15. Aliana #2
“I see my infamy reaches even the backwaters of…” He quirks a brow, waiting for me to finish his sentence.
I snort and fold my arms over my chest.
Nice try, buddy.
When I don’t immediately respond, he heaves out a breath and continues to move forward, one of his huge hands trailing absently over the coffin I just opened.
“No matter. I didn’t want to talk about your past. At least…not yet.”
“Why are you here, monster?” I bite out.
“Creep.” He flashes another singularly beautiful smile in my direction, one equipped with the capacity to disarm his opponents. “The Creeper is a little bit of a mouthful, wouldn’t you say?”
“And you think Creep is better?” My tone is incredulous.
One of his hands waves back and forth in the air erratically, as if he can swat away my disbelief.
“I figured people were going to talk bad about me whether or not I wanted them to. Why not have some fun with it? At least when they call me Creep, I know it’s a name I chose for myself, not one they gave me.
And there’s something…amusing about being known as the stalker in the closet and being called Creep, wouldn’t you say?
” Another disarming grin is flashed my way, and a grand epiphany trickles into the back of my mind.
This monster is insane.
He’s goddamned insane, and he’s still advancing on me without a care in the world.
I debate screaming for help, calling the Devourer’s name, but I have to admit…I’m curious. Just what does… Creep want from me? Does he plan to kidnap me away from the Devourer?
A tiny thrill shoots through me at the thought.
In the Devourer’s home, I know there’s no chance of escape, not if I want to leave with my skin on my bones.
But if another monster takes me…
It might give me the opportunity I’ve been looking for to break free, to fight back.
So this time when Creep takes a step forward, I don’t immediately counter it with a step backwards.
Instead, I hold my ground and lift my chin up ever so slightly so I can stare into his dark blue eyes.
Honestly, I can’t quite tell if they’re blue or black.
When the lantern’s dull glow reaches his irises, I almost swear they’re an ocean blue—the color while diving beneath the water’s turbulent depths in the middle of the night .
But then he shifts slightly, and the shadows swallow up whatever color I thought I saw, until they’re nothing but black as pitch.
His head tilts to the side curiously as he studies me, those huge horns getting dangerously close to knocking into the wall.
“You’re even more beautiful up close.” His words are almost muttered, a hint of awe coating his tone.
My stomach spasms, but probably not in the way he expected.
I don’t like the way he’s looking at me—like I’m a juicy piece of meat he can’t wait to sink his teeth into. And at the same time…I don’t want him to look away. The contradicting emotions leave me baffled and make my head spin with a dizzying intensity.
Maybe it’s the lack of food, because I never got the dinner the Devourer promised me, that makes my thoughts muddled. Or the lack of sleep from my activities last night. Or maybe it’s the hangover that addles my brain and lets this tiny thought slip through: he’s beautiful.
“You have…horns,” I point out rather unhelpfully, pretending to be bored with this entire conversation. I don’t want him to know how badly my heart is pounding against my rib cage. For him to see the way my hands sweat and shake with fear.
“I have many things, little warrior. Would you like to see them?” he practically purrs, his words the equivalent to a bucket of ice-cold water dumped over my head.
The tiny ball of defiance in my chest that’s been helping me feign nonchalance dies a slow and painful death, and I find myself staggering backwards a few steps until my back is flush against the wall.
Dammit. I’m trapped.
Unless I can duck around him…
He’s in front of my face in seconds, the massive planes of his blue chest right in front of my eyes—so close I can see the rise and fall of each breath inside his lungs.
My head tilts up, and I’m snared, captivated.
The Creeper’s staring at my features with such intensity that it quietly literally siphons the breath out of my lungs.
After a long moment, he blows out a breath and his hands rise.
I flinch, but he doesn’t touch me, simply pushes himself away using the wall on either side of my head.
That utter lack of touch, the complete opposite of the Devourer, should reassure me. But instead, my stomach seems to sink in disappointment.
“As I said before, I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t even plan to touch you…unless you ask me to. Unless you beg for it.”
I blink rapidly, wondering if I imagined the intensity radiating off of him in palpable waves from mere moments ago. He seems decidedly…chill and relaxed now as he throws himself onto my makeshift bed and presses an arm over his eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I demand, grateful when my voice doesn’t wobble. I take an aggressive fighting stance, even though he literally just had the opportunity to rip me apart and all I could do was gape up at him. My fight response is belatedly getting with the program.
“I thought you could use a friend.” He doesn’t remove his arm from his face. “And I assigned myself as that friend.”
I blink at him, unsure I heard him correctly.
“You…? What…? Huh?”
He slowly lowers his arm, just enough for me to see the striking blue in his eyes and the way they sparkle with mischief, before he curls onto his side, making himself comfy in my motherfucking bed.
“A friend.” He states that word slowly, as if I’m hard of hearing or an imbecile or something. “Did they not have friends where you came from?”
