Terrorscape (17 page)

Her scream took flight from her lips like a startled
moth, ending as abruptly as it started. And then her
legs remembered how to work and Val did the first
sensible thing she had done since she had chosen to
come to this horrible place—she ran. She ran without
looking back because the sound of his footsteps told
her everything she needed to know.

He was fast.

She was faster, but only just so. She had learned
that the hard way in Harper Hall. A fold in the carpet,
a single misstep, and he would catch her.

She circled and jumped over furniture, nearly
stumbling in her haste, and managed to reach the
door. She gave the knob a sharp jerk. It wouldn't
open. He'd fastened the deadbolt.

She spun around just as his hands hit the wall on
either side of her with a slam that made her body
twitch. “I wasn't finished,” he said, and the volume of
his voice was almost conversational, but the tone—the
tone was several shades below civil.

He
cupped
her
chin,
tilting
it
closer
for
inspection. She felt his breath, quick and light from
running, stirring the damp hairs around her face. He
turned her face this way and that. “Look how you've
grown.”

“Please don't hurt me.”

He leaned in so close she could make out the
scent of him—wild and musky, with a floral edge that
conjured up images of thorns rather than petals—and
when his lips fleetingly grazed hers, too briefly to be a
kiss, she felt her insides squirm. These were not the
actions of a man who would listen reason.

“Don't like to be touched, Val?”

He dusted his hand across her breasts, once,
mockingly, before wrapping them around her throat
and pulling her in for a deep kiss that knocked her
head back against the wall.

He had cast off his mantle of fleece and wool.
That was what had changed.

He was all wolf, no longer concerned with
keeping up appearances.

She swallowed and his gaze dropped to her
throat and then the grip on her neck was gone,
replaced by his mouth.

“A pity, that.” He flicked his tongue into her ear,
just to see her shiver. “I've always wondered…how
you would taste.”

Her eyes leaped to his.

He arched an eyebrow and, like a basilisk, it
seemed his eyes could both and kill. “Yes, I've always
wondered—that, among other things.” He tugged at
her earlobe before moving down to the soft hollow
where jaw and throat and ear conjoined. “Things you
can't even imagine.” He smiled that chilling, mirthless
smile. “But I think I'll show you. Yes, how about it,
Val? Are you up for one—last—game?”

She socked him in the face.
It was hard to say who looked more stunned.

She couldn't believe what she had done. Her fist
had seemingly acted of its own accord and she stared
at the appendage with as much shock as if it had
suddenly sprouted tentacles.

Even more shockingly, her punch had drawn
blood. Gavin's blood. A bead of it clung to his lower
lip, which had been torn by his teeth upon contact.
She had never thought him capable of bleeding.

Apparently he could.

Rage whipped unbridled across his face like
lighting, chased by another emotion Val couldn't read.
A kind of knowing, as ominous as the thunder that
preceded a storm, though what he thought he knew
about her she couldn't even begin to guess.

She struck him again, trying to lunge past him.
He grabbed her wrists, nearly yanking her arms out
of their sockets as he pinned them over her head.

Val had never thought it possible to drown on air,
but she was a believer now. Oh, yes.

With the hand that wasn't holding onto her, he
touched two fingers to his lip. The pad of his fingers
was smeared red, staining the whorls of the skin. He
stared at the blood for a moment, then looked at her
through narrow eyes. She recoiled when she saw his
arm flex, thinking he was going to hit her, and when
she gasped he smeared his fingers all over her lips.

She could taste it, his blood. The taste reminded
her of the old, dirty pennies she had once put into her
mouth as a child. Coppery, thick, dirty.

“That was very unwise.”

His teeth closed over her throbbing pulse. She felt
his tongue flick across her skin, and then he bit down.
Not enough to break the skin, but with enough to
make her squirm. Enough to make her wonder if a
few drops of blood were perhaps the least of her
concerns.

“The rules have changed.”

 

His words were muffled, but she understood
them clearly enough.

