CHAPTER 6 “A Deal With the Devil”
“A Deal With the Devil”
We enter a dark room, the shadows swirling around us as Niko drops me onto a massive bed, bigger than I have ever seen in my entire life of thirty two years.
Scrambling back until my back hits the headboard, my system goes on high alert as the giant of a man pulls forth a chair and sits down on it, his stare locked on me, burning me with its intensity. Tangles of rope lie strewn around the floor, causing my mind to race with terrifying implications.
Rain falls down in long silver threads outside, lashing the window like desperate fingers. Thunder rumbles low through the forest, a warning too late for me.
I didn’t mean to trespass.
I had no choice.
The storm had driven me. The darkening woods. The sense of being hunted and watched beneath the trees.
Time passes, neither of us uttering a single word. The air is charged with tension so palpable, that it feels as if it’s pressing down on my already strained lungs, suffocating me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I mutter, finally mustering up the courage as curiosity slowly wins over, overruling the acute fear that has slithered its way into my very bones ever since being locked in with this domineering male hours ago.
His eyes catch mine.
They’re not warm.
But they’re beautiful.
Sharp as a knife’s edge. Dark, like the deepest well. They seem to see through me, to places inside myself that I have never dared to look.
“You’ll find out, soon enough.” Niko smirks, infuriating me once more when he leans back in his chair and spreading his muscular legs, adjusts himself. “What’s your name? How did you get here?” he says, voice low and coaxing.
My spine stiffens, a flicker of defiance threading through with the unease. The urge to refuse him is strong, but I ignore it, frowning instead in annoyance with the way he’s speaking to me, as if I’m some half-witted female, while doing my best to ignore the way he’s sitting.
“My name is Elena. Elena Fremont.”
A faint smile tugs at his mouth. He tastes my name in silence, like something rich and forbidden on his tongue. “How very fitting.” His tongue sweeps over his front teeth as he inspects me from across the room. “Answer my question.”
“I was running through the woods and happened to stumble upon your house.”
He arches a thick brow, incredulous. “And why, please tell, were you running through the woods in the middle of the night?”
“It wasn’t nighttime, it was day, and I wasn’t doing it because I am some crazy person. My cab driver had left me on the road, and I was afraid that wolves would come and eat me, so I—”
“So you thought it would be a smart choice to go for a stroll through the trees.” He clicks his tongue. “All alone.”
“Well, yes.” I swallow, feeling incredibly stupid now that he’s pointed out the nonsensical side to my logic. “I do realize it sounds silly, but at the time it seemed like a wise decision.”
A beat passes, then two, before he finally says on a low note, “There are much scarier things than wolves hunting in the woods. You should have stayed in the car.” There’s a glint in Niko’s eye, as if hiding a secret that I have yet to discover.
I don’t like it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he declares, all humor gone.
I swallow the large lump clogging my throat, my back pressing even further against the headboard. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I thought the house was abandoned.” I’m a historian, for Christ’s sake. I do not run away from facts, however disturbing they might be.
His lips curl into something between a smile and a sneer.
Between a threat and a challenge.
“Liar.”
Anger simmers in me.
I’m a grown woman. I will not be spoken to as if I’m some petulant child.
Jumping to my feet, I march to the open door but before I can make my escape, it bangs shut before me. As if a strong gust of wind—or something else, something unnatural—pushed it to close. I stand, paralyzed, and eyes glued to the knob, as the lock turns with a soft, deliberate sound.
“What is this?” My voice is a strained whisper. My heart, a frightened bird in a cage.
The storm outside no longer seems to be the thing that I should be afraid of.
Rattling the handle that refuses to budge, I spin around to the male sitting a few feet away, still observing me. Still soaking in every one of my reactions.
“Unlock the door,” I demand. “I wish to leave.”
“I’m afraid that’s no longer possible,” he says at last, his voice low—velvet soaked in smoke.
“That’s absurd. Why ever not?”
Lightening cracks.
“You’ve found something you shouldn’t have.”
I part my lips to answer, but find no words.
Niko’s smile deepens.
The silence that follows his ominous declaration is heavier than the storm raging outside. It presses in, thick and intimate, broken only by the beating of the rain against the glass and the slow echo of my breath.
Grinning wide, he stands, straightening to his full intimidating height.
My throat goes dry as his menacing form approaches me.
I step back, instinct prickling my skin.
Yet I can’t stop looking at him. He’s massive, an absolute mountain of a man as he towers over me, but there’s also a terrible grace to the way he moves.
Like a predator that hasn’t fed in a long time and has finally found his next meal.
He comes to a stop before me, so close, but not close enough. Not touching me, no, but near enough that I can feel the chill radiating from him like an unseen aura, as though he carries the cold of the grave beneath the fine stitching of his shirt.
“There is only one way you’ll ever be leaving this place.” My back hits the wooden panel as his hands land beside my head, caging me in. “By submitting to me.”
A strange heat flushes beneath my skin, sudden and unwelcome.
I turn away, but a low snarl has my head snapping back.
His hand lifts—not to touch, not quite—but close enough that I can feel the air shift near my cheek.
His fingers ghost the space between us, tracing the line of my face without contact, as though I’m something sacred. Or something cursed.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I echo his earlier words back to him.
“No,” he agrees, fervid gaze locked on my mouth. “But you are.” He leans in closer, and I can feel the cold exhale of his breath. The house seems to lean in with him, as if the very walls are watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “I know you want to run.” My breath catches. “But you also want to stay.”
How can he possibly know that?
The words hit me somewhere low, somewhere dangerous. I swallow, holding my breath. A tremor runs through me. Not from the cold, no. From the awful, exquisite thrill of being seen. Really seen.
I observe him, heart pounding wildly as I do so. He radiates danger, not in the obvious way of monsters or men with knives, but in the way fire does when it dances too close to dry wood. Beautiful. Hypnotic. Inevitable.
Every instinct tells me to run. Yet no part of me moves.
His presence fills the room like smoke. I breathe it in before realizing it has no scent, no source—only weight. Only heat. And somewhere inside me, something responds. Not just desire. Not just lust.
Recognition.
Like I have known him before—somewhere in dreams, in my darkest fantasies, or in the hush of night when I felt most alone. That strange familiarity both comforts me and terrifies me.
He is a stranger.
An absolute force of nature contained within one man.
I should fear him. And I do. But my fear is threaded with something I don’t understand: longing. The kind that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that dares to reach out and touch the flame, just to see if it will burn the same way twice.
I wonder what his hands would feel like.
Cold, probably. Firm. Certain.
And I hate myself for wondering, but I don’t stop.
I can’t stop. The moment our eyes met in the kitchen was the moment of no return for me.
There’s a part of me now—small, trembling, but undeniably present—that doesn’t want to escape.
It wants to submit. Not in weakness, but in understanding.
Something primal. Something that craves to open that locked door to where my deepest, darkest, most twisted desires dwell in eternal slumber.
The part of me that somehow knows this man will be the one to give me everything I need.
“Submit to me,” he whispers, a slow knowing smile stretching his lips. Dangerous. Tempting.
My heart pounds as he awaits my answer. Somewhere above, the old house moans: a soft, drawn-out creak. Like something ancient shifting in its sleep.
Oh, how I wish to let my guard down, to release myself of the inhibitions that have been forced upon me while growing up. To finally be free to explore my body, without shame. Without guilt. Without feeling dirty and flawed, like there is something wrong with me for wanting more.
But... am I brave enough? Do I have the courage to leap into the unknown?
I lift my chin.
And seal my fate.
“Yes.”