Chapter 3
3
Warmth radiating against my back hits me before my eyes even open. It’s nice, and familiar, though not tangible, exactly. I turn my face against the pillow under me, inhaling deeply. For a few moments, it’s great. I’m warm, I’m comfortable—though it doesn’t feel like I’m lying in a bed—and nothing is wrong.
Until I remember.
With a gasp, I open my eyes and jerk upward, causing a light blanket to fall off of me. I turn toward the crackling sound and warmth, my eyes wide as I find a lit fireplace with flames licking over artificial logs. Seeing as there’s no fireplace in my apartment, I know I’m not at home anymore.
“What the hell…?” I murmur, feeling more than a little bit out of it. My brain seems to be scattered, like it’s still waking up from the best sleep I’ve probably had in my life. Even if it did happen against my will. Moving my hand, I flinch when I touch something near the pillow under me that turns out to be my shoes.
“Real brave of you, Noa,” I grumble to myself, pulling them on. A hoodie lies folded there too, though it’s not one of mine. Still I tug it over my head, sort of wishing this one was mine because it’s so soft and covers me to mid-thigh. The sleeves are perfectly too long, and I curl my fingers into the fabric to comfort myself.
Judging from the way no one has responded to me talking to myself or jumped out of the shadows to murder me, I can’t help but wonder if I’m alone here. “Hello?” My voice seems too loud in the open, yet cozy space, and when no one responds I take off at a stiff, slow walk.
Large, plush sofas face the fireplace and the tv hanging above the mantle, and where I’d been lying is a pillow, soft blanket, and even softer rug. The fire still makes occasional sounds, even without real wood, making me wonder when it was cleaned or looked at last. I would really like to avoid a death by gas fireplace in a strange cabin.
Turning, my eyes find huge windows lining part of one wall, though I have no idea what’s outside. Everything past the glass is black, but it doesn’t stop me from approaching to press my hands against them.
Where am I ?
No matter how I try to remember what had happened after I passed out— was drugged— nothing comes to me. I guess I really have been completely out of it, and that thought unsettles me.
What if they did something to me, and I just can’t remember?
But…I don’t feel any different. I don’t feel bad at all, except for the twisting anxiety in my stomach and the way I want to yodel my fears into the air. Still, the thought makes me rub my arms as if there’s something on my skin, and I push away from the window to trudge toward the small kitchen and breakfast nook. The table in the cabin isn’t huge, and any table is an upgrade from my lack of one, I suppose. The wood grain looks real, not fake like everything I own, and I trail my hand over the surface of it as I look around this part of the cabin.
Along the back wall of the living room is a closed door, which I naturally open without hesitation. If I was kidnapped, then clearly I have permission to go anywhere I want. In my head, that makes sense. Though I notice there are suspiciously no knives that I can find in the kitchen, even though I’m sure all kitchens have them.
I really don’t want to have to use a fork to stab someone to get free.
When I push the door open, I see a generic, boring bedroom with a large bed, dresser, and two small, matching tables at the head of the bed. It’s very cabin-chic, though I don’t know what else I was expecting.
I am in a log cabin after all.
A door closing somewhere in the cabin pulls my attention from hunting through the ensuite bathroom drawers which yielded all of nothing. I listen to the murmur of voices while I stand in place, wondering if I should try to hide or learn to contort my body to somehow get through the small bathroom window.
“Noa?” Val’s curious, bemused voice from the main room of the cabin does absolutely nothing to soothe my fears. In fact, it makes them worse. Quietly, I close the drawers and chew on my lower lip while trying, and failing, to come up with a plan.
The bedroom light turns on just as I step out of the bathroom, and my wide eyes find Kieran’s as he leans against the doorframe and looks me over with an appraising look I’m starting to hate. “She’s right here,” he says in a voice no louder than it needs to be. Again my nails sink into my palms and I find it hard to stand still while I stare at him.
“What do you want?” I finally manage to ask as I flex my fingers. My nails bite into my skin with every move, and somehow the movement draws Kieran’s attention.