“There are penalties for defiance. Before, there
were others to take the fall for your…” He blew
against her dampened skin, and pulled back to regard
her. “Impetuousness.”

She sank back against the wall.

“Nothing to say? No brave words? No…witty
retort?” He seemed to only just register how white
her face was. “Oh, I see. Am I frightening you?”

What kind of a question was that? Of course he
was frightening her!

“What's the matter, Valerian? You don't think I
could bring myself to mark your lovely skin? I'll take
my knife to you, if that's the case. I'll carve my name
in your breast so that every beat of your heart will
remind you that you are mine—and mine alone.
Because blood is binding, and because I would rather
see you destroyed than see you free or in the
possession of another, so I suggest you not try me, or
you will suffer as no earthly creature has.” He
slammed her back against the wall. “Or ever will. But
that is a suggestion, and one you are free to disregard
at your own peril. But you are going to answer my
question.”

The bile clotting her throat made speaking an
effort. “What question? I…don't remember.”

He tugged her face closer with the scarf. “I asked
if I was frightening you.”
“Yes,” she said in a tiny voice.

“Yes, what?”
“Yes, you're frightening me.” She shuddered.
He released her arms.
“W-what are you doing?”

He gave her that smile. The one she had learned
to fear because it was the smile he had given her first
when he had tried to capture her, and then again
when he had tried to kill her.

When he broke her heart, and then her mind.
“Are you going to kill me?'”
He tapped her under the chin.
“Run.”
This time, he was in the way of the door.

Always five steps ahead
, she thought,
literally and
figuratively.
She
started
for
the
bathroom,
which
she
remembered had a lock, and he cut her off, his steps
mirroring hers as he stalked her. His eyes were flinty
with intent.
Val ducked behind the couch, trying to keep it
between them as she caught her breath.

“Getting tired?”
She screamed when she felt him swipe at her arm.

“Don't touch me!” she hissed. A hiss that turned
into a yelp when he vaulted over the back of the
couch, causing it to topple over with a loud thud.

“Oh no,” he said, amused, when she glanced at
the door. “That won't help you.”

 

He was closer now, his posture deliberately
obstructive.

She feinted right—he moved left, blocking off
another
exit.
She
looked
around
with
a
wild
desperation, spotted the chessboard. Yes. She grabbed
it, and threw the board at him just as he was almost
upon her. Rather than grabbing her, he shielded his
face with his forearm and the pieces hit the floor with
a sound like the rain that was still falling outside.

“How feral you have become.”

Val picked up the nightstand, grunting a little
with the weight of it, but he grabbed the legs before
she could hurl that at him too.

She shoved hard, slamming the legs of the
nightstand against his chest and forcing him to take a
step back. A grudging smile appeared on his lips; it
quickly disappeared.

Val tightened her hold on the wooden edges as he
began to wrest the table away from her. Her palms
were slick with sweat, though, and blood from where
the sharp edges had cut her—and he was quite a big
stronger. She dug her heels into the carpet for
traction, her whole body straining.

Gavin gave a final, hard yank. Both of them
stumbled back from each other, and she lost her
balance and fell on the carpet in a heap. He had the
table, which he flung against the wall. The wood
splintered. She felt the floor shake with the impact.
There was a dinner-plate-sized dent in the plaster that
had crumples of white paint and drywall tumbling
down to sprinkle the carpet like powdered sugar.

She
kicked
against
the
carpet
as
he
strode
purposefully over to where she had fallen. But, like a
nightmare, the air was too thick and she moved far
too slowly. She began to crawl. He scooped her up,
one arm around her waist and the other cupping her
backside, swinging her up with the same force with
which he had tossed the table.

He
was
breathing
hard,
from
exertion
and
something more. Something that made her redouble
her struggles, scrabbling against him with flailing
limbs and clawed fingers.

He threw her down on the bed and her shoulders
buckled under the weight of him as he slid forward to
straddle her from behind. Her face was buried in the
coverlet. She could not lift her torso to take the
pressure off her chest. She could not breathe.