I can clearly hear the amusement in his voice, so I figure he’s not expecting a response. Not that I would give him one. I am legitimately at a loss for words.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Creep seems unperturbed by my silence and continues on. “I thought we could play a game.”
“Get the fuck out of here, beast,” I hiss. There’s no way in hell I’m trusting a word that leaves his mouth. No fucking way.
“One game,” he insists, that challenging sparkle returning to his eyes.
He slowly sits upright and swings his legs around to plant them on the ground.
Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on his knees and rubs his hands together with a slightly manic grin on his face. “You haven’t even heard the rules.”
“I don’t want to hear the rules,” I retort.
“Or the prize…” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and goddamn me, my curiosity instantly piques, something he can no doubt see when his smile stretches. “You win my little game, and I’ll reward you—”
“I don’t want your disgusting body parts anywhere near me,” I snap, knowing exactly where he’s going with that sentence.
“—by offering you your freedom,” he continues, ignoring my outburst.
His words slam into me like a freight train, and for a moment, all I can do is blink at him.
What?
What? The? Fuck?
Creep lazily waves a hand in the air. “Don’t give me that starry-eyed expression, little warrior.
I’m not letting you go. But I can offer you something no human in the Ebony Kingdom has ever been gifted before—a chance at freedom, even if it’s only for a little while.
We’ll start with one hour of complete and utter freedom.
Have you been to Paris? Italy? I’ll take you wherever you want to go.
” He jerks his chin towards the closet before focusing back on me. “But that’s only if you win my game.”
Thoughts fly through my head as images of all the good I could do with that hour come to me.
I could sneak away from him and make my way back home, bring them information.
I could go grab that bag of medicines we’d collected.
I could build a bomb and destroy that trader grove the night visions built.
Temptation after temptation stacks up as my tongue darts out to wet my lips.
“And if I lose?” I whisper breathily. Why the fuck am I even considering this? He’s lying, right? He has to be.
From experience, anything that sounds too good to be true more than likely is. And this sounds…
Amazing. Fucking amazing.
He smirks and slowly pushes himself to his feet, his gaze never wavering from my face. “I would recommend you don’t lose, little warrior.” He swaggers forward, stopping when he’s a hair’s breadth away from me. One of his huge, clawed hands reaches out to brush a strand of white hair behind my ear.
I tremble at the contact, though I’m not entirely sure it’s completely in revulsion. A huge portion of it is, but maybe…
Maybe not all of it.
“What do you say?” His hot breath fans against my face, eliciting goose bumps across my arms. “Will you play my game with me?”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” My heart thrashes inside of my rib cage as I twist his words around and around in my head, trying to see every angle of them. If he truly can get me out of here, even if it’s only for an hour, then I can make my escape. But if he’s lying…
Will that fate be worse than what they have in store for me here? Does it even matter at this point?
“It’s all about trust, sweetheart,” he coos in a decidedly mocking voice. “You need to trust me…and I’ll need to trust you not to run away the second I turn my back.” His eyes ensnare me to the spot, cocooning me in a hug of blazing fire and heat.
Sweat trickles down the back of my neck as I hold his dark stare.
“I don’t even know you,” I state bluntly, and I swear something flickers in his eyes—something there and gone faster than I can process it. I would almost describe it as…hurt. But surely, I imagined it. My words were nothing but the truth.
We don’t know each other, and I have no idea why he would believe anything different.
“So then I suppose this game won’t work.” He leans forward until his cheek is directly beside mine, and I tense automatically, an electrical jolt shooting through me. “Because I need you to trust me.”
“Wait!”
If this is my one chance of making an escape, then I’ll do it. I’ll play his ridiculous game—whatever it may be—and win. No matter what happens, I’ll find a way to escape. I have to.
Something warm touches my cheek, moving down the length of it and towards the corner of my lips. And then lower, to my neck.
Only my eyes move as I watch his tongue snake out to lick me—his huge fucking forked tongue.
His playful eyes grin at me as he laps at my skin, and something akin to lust percolates in my lower belly, shooting off like gunfire through my veins.
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?!
I curse my traitorous pussy.
“I…” I swallow against the dizzying emotions barraging me from every direction. “I want to play.”
“But you don’t trust me,” he points out, his words slightly muffled as his tongue retreats back into his mouth. “And to be quite frank, little warrior, I don’t trust you either.”
With that parting statement, he pushes himself away from me and casually swaggers back towards the closet. His thumbs dip into the waistband of his pants, pushing them down just enough for me to see the hard muscles of his lower back.
Desperate fear curdles all my lusty thoughts. Did I just ruin my one shot at escape?
“Wait! I want to play! I want—”
But my words fall on deaf ears as he turns towards me, gives me a cheeky wink and salute, and then disappears into thin air just inside the closet doorway.