Chapter 8
8
LUCY
T he dark king topples, rolling around the chequered board as I glance up at Tomasz. The silence buzzes around us with the crackling from the fire zapping at my pores. An electric current hums through me as I hold his amused stare. He’s completely unfazed, as though the actual game is about to begin.
It should be all the warning I need to make me wary of what’s coming, but my curiosity gets the better of me. I don’t like that he believes he still has the upper hand. He’s cocky and so sure of himself. I hate him so fucking much that I want to gouge his flesh from his bones with my bare hands. Especially when he looks at me like this—an almost smirk ghosting his lips and shining in his eyes, gradually blooming into a shit-eating grin, like the cat that got the cream.
“Shakh i mat,” I state.
With a nod, Tomasz echoes in English, “Checkmate…you win.”
Every muscle in my body coils tight as he stands, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts as he saunters to the bedroom door without a backwards glance. His demeanour has always been sharp and dangerous. Even beneath the suits he wears, his body is obviously strong. But as he walks away from me, his black T-shirt pulls taut over his shoulders, rippling over his back with every flex of his muscles.
My heart is already hammering in anticipation of what he’s doing. He said he would release me if I won. As he unlocks the door, freedom beckons me. I want it so goddamn much that I can barely breathe at the thought that it’s so close.
“What are you waiting for?” he asks, spinning to look at me as he opens the door.
I stand, all too aware of the way his eyes roam over my body, pausing on my chest. Instinctively, my hand splays over my breasts. I can’t help the way my fingertips stroke over the hollow of my throat, searching for my lucky penny while I trace the length of his body with my gaze.
Crossing his ankles, Tomasz leans back into the edge of the door. His throat bobs as he continues watching me, his stare edged with contempt as I close the distance between us. My body aches with every step while I take in muscle-roped thighs and legs.
Tomasz is tall. He’s broad, and he’s strong, and in his shadow, I feel as small as he sees me.
Little Red.
The echo of his voice rolls through me, the gravel heating my insides as my skin hums with the intensity of his stare raking over me. Much like gravity was on his side when he had me hung on the tree, the air around me pulls me closer as he straightens and his eyes find mine.
Hot palms ghost the back of my hands at my sides. My stomach knots tight at the same time as my legs press together, the pounding of my heart battering my ribs and punching the air from my lungs.
“Krasnyy…” he drawls, leaning closer so that his vodka-sweetened breath kisses my lips and fizzes over my cheeks. “Red…”
Rolling his lip into his mouth, he inhales deeply, so deep that he might as well be robbing the air from my lungs as the tip of his nose traces the slope of mine with a barely there touch.
I’m burning. So hot and so fucking, torturously slow as his body grazes mine, that all I can do is gasp him in. Deeper and deeper, until the expensive musk of his cologne with the smoky tinge of tobacco courses through my veins.
I hate him so fucking much, and yet, I can’t pull away. There’s a draw between us that keeps me chained to his darkness. It calls to me in a way that makes me hunger for his touch and his rage. It makes me yearn for the power pulsing inside him, coursing through his veins. I want to revel in the violence that blazes in his eyes.
Every day that’s gone by since he left me in that godforsaken bed with nothing but the walls and painted ceiling for company, I have gone stir-crazy in the silence. He imprisoned me in a gilded cage with nothing but my fading memories and my useless hope. And I have hankered for his return so desperately that it was him that ruled over my every thought and hope. He stalked my sanity with his absence, and now that he’s here, and that we’re this close, the prospect of walking away is agonising.
“Run,” he rasps between gritted teeth even as his groin presses to my belly, the feel of his hardened cock making me shudder.
I know I should push him away. I know I shouldn’t like the fire licking at my insides from the contact of our bodies. But after being so alone, the buzz of our proximity is euphoric. Wrong and intoxicating. It’s a sin. I know it is, but it’s too late for salvation. I waited so long— too long —and now I’m damned.
“You won…” The rumble of his words is my undoing. There’s a tinge of doubt and moroseness to his voice that makes me step closer.
My head is screaming no. It’s telling me to run. But every other part of me is begging me to stay right where I am. My blood is singeing my veins with every atom of his scent, just as my skin is crackling with the need to feel his rough touch, the rake of his calloused fingers and the scratch of his nails.
