Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
She was cold and wet.
Something brushed against her cheek. So chilling. The icy touch of death.
I know this dream. No, I know this nightmare. It was all so familiar, because it just would not stop.
Her eyelashes fluttered. She stared straight up. Softness rained down on her. Softness. Cold. Snow.
Her breath shuddered out. A white cloud appeared before her mouth. And pain pierced through her body.
Her hands flew down, touching her stomach. It was wet. Not wet like snow, though, more…soaked. Her dress stuck to her skin and when she pulled at it, she felt the tear in the material. Her fingers lifted. She saw the red on her skin.
But…this time, she paused. Focused harder on the dress. A red dress. Like, a cocktail dress. Beautiful fabric. Soft. The dress was red in the white snow. And she was bleeding because something had sliced along her stomach.
He sliced me. He’d had a knife, and he’d been coming at her. But she’d gotten out of the ropes, and she’d lunged up. She’d rushed past him.
But the blade had sliced across her stomach.
Her head pounded. Throbbed over and over, and her blood-covered fingers rose to touch the left side of her head.
Her head hurt because—he’d tackled her. They’d fallen in the cabin.
And he’d taken the side of her head, and he’d rammed it into the floor.
Once. Twice. Three times? She’d screamed and begged.
He hadn’t stopped.
But she’d…
Gotten away. Gotten the knife. She’d stabbed him. Aimed for his heart. Missed, but…
I got away.
This dream…it seemed different.
Surrounded by the snow, she turned. Her icy toes sank into the snow. Bare toes because she’d long since lost her high heels. “H-help…”
Her face hurt. Her cheekbone. Because her cheekbone had been smashed into the floor.
Her lips were busted. Parched. “Help!” she cried again.
She spun around, looking at the snow. No tracks to show where she’d been.
Nothing around her but snow. So much snow in every direction.
Trees heavy with the weight of the snow on their branches.
Woods that waited in the distance. No person. No cars.
Fear settled deeper around her. One hand shoved against her bleeding stomach.
Run. Get away. Because if she didn’t get away, he would kill her. That was what he wanted. To kill her. To enjoy her pain.
She slogged through the snow. She had to keep going because she had to get back home. Something—someone important waited at home.
She turned, spinning once more, and her blood spattered onto the snow. Where to go? Which direction? She had to escape.
She sank deeper into the snow. Stopped feeling her toes. Tremors shook her body. Her hand lifted to shove wet hair out of her face, but she paused, staring at her hand. Her left hand. He took my ring. Ripped it off me. Said I’d never be a bride.
“Melody!” A roar.
She whimpered.
He doesn’t usually call my name in this nightmare. But she could hear his roars, and she knew he’d seen her.
Go, go, go. She had to keep going. Couldn’t stop. If she stopped, she’d be dead.
She plowed forward. Straight ahead. No stopping. No hesitation.
Brakes screeched. Tires squealed. Her head whipped to the right. The darkness had grown. When had the night come? How long had she been walking? It had been lighter before, when she’d first woken. Light enough to see the blood.
But now darkness was everywhere. Darkness except…
Except for the two headlights that stared back at her. And there was no time to move. Only a split second to realize that she’d reached a road, that she’d stumbled right into the path of a vehicle.
Then it hit her, and she screamed—screamed desperately for, “Victor!”
He threw open the bedroom door. “Melody!” His hand flew out and hit the light switch. Illumination immediately flooded into the bedroom.
She lunged up in bed, her breath heaving and one hand whipping up to cover her heart. Her head swung toward him. Terror covered her beautiful features as she gaped at him, and her lower lip began to tremble.
In a heartbeat’s time, he was across the room.
He shoved the tangled covers out of his way and pulled her into his arms. He held her tightly, needing to feel her against him.
“You’re safe,” Victor told her. The words were an absolute promise.
“I’ve got you.” I will not let go. “You’re safe.
You’re all right, baby. You. Are. Safe.”
She shuddered against him. “I was back in the snow. Wearing my red dress. I didn’t have my high heels.”
He stiffened. Had she mentioned those details of her nightmare to him before?
He didn’t think she’d spoken of the dress or heels.
He could remember both perfectly in his mind.
She’d been absolutely gorgeous in the red dress that had clung to her curves.