He took two fistfuls of shirt and pulled. There
was a tearing sound. Several buttons popped loose
and rolled beneath the bed. Val gasped, sucking in air,
and lashed out with her foot. She came into contact
with something too firm to be mattress and too
yielding to be bedpost. His back, she thought. She
kicked at it, as hard as she could, putting vengeance
into every strike. The thick leather jacket cushioned
most of the impact, but it couldn't feel good, either.

Gavin slid off her, twisting her around so that she
fell sprawling onto his lap. Her flannel shirt clung
tenuously together by one lone button.

His lips mashed against hers as he twisted the
button free, flipping the cups of her bra. He produced
a sprig of jasmine from the leather jacket and teased
her nipples with the star-shaped flowers. “Jasmine,
for desire.” He closed his eyes and exhaled, slowly.
“What a fine specimen you are.”

Specimen. Something trapped in a jar, in a cabinet
somewhere, or pinned down for dissection.

When she felt his hands on her like that, claiming
her like so much meat, something inside her snapped.
She hooked her fingers into the chain around his
throat and tugged—hard. His grip on her tightened
involuntarily as he choked from the garrotting. Yes,
she had tried this before. But this time she didn't want
to hurt him; she wanted to kill him. She knotted her
fingers in the chain, leaving no slack. The metal bit
cruelly into his skin. He began to struggle.

She bared her teeth at him in a silent hiss, pleased
she could hurt him in such a way. Pleased that she
was capable of hurting him at all. But then she
realized he wasn't just struggling; he was rolling back
and forth, gaining momentum, and just as she
realized this he had gained enough force to trap her
beneath him.

With a ragged gasp, he released the catch on the
chain and tossed his necklace aside with a heavy
clank. Above the red marks left by the metal, a string
of infinity symbols, was a pink scar she remembered
all too well. He ran his fingers across it. “I'll have your
blood for striking me.”

She gouged into him, sliding her hand into his
open shirt and raking a trail of scratches over his right
shoulder all the way across to his left nipple. Beads of
blood welled up from the broken skin. He snatched at
her hand and she went for his eyes with the other,
and when he covered his face she wove her fingers
through his matted chest hair and pulled as savagely
as she could.

He tore her claws out of him and in doing so,
released her other wrist. She shoved at his wounded
shoulder and he snatched her hand out of the air
before she could score him again with that one, too.
The pressure was agonizing and she made a small
piteous cry when he bit her, rather hard, on the
shoulder. “Do you want to fight me? Is that what you
want?”

“N-no.”

“Your body is telling me otherwise. Lower your
eyes. Bare your throat. Show me that you understand.
Yes, that's quite good,” he said approvingly, when she
turned her head. She had only been moving away
because she thought he had intended to kiss her.

She whimpered when his hand approached her
face, but it was only to tuck another flower behind her
ear. “Tiger lilies, for hatred.”

He raised himself up to finish unbuttoning his
shirt. Val pulled her knees together and bucked. There
was a loud thud. Val didn't bother checking to see if
he was conscious or note. She scrambled off the bed
for the door—

Only to have him yank her legs out from beneath
her.
For the second time that afternoon, she hit the
floor hard enough to make her skull rattle. And then
her scarf wound tightly around her throat, forcing her
to back up, to ease the pressure, and when she moved
to examine the damage she found that her wrists were
bound, too, pinioned behind her back by the tail ends
of the soft, stretchy wool.

He pushed her back on the bed so that they were
in the same position as before.

 

With one difference.

“Shall I tell you what I did to those other girls,
Val? How they screamed? How they begged? They all
asked the same question—why are you doing this?
But not you. You know very well why.”

The blade smelled of flowers, and was stained
with pollen and—she swallowed—what could have
been old blood.

Val made a small sound as the icy blade of the
knife slid down her ribs. Fear made her bladder
heavy and her head light. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Yes, she knew why.

“Get it over with. Please. Whatever you're going
to do—” The knife blade pressed against her mouth,
silencing her retort. But not cutting.