“I’m… I—” My thoughts scatter when his hands cup mine to the sides of my thighs. It takes a moment for me to gather myself and tell him, “I’m not a runner.”
Peeling back, Tomasz finds my gaze. The purse of his lips along with his narrowed eyes gives him a pained expression that feels oh too familiar with the tug-o’-war inside me.
A drawn chuckle vibrates from him as his hands leave mine and he tells me, “Run, Little Red…” Taking a step back, he opens the door wider and stands behind me. “Run for your life.”
When I don’t move, he edges me forward by treading on the back of my heel with his foot. It takes all of my strength not to stumble through the doorway. His frustration is a tangible thing as he nudges me onwards with his body. I refuse to move, and while I continue holding my ground, a hand brushes my hair over my shoulder. When I lean back into him, the press of cool metal to the bottom of my skull gives me pause.
“I said,” he growls, low and angry, grinding the barrel of the gun to my head. “Fucking run.”
Tomasz pushes me forward, and I do.
Tearing away from him, I ignore the rage clawing at my insides. Confusion and guilt scream in my ears as I blur past paintings and sculptures in vast hallways. I run without direction or a finish line, and no one stops me. The shadows don’t chase as I skip, hop, and jump down the stairs in my bare feet.
When I reach the bottom, I fully expect the double-width doors overlooking the sunken garden to be locked as I look behind me, expecting him to be following me. It’s just me, the darkness, and my escape.
Stupidly, I falter. Something inside me keeps pulling me back as I grasp the door handle and twist. I watch the moonlight sweep through my surroundings as I wait apprehensively for Tomasz’s footfalls to stalk me. Nothing but quiet greets my expecting ears, and as twisted and wrong as it is, disappointment threatens to floor me.
After everything, he really is letting me go. I’m walking out of the devil’s lair as though I am a welcomed guest. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up. Why would he keep me prisoner for so long only to free me after an unwitting game of chess?
Why is he letting me go at all?
The question keeps rounding my head as I step outside and take a deep breath. Procrastinating isn’t something I saw myself doing if this moment ever came. The longer I was locked in that room, the more I doubted I would ever get to walk out of this house, and now I must force myself to keep on moving even as my body aches for me to turn back.
As I push forward, his words come back to taunt me. Petrushka…puppet on a string.
It’s exactly what I am right now. I’m running from him like he commanded me to. Even so, he’s got a hold of me, tugging and drawing and plucking me back with every stride I press onwards.
Petrushka… Little Red.
Zapustit! Run! Run for your life, krasnyy…
His words are the only thing that keep spurring me into the thicket, beyond the tree he hung me from. The swing is back in its place. That night is nothing but an almost distant memory, and yet, it feels like the most important moment of my life—the night I died.
The girl he stole, and no one came for, is gone. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to get her back, the only things I can hold on to are my grandma’s words— always pick power over duty.
Funny thing is, I don’t want power. It’s never been something I’ve wanted or strived for. Love, that’s all I yearned for. The only sin I committed was to covet someone’s love. I wanted to be special enough for someone to look at me and want me. For someone to stop and care. Everything I’ve done and all the choices I made were for them. The men I would never be good enough for.
My breath scorches my lungs as I gasp and run faster. Away from him. Away from me. Away from everything that’s pulling me apart and robbing me of my sanity.
Run, Little Red. Run!
Fucking run! Run for your life!
The echoes are deafening, impossible to ignore or mute as I stumble and fall into a tree. My feet scream in pain, and as I lie on the mulchy ground, the cold finally seeps through my flesh, deep into my bones. For the first time in my life, the tears that I cry are unstoppable. Every fear, doubt, and insecurity I’ve ever had descends on me, picking at my carcass before I’m really dead.
The high-pitched whistle silences my sobs as the familiar growl and grunt of the dogs sounds near. I don’t know what I’m actually scared of—the canines, the animal sending them for me, or that I want them to find me.
Pushing up onto my hands and knees, I crawl away from the shelter of the large tree. Digging my hands into the earth, I drag myself over the thick, exposed roots. The scent of the wet dirt hazes my senses as ice makes it harder and harder to move and tug my dress free of the snags.
Little Red. A pretty doll…puppet on a string. A pet.
I collapse into the ground, unable to find the air or strength to calm my racing heart. Fast footfalls grow louder. When they come to a stop, I look up.