“That looks like it doesn’t feel great,” he remarks, head tilting to the side. Without answering my question he strides across the wooden floor, his hand reaching out to mine. When I flinch away, my back hits the edge of the doorway behind me and causes me to wince in discomfort.
“Don’t touch me,” I breathe, eyes wide.
Kieran just grins and, as if to make a point, wraps his long fingers around my wrist. “If I wanted to hurt you unnecessarily, darling, I would’ve killed you by now.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?” Trying and failing to rip my hand free, I step back until our arms are stretched between us. His muscles have to flex to keep me from dragging him backward in my attempt to create distance or just generally be a problem.
His eyebrow raises, and with a quick jerk he pulls me forward, causing me to stumble into him with a huff of surprise as my other hand comes up to catch myself against his chest. “Let go!” Moving to pull back, I’m too slow, and he suddenly picks me up to throw me over his shoulder with practiced ease.
This leaves me with a view of his ass and the floor as he turns to walk out of the bedroom. A noise of protest escapes my throat, and I bend my knees with every intention of kicking him.
“I wouldn’t,” Kieran tells me flatly. “Do what you want, I guess, but seeing as I haven’t tied you up, cuffed you, or otherwise impeded your movement yet, maybe don’t push it.”
His words cause me to reconsider. I slowly relax, though I keep my grip on the back of his shirt as if I can somehow steady myself or maintain some kind of control of the situation.
Seconds later, I find myself unceremoniously dumped back onto the rug in front of the fireplace, my knees pressed to the edge of the pillow before I pull back to look up at them.
“What do you want?” My heart pounds in my throat, making it hard for me to hear anything other than the blood rushing in my ears. “I thought…Why would you kidnap me?” Damn, I really never should’ve let them in this morning. That had been my first, and maybe last mistake.
Valentin sighs suddenly and drops to the rug behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist even as I fight to free myself. Not that he seems to care or really notice. Instead, he presses his chin to my shoulder before turning to kiss my cheek affectionately.
Unlike earlier today—when I would’ve basked in the attention and begged for more—I jerk away from him and sneer.
“Don’t be like that, princess,” he purrs sweetly. “Come on, you don’t need to be mad. We really don’t want to hurt you, okay? And before you ask, the only reason you were on the floor is that you were doing a lot of moving in your sleep and we didn’t want you to fall off the couch.” No matter how much I fight him, his arms stay locked around me.
“And the sooner you stop fighting us, the sooner you get an explanation.” Kieran goes to the sofa to sit down, sighing as he stretches his legs out in front of him.
“But if I maintain the motivation now, I won’t have to pep myself up for it after you explain why you kidnapped me,” I snap nervously, my fear making me frustrated and defensive. God, I wish I could just get my arms free, even one, so I could aim my elbow at Val’s nose. If I’m dying here in this cabin, then I’m taking Val’s good looks to the grave with me.
“Gorgeous, feral princess,” Val snarls in my ear. “But, unfortunately, if you don’t stop, I’ll have to get a little mean, Noa.”
“As opposed to drugging me, lying to me, drugging me again , and kidnapping me? That wasn’t mean?” I struggle to get my foot under me, hoping I can use the momentum of standing up to knock him over and get in touch with my inner cheetah to chew out one of their throats.
Or, as a backup, I am still willing to stab a man with a fork.
Managing to finally get one shoe pressed to the floor, I jerk upward. I make it a few centimeters before Val growls, the sound rough and more than a little feral, before suddenly I’m on my back with him straddling my hips, arm across my throat.
Worse, my head is right between Kieran’s boots, which feels more than a little ironic and unfortunate.
Kieran just sighs from the couch and doesn’t move, meaning that I don’t have many places to try to shift to get away from Val’s arm. “Stop!” I gasp, trying to suck in air. “ Stop it! I can’t breathe!”
“If you can bitch, you can breathe,” Val assures me with a sweet smile. “And if you weren’t trying to tear my face off, princess, we wouldn’t be here. So stop sneering at me and take a breath.”
“Let go of—” He rolls his eyes and presses down again, cutting off my words and twisting them into a surprised yelp of discomfort and severe lack of oxygen.
