

And as her mind struggled to find a way out, an ending other than death … the blade began to seem like a second chance.