2. Matilda
2
MATILDA
When I start wheezing from all the running and escaping, I slow down and eventually stop, leaning over and resting my hands on my knees as I try to catch my breath. The two backpacks, while not heavy with the feather light spell still active, are cumbersome and definitely slowing me down. The spell will wear off soon. It always does. That’s just the way my magick is, weak, so I have to keep moving as far and as fast as I can. I seem to have a set time, no return policy with my spells. It will be hours before I can get the same one to work again. Looking back over my shoulder, I find the road deserted at this hour, but a shiver of unease still runs down my spine as it sets in that I’m all alone and fairly defenceless out here. But I can’t let that stop me. I have to keep moving, and at some point, I have to make sure I’m heading north.
Facing forward again, I start moving again. My legs in my short skirt are freezing, but I try to ignore it as I pull my thin cardigan around me and settle my backpacks more firmly.
I hear the roar of the car engine before I see the headlights flash down the road in front of me. I know it won’t be my family. The engine sounds expensive, and my dad drives an old Honda.
But I glance over my shoulder anyway as the car launches into view, going as fast as a fucking rocket. It narrowly misses me, sticking to the road like glue, as it thunders past me on the wrong side of the goddamned road and practically up the pavement.
“Hey!” I yell to the douche in the flashy, shiny black car, jumping back so I don’t get mowed down. “Watch where you’re going! Are you drunk or high?” But the car is gone before I can even huff out my next breath. “Fucking arsehole.”
Annoyed now as well as cold, I power on, the adrenaline coursing through my veins again after the near miss. Up ahead, I see a sign and realise that I’m near the main road, which means I’m heading in the right direction to go north. Unfortunately, in my panic to get away, I remember that the bus station is behind me. Quite a way behind me. I’d have to go back past my house to reach it. I have no clue what time or where the next bus is headed, but I’m going to have to find out and make a plan. In the meantime, I can keep walking. It’s keeping me just this side of freezing to death, and it’s putting invaluable distance between me and my family.
As I turn a corner, I see the black sports car parked up on the correct side of the road, and the driver of the vehicle is leaning against the side of it casually, arms folded, ankles crossed. I can’t make him out from this distance, but I swallow and grip the straps of my backpacks a little tighter. I guess he heard me calling him drunk or high and wants to berate me for being a bitch. Well, tough shit. He can berate all he likes. He nearly ran me down. Part of me wants to turn back and avoid this confrontation, but another part of me wants to yell at him for being so reckless. Picking up my pace, I march up to him, and he straightens up when I get closer. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. I’m nearly knocked off my feet by the sheer beauty of this creature. He is about my age, tall, around six-two, lean but muscular, dressed in black combat pants, black boots, and a black tee with a black coat that is undone. His black hair is cut short, and his blue eyes are sparkling, but what really catches my attention are the black veins visible under his pale skin.
“Need a ride?” he asks, his soft Irish accent nearly making me groan with lust. Could he be more delicious?
It probably means he is a predator.
“No,” I state. “And by the way, you owe me an apology for nearly knocking me over back there.”
“Sorry,” he says with a half-smile that erases the lingering feeling of Stryker’s hands from my flesh. “Get in.”
“No.”
“It’s freezing out here.”
“And?”
“Get in the fucking car.”
“Fuck you. I don’t know who you are or what you want.”
He removes his hands from his pockets and moves in closer. I try to step back, but I can’t. I’m rooted to the spot. “Just want a blowie,” he says, his eyes boring into mine. “Suck me off, and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
Rage and fear shoot through me. “Go to hell,” I growl, having had about as much of this sexual assault on my person tonight as I can take. “I wouldn’t suck you off if you paid me. A ride isn’t worth it, arsehole.”
“Ouch,” he mutters. “Hit a nerve?”
“Get fucked. If I wanted to be sexually assaulted, I’d have stayed at home!” I need to run again, but my feet just won’t move. My knees tremble, and I can barely stand up, the spell is wearing off on the backpack stuffed with Janice’s contraband, and it’s starting to weigh a fucking ton.
The man’s eyes harden, and he moves closer. “Who hurt you?”
The question catches me off-guard for a second. “What do you care?” I spit out. “You are just like them. A fucking predator. Now let me go from this holding spell you dropped over me, you utter tosser, before I break my fist on your face.”
He smirks but doesn’t let up the spell, nor his presence, which is way too close to me. He smells like expensive cologne and a fire that has just gone out.
“Feisty,” he murmurs. “But I am nothing like the people who have preyed on you, petal. I’m the thing that they should be scared of.”
I sneer at him. “That doesn’t make it any safer to get into the car of a self-professed apex predator.”
He smiles. It’s slow, sinister and sexy as fuck. “I was joking about the blowie, by the way.”
“You would say that.”
“Seriously,” he says with a face that appears to be telling the truth, but I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. “I don’t want anything from you, petal. I can see that my words upset you, and my joke was crude and misplaced. Forgive me?”
“I don’t even know you!”
“Draven,” he says. “And you are?”
I clench my jaw and glower at him.
“How can I make amends if I don’t know your name?”
“Matilda,” I state coldly.
“Well, Matilda. You are out here in the freezing cold in the middle of the night, dressed in practically nothing, with two backpacks, one that looks like it’s pretty heavy, and with your words earlier, you have shown me that you have run away from home. So, I can offer you a ride wherever you want to go, no strings attached.”
“Why?” I ask, the fight going out of me and the caution rearing up tenfold now he has switched tactics.
Draven’s eyes soften slightly as he takes in my wary stance. “Because there is something about you, Matilda, that is driving this protective instinct in me that has reared up out of the blue. You’re clearly in trouble and need help.”
I eye him suspiciously. “Just like that? You nearly run me over, put a spell on me, make crude jokes, and now you want to play the knight in shining armour?”
He shrugs. “I admit, I misjudged the situation at first. But I can see now that was wrong of me. Let me make it up to you by giving you a lift somewhere safe.”
Part of me wants to accept his offer. I’m freezing, exhausted, and have no real plan beyond “go north.” But years of abuse and manipulation have made it hard for me to trust anyone, especially a strange man offering help.
Should’ve run in the opposite direction.
“How do I know I can trust you?” I ask.
“You don’t,” Draven says bluntly. “But consider this. If I wanted to hurt you, or force myself on you, I could have done so already. I’m clearly more powerful magickally, seeing as this holding spell is more of a suggestion than a subjugation. I could make you get in the car quite easily, I imagine. Instead, I’m offering you a choice.”
As much as I hate it, he has a point. Despite his initial crudeness, there is something about him that makes me think I can trust him. Maybe it’s desperation, or maybe it’s my instincts telling me he’s not lying. Maybe it’s those eyes that seem to see into my soul. Maybe it’s his words of protection.
Or maybe I’m just a fucking idiot with a death wish.
“Either way, Matilda, I will find who hurt you and make them wish they had made better choices.”
Our locked gaze simmers, and my breath comes in short pants. “Who are you?” I whisper.
He gives me that slow, half smile again that is full of power and promises yet to be made, giving me goosebumps over every inch of my skin. “I told you, my name is Draven. Necromancer extraordinaire and Prince of Hell, at your service.”
My mouth drops open in shock. “What?”