Her heels had been sexy as hell. Then again, he’d always found her to be sexy as hell. Always.
“I…I’d gotten out of the ropes.”
His grip tightened even more. She definitely did not mention the ropes to me before.
“He had a knife. He wanted to kill me.”
Sonofabitch. Sonofabitch.
“He slammed my face into the floor until I felt something break along my cheek. And, I…I think that’s when I got my head injury? Because I was bleeding from my left temple. He slammed the side of my face and head into the floor. He was so strong.”
Victor wanted to kill. For a moment, everything went dark around him as a killing fury consumed him. Rage nearly choked him. Some bastard had taken his Melody. Attacked her.
Abducted. Melody was abducted. He’d screamed those words at Detective Clinton so long ago.
At the other cops. At anyone who would listen.
But they’d refused to use the term “abducted” in their investigation.
She’d “disappeared”—that was how they’d termed it.
“Vanished” one night. They’d often said she’d “gone missing” when they described her.
Bullshit. She’d been abducted. He’d known it. Had known that she would not leave him and her father without glancing back.
Melody had loved him. She wouldn’t disappear, vanish, or just fucking go missing for shits and giggles.
Abducted. Attacked. Nearly killed.
She’d been through hell, and he hadn’t been able to help her.
Never again.
“I got away,” she whispered as she shivered in his arms. “It was so cold in the snow.”
Fuck that shiver. He rose, holding tightly to her, and when he sat down on the bed again, he’d repositioned their bodies. With one hand, he tugged the thick comforter up over her. He needed her to be warm.
“I walked and walked through the snow until I couldn’t even feel my toes any longer.
” Her head tilted back. Her eyes had narrowed as she peered at him.
“I had frostbite,” she suddenly said. “In the hospital. I remember them telling me that. They said…said I was lucky I hadn’t lost any toes but with everything else happening, I just…
” A sigh. “Frostbite seemed like the least of my worries when they were telling me that I’d been in a coma.
That they’d worried about permanent brain damage.
Everything they discussed seemed to hit me in a haze.
Then I was just staring at them and realizing I had no idea who the hell I was supposed to be. ”
Fuck. This. “You are Melody Mage,” he told her. Was he aware that his voice was deep and harsh? Yes. Could he do anything about that? No. “You are the woman I live and die for.”
Her lips parted. Her eyes searched his. “I screamed for you.”
She had, and he’d come running.
A little furrow cut between her brows. “When the car was barreling toward me, when all I saw were headlights in the dark…even as it hit…I screamed.” A pause. “For you.”
Did she understand how those words utterly carved the heart from his chest? She’d screamed for him, and he hadn’t been there to help her.
“You came running tonight…” That furrow scrunched a little deeper. “Because I screamed your name, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“I…” A blink of her incredible eyes. “I screamed for you when we were at the Mage Mansion, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t realize—” Melody stopped, shaking her head. “How long have I been waking up, screaming for you, and I didn’t even realize it?”
Yes, his heart had just been completely carved out. Going forward, Melody would have an army of guards around her. She would have every bit of protection he could give to her. She would have his entire fortune at her beck and call. “Marry me.”
Her lips parted. “What?”
Okay, dammit, he hadn’t meant to spit out the proposal.
Or maybe he had. Not like he was in full control at the moment.
“Marry me. As my wife, you will have full access to everything I own. Every resource I have. You can stay protected, always. I can have so many guards around you that you never have to be afraid again.” And he’d have her tied to him.
Melody would be linked to him. Forever. “We can leave,” Victor told her because he wanted her safe.
If safety meant getting the hell out of that city and never coming back, then done.
He was ready to board the plane with her.
“We can fly to Paris. To London. We can go to some tropical island where we will have complete privacy.” Hell, he’d buy her an island, if she wanted.
“I can make sure you’re protected twenty-four, seven.
You don’t ever have to fear again. I can have you so surrounded—”
“I don’t want to hide for the rest of my life.
” A slow, negative shake of her head that sent her soft hair brushing lightly over him.
“And I don’t want the monster who hurt me to get away.
I can’t let him hurt someone else. I can’t let him do this again.
I will not run from him. I will not let him destroy me. I can’t.”
He wanted to take her away. To force her into hiding. But…
That wasn’t him. And he understood her desire for justice.