Chapter 20 The Key
Chapter Twenty
The Key
Daisy’s eyes snapped open to firelight and shadow and a hand hovering inches from her breast. She screamed, but the noise that clawed from her throat barely registered. Raw and shredded, her voice had abandoned her somewhere in that labyrinth of hedges and horror.
The man jerked back, as if she’d startled him.
Daisy scrambled back on damp silk, her arms fumbling over satin pillows until she crawled to the edge of the bed and jumped off. She didn’t think. Rolling off the bed, she hit the floor on battered feet.
Pain lanced up her calves, sharp and immediate, as torn skin met hardwood. Her legs buckled beneath her weight. Her knees cracked against the floor and she scrambled backward like a wounded animal, dragging herself toward the far corner of the room.
The man rushed forward, but stilled several feet away, as if purposely trying not to corner her.
“Don’t be afraid.” He raised his hands, palms out.
Firelight caught the hard angles of his jaw and the storm-grey of his eyes as his soaked clothes dripped onto the dark wood floor. His emerald vest and pants appeared black as the wet fabric clung to his frame.
She knew him. The hunter from the balcony. The one who had danced with her. The one who had pressed a gun to Hadrian’s skull.
Her back hit the wall as she pressed herself into the corner, pulling her knees to her chest. Cold air bit at her exposed skin and she shivered uncontrollably.
He watched her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he turned and walked away.
Daisy’s heart hammered against her ribs as she tracked his movement. The door. If she could get to the door before him, she could run. But he was already there. Her feet throbbed with every racing heartbeat as his fingers found the gilded lock.
Metal scraped against metal as he twisted a heavy brass key. He held it up so she could see, carrying it toward the center of the room. He held it out to her like an offering. Like a trap.
“For your safety,” he said, his voice low and measured.
She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
He wanted her to come to him. Looked prepared to wait her out.
After a long moment, when it was clear she wasn’t falling for his trick, he set the key down with a soft click on a low table positioned between the fireplace and the seating area.
Stepping back from the table, he put distance between himself and the key. Between himself and her. His hands remained visible, open, unthreatening.
“It will stay there unless you move it.” He glanced to the open doors where dark curtains waved and rain had left tiny puddles on the floor then to the one he’d just locked. “No one can hurt you here.”
Except him.
“Who are you?” The words scraped past her ruined throat like broken glass.
“I’m Jack.”
Jack? Her gaze dropped to his right hand, to the heavy signet ring that caught the firelight. She had seen those initials before, during their dance. R.A.
“That’s not your name.” She pressed harder against the wall, as if she could phase through the plaster and disappear. “Your ring says R.A.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw as he let the lie stand between them.
She tensed when a bell tolled above, loud and close, making the implication that much harder to ignore. Beyond the rain-streaked glass, darkness still blanketed the grounds. The sky was black, still hours from dawn.
“Where am I?”
“My suite.”
Still at the Feast, then. Still trapped on this godforsaken island. Was this where the hunters stayed, in this house of horrors and its twisted games?
Her eyes darted to the windows. Distant shouts and laughter blended with music that belonged to another world. Another time.
He took a step forward.
Daisy scrambled sideways, knocking into a heavy table along the wall.
“Careful.” He stopped.
Her spine scraped against the cold plaster, her ruined feet too swollen to stand.
“I won’t hurt you.” His voice dropped, quieter now, stripped of command. “You’re safe here.”
Safe. The word meant nothing.
He’d been out there tonight, masked and hunting like all the rest. Drunk on privilege. Entitled to take at will. Whatever compelled him to stop Hadrian, didn’t make him trustworthy. It made him unpredictable.
She recalled the way he threatened him. His tone, more than his words, was personal. He wasn’t rescuing her. He was punishing an enemy.
Where was his gun?
Her gaze swept the room, cataloging exits and obstacles with the desperate clarity of prey.
One door behind him, locked, key on the table.
Windows to her left, but they overlooked an extensive drop to the gardens below.
A balcony beyond the heavy curtains. She would never reach it before he caught her.
They like when you run…
The suite itself dripped with masculine power.
A massive bed dominated one wall, its garnet velvet curtains hanging from an ornately carved canopy, like the trappings of some dark fairy tale.
Leather chairs flanked the fireplace where flames crackled and popped.