“Breathe,” he reminds me. “Not bitch.” After a few more seconds he lessens the pressure, and I take a deep breath followed by a few desperate pants.
“I would say I’m surprised,” Kieran remarks from somewhere behind my head. “I’d say I expected you to maybe act a little rational and hear us out. But well…I’m not and I didn’t. You really are such a feral little thing. I’ve realized you can’t help yourself when you’re backed into a corner. Most people would be begging for us to be nice, to let them go. They’d be simpering and pleading and promising to do anything. But you…”
Val grins in silence and leans down to bare his teeth at me in some kind of show of dominance or threat. For all I know, he could just be looking for approval on his tooth-brushing skills.
But probably not.
So I show him my teeth right back, kicking up at him just to see where it gets me.
Which is absolutely nowhere.
"What do you want?” I snap, letting my foot drop back to the floor with a thump of displeasure. “I thought you weren’t going to kill me. You…you didn’t last night. When you drugged me and took me home.” Thinking about how long and exhausting my night was seems to remind my body of just how little rest I’ve gotten in the past twenty-four hours.
Part of me can’t believe that’s all it’s been.
Kieran shifts and sighs like he’s tired. If so, that makes two of us. “We would’ve brought you here straight from the haunt, truthfully. But Val needed to make sure this place was empty and the stuff I used to drug you last night wouldn’t last as long as I’d like. Not with the drive.”
The drive?
Biting my lip, I glare up at Val again, wondering if he’ll choke me out for asking too many questions. “Where are we? Are we far from the city?” Without being able to see anything outside or being able to find my phone, I have no idea how far from Nashville we could possibly be. The idea that I’m hours from my apartment and my cats makes my fingers flex and the urge to whack Val in the face goes through me again.
“I fed your cats and gave them extra water. Changed the litter boxes for you, too,” Val remarks, drawing my attention to his grin. His eyes glitter sweetly, like he really thinks he’s done me some great favor that will sway me into not freaking out.
“Wow. You’re such a saint. My absolute hero—” He presses down again on my throat, his smirk turning rueful as he tips his head to the side playfully.
“We don’t want to kill you,” Kieran continues. “Neither of us. But we aren’t going to risk going to jail for you, feral little thing.”
Fear prickles up my spine, causing my fingers to flex against Val’s arm. My heart rate picks up, and it occurs to me they’re definitely going to murder me. But if so…why not do it while I was unconscious?
Unless they’ve kept me alive to torture me like the other people at the haunt.
My sudden realization must show on my face, because Val’s face turns a little apologetic. “Don’t do that,” he murmurs, and leans forward to brush his lips to mine. “No, princess, it’s not like that.”
“You don’t know what I was thinking,” I breathe, trying not to let my fear show in my voice.
But he just smiles against my lips and huffs a soft chuckle.
“We figure you don’t want to die.” It’s frustrating how Kieran can just sound so casual about this, as if he’s not talking about whether they’re going to end my life, or not. Again my fingers flex, nails digging into Val’s arm as everything in me screams at me to figure out how to run.
God, I really wish I could.
“You can’t just keep me here or bury me in the woods.” I cast around my brain, searching for a reason to back up my statement. “My friends will notice. Sierra?—”
That pulls a laugh from Val and he sits up, not moving his arm. “ Princess ,” he admonishes. “Come on. We were in your apartment when you oh-so-conveniently told the cops and your friend that you were fine, just busy. And I took the liberty of texting her for you once her first flight landed. I think she’s too busy to come check on you, seeing as she’s all the way in Portland .”
Fuck.
I hoped they’d forgotten that, or hadn’t thought to check my phone.
“All you have to do”—Kieran’s boots slide on the wooden floor, and when I blink, he’s leaning over me, his eyes on mine—“is prove to us you aren’t a liability. That we won’t regret letting you live, and that you won’t betray us, Noa.”
Seconds tick by as I digest that knowledge into my bones. I bite my lip, barely registering Val’s soft murmur when I do. “How?” I ask finally, carefully.
Kieran grins, lips quirking into something not so friendly, and it occurs to me he was just waiting for me to ask. “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? How do you prove to two murderers that you won’t—you can’t—betray them?”