Wide eyes greet me as the dog lowers to press his nose to mine, wet, cold. When he growls, the sound makes my heart halt for a second before it kick-starts again.
“We are not friends,” I grunt breathlessly, holding his stare as he shakes out his long coat with a brusque exhale and long whine.
Adrenaline courses through my veins, heating me from the inside out as I push to my feet, and with a couple of stumbles, I find my stride. Slow at first, but as the dog howls, my feet move faster until the only thing running through my head is the buzz of the darkness and the rhythm of my feet, faster and faster as I dodge roots and debris.
It’s the most freedom I’ve felt in my life, oddly. I expect the dog to chase me, but as I run, he keeps in step with me. The sound of his paws hitting the dirt thunders around us. Heavy and powerful…exactly like its master’s.
As if the creature knows my thought, it circles me a couple of times, breaking my stride, slowing me down until I come to a stop just short of the treeline. Lights glitter ahead of us, and as I catch my breath, I notice the guards patrolling the wall separating me from the world beyond this place.
Fuck.
I was so deep in my headfuck that I didn’t think of the security. Of course, he would have a small army defending his lair at all times. All these men at his beck and call, and somehow, he’s made it his personal mission to torture me himself. Taunting me with the notion of freedom. Making me feel things that aren’t real…
The whistle sounds again, not as far as I thought it was before. But then I ran aimlessly. For my life, just like he commanded me.
“Shut up!” I snap at the howling creature. “Why can’t you bark like any other fucking dog?”
As though he’s offended by my outburst, he grumbles in that whining way of his. Like when I was shaking him off me, he paws at my legs, drawing attention to the shredded and muddied nightgown.
“I need to get out of here before I completely lose my mind, so if you know a way out, now’s a good time to help a girl out.”
Good fucking luck . That’s what he tells me with a roll of his eyes.
“Well, screw you too, mate.”
The whistle sounds again. Closer. The dog spins like he’s chasing his tail before he runs circles around me again. It’s then that the exercise dawns on me. This is the game. The chess was nothing but a false sense of security. A guise for his cruel amusement.
If I didn’t hate him before, I abhor him now.
“What a fucking cunt!” I kick at the dirt, regretting it the instant a twig stabs beneath my toenail. “Motherfucking cockwombling prick!”
He released me from my cage so that he could send his dogs to hunt me down and round me up like a bitch. His pet.
If he thinks I’m going to heel and accept him as my master, he has another thing coming. Putting one foot in front of the other, I ignore the shooting pain in my toe as I run for the treeline as fast as I can, limping and dragging my foot when the pain becomes close to unbearable. As the dog stalks me, I weave in and out of the trees.
I’m not making it easy for him.
“He wants a fight?” I yell at the dog as we come to the end of the treeline and start curving back into the dense thicket. “He’s got one. I’m not his fucking pet.”
I’m not an animal he can tame. No matter how far he pushes me or fucks with my head, I’ll never be his meek little pet.
I’m a fucking Mortimer, and we fight to the end, doing what it takes to survive.
As long as I can, I keep running. Feigning between trees. Breathing in the cold air and relishing its burn as it cloys in my lungs. The ache cuts through me as my limbs stick, my muscles screaming at me.
The other dogs find us as we reach the lake, and as the muted lights from the small chapel across the way shimmer on the blackened surface of the water, I dive in. It’s deeper than I thought it would be this close to the edge, and it takes a lot more of my energy than I thought it would to reach the surface again. When I do, the dog is paddling right there beside me. Tongue lolling to the side as he pants, he ignores the yowls from the rest of the pack pacing the water’s edge.
“Just because you’re stuck here too, it doesn’t make us friends,” I pant at him, lying back to stare at the dark sky as I kick my legs free of my tangled nightdress and starfish.
I know when he finds us. Tomasz’s presence is that heavy that even nature seems to cower and pander to him. Standing at the edge of the water, he watches me, and I watch him, waiting and waiting until he blows the whistle and his pup paddles back to land, leaving me behind.
As cold as I’m getting, I refuse to swim back to him. I refuse to pander and to kneel. Even when my senses become sluggish and the clouds of breath become dense enough that I can barely see through them.
If Tomasz wants me that much, he can come get me himself.