A wet bar gleamed in the corner, crystal decanters catching the light like captured stars.
Everywhere she looked, she found evidence of his advantages. Heavy candlesticks that could crack a skull. An iron poker beside the hearth. His size, his strength, his knowledge of this place. Even soaking wet and shivering, he radiated the kind of power that came from certainty. From control.
She had neither.
He lifted a staying hand. “Stay.” The word landed soft as a whisper, a plea more than a command.
Daisy didn’t move. She watched, unblinking, as he moved toward the wet bar.
Crystal clinked against crystal as he poured water from a silver pitcher into a glass. He walked it toward her, stopping several feet away, and held it out.
She stared at the glass. At his fingers wrapped around its base. At the faint tremor in his hand that might have been cold or might have been something else entirely.
“You can trust me.”
Her head shook slightly, the motion blending into a shiver that wracked her body with chills. Her thoughts went somewhere cold and small inside herself, a place where survival was the only language she understood.
“Watch.” He lifted the glass to his own lips and drank, swallowing once before lowering it again.
Her throat burned. It had been a lifetime since she’d had anything to drink.
“Take it. I won’t hurt you.”
She still couldn’t move. If it was a trap, she’d lose.
But when he set the glass on the floor in front of her and took a step back, she lunged for it.
Snatching the crystal off the floor, she retreated quickly. Her fingers shook, and water sloshed over the rim as she drank it down in desperate gulps, never taking her eyes off him.
“Good,” he said quietly.
A violent shiver wracked her body, her teeth clicking hard enough to make her jaw ache.
“More?”
She set the glass down and shoved it toward him. He collected it slowly, refilled it, and put it back on the floor. When she emptied it again, she was full. She swallowed back the urge to say thank you and held the weighted glass in her hand.
The fire crackled, but its warmth couldn’t reach her. He crossed to the bed and pulled the heavy blanket from its foot.
“You’re cold.” He approached slowly, stopping just within arm’s reach, and held it out to her.
She yanked it around her shoulders before he could change his mind. The fabric engulfed her, thick and soft. Warm. She caught the scent of wood smoke and something masculine. Her teeth continued to chatter.
“You’re welcome to sit by the fire.”
She didn’t move. Here, in the corner, she was safest. She could see everything.
“Your body’s in shock. Adrenaline is making you shake more than the cold.”
“What’s your excuse?”
He glanced down at his dripping clothes. “I don’t know.”
She thought about the others out there, wondering how they were managing after the rain. Another chill raced up her spine, and she shivered, sucking in a sharp breath.
“A warm bath will settle your nerves.”
It was a cruel thing to say. If only she had such luxuries.
He walked away, leaving her huddled on the floor in a puff of crimson covered down. Her eyes followed his every move as he lifted a fire iron and prodded at the flaming logs. The butt of his gun showed at his back. They might be out of the rain and in a warm suite, but she was far from safe here.
He disappeared through a narrow alcove on the other side of the bed. Daisy stretched her neck, but whatever existed down that hall was hidden in shadows.
Light spilled from the doorway. Then came the rushing whisper of water, impossibly civilized within the chaos outside.
She remained frozen in her corner, the blanket clutched around her shoulders, her eyes roaming the suite in silence. The key still sat on the table, brass gleaming in the firelight. She could take it and escape, locking him inside.
But then what?
She would be back out there with the others.
What was he doing in there?
She studied the room through different eyes now. Not just exits and weapons, but details that confused her.
Books stacked on the nightstand, their spines cracked with use. A leather portfolio thick with papers. A half-empty tumbler of amber liquid abandoned beside an armchair.
The scent of jasmine wafted through the air on a current of warmth, cutting through the smoke and cedar. She breathed it in despite herself, her tense muscles loosening by fractions.
He emerged from the alcove, steam curling around him. The fine wool of his soaked waistcoat clung to his broad shoulders and chest, accentuating the tapered curve of his waist. Water dripped from his dark hair, sliding down his jaw to the hollow of his throat before disappearing beneath his collar.
He looked miserable. Frozen. And he hadn’t done a single thing to address his own discomfort.
“The bath is ready.” He stepped aside, gesturing toward the doorway with an open hand. When she didn’t move, he sighed. “If I have to pick you up, you won’t like it.”
Fear tightened like a knot in her chest.