Chapter 10
Blair
His name is Kane.
And though he might look similar, he is nothing like the fantasy man represented by my doll.
He’s domineering and preachy, and every time I question the insane choice to kidnap me, he plays it off like he’s some kind of savior.
As if his behavior isn’t bad enough, he’s not alone in this charade either. I don’t know how many other people are here, but I know no one told Kane he was acting like an insane person. No one tried to assist me. No one tried to remove me from his shoulder and help me escape.
Which makes them, at the very least, complicit.
Now, he’s carrying me up a flight of stairs like I weigh nothing, like I may as well be a freaking jacket made out of feathers. He moves down a hallway, the heavy sounds of his boots echoing inside my ear with each step, and he doesn’t stop walking until we’re in a small, depressingly rustic room.
When my eyes catch sight of a bed, fear clutches my throat. He drops me onto it, and my body hits the mattress with a gentle thud.
Instantly, I scramble upright and put as much distance between him and me as I can, my body shaking at thoughts of the worst. I’ve already lost my autonomy; I can’t lose my virginity too. Not like this.
“Why are you doing this?” I scream, the sound tearing out of my throat so hard it aches. “What do you want from me?” My voice is so loud and so real that it bounces off the walls.
For a split second, I sit there in shock. Earlier, in my driveway, and when we came into the house, I was trying to yell so hard that my throat burned, but there was no sound. And now it’s back.
He turns calmly, shuts the door, and I don’t miss how the metallic lock clicks deliberately into place. I’m overwhelmed and terrified, and I know without a doubt that I have nothing to lose. It never gets better from this point on when I watch crime shows—it gets messy and violent.
“You cannot lock me in here!” I shout, jumping off the bed and storming toward him. “Do you know who I am? Do you understand the mistake you’ve made?”
“Yes, I know who you are.” The calm in his voice makes me want to throw something. “But this wasn’t a mistake. This was necessary, Blair. For both of us.”
“I was supposed to be in New York!” I yell. “I was supposed to be meeting someone very important. I was supposed to—”
“I know what you think you were supposed to be doing,” he cuts me off. “But it’s bullshit. It’s not the truth at all.”
“You don’t know anything!” I scream, moving toward the door with the confidence of a woman free to walk through it, but he blocks me off completely by putting his big, intimidating body in my way.
I shift on my feet and head toward the window. I try to pull it up, and when it doesn’t budge, I look for a latch or a switch, but there’s none to be found. Still, I yank harder on it, as if maybe I can just tear the damn thing from the wall.
But when nothing happens, I turn to face him again. He’s infuriatingly calm, like he didn’t just kidnap me after committing murder.
“You are insane!” I spit, turning back toward him. “This is psychotic! You are psychotic! You can’t just keep me here against my will!”
He doesn’t argue; he doesn’t need to. I’m locked in, and even if I weren’t, he’s bigger and faster and stronger.
I don’t stand a chance, and he knows it.
Instead, he turns toward the closet and pulls out a fresh shirt.
He tosses it on the bed and starts unbuttoning his flannel, and a new level of panic sets in.
Not only is he keeping me here, but he also seems to be keeping himself here too.
With him actively undressing, my earlier worst-case scenario comes into sharper focus.
“Excuse me?” I blink what feels like a thousand times, trying to sound more outraged than scared. “What are you doing?”
“Changing my shirt.” As he peels it off, I finally notice the dark stains across the fabric.
I don’t know if it’s blood or mud from my parents’ yard, but either way, the reason he’s covered in it is the same—he killed two freaking men in my driveway.
He tosses the shirt into the hamper and reaches for the clean one on the bed.
My eyes move from his face to his bare chest, and I instantly regret it.
Thick but lean muscles sit beneath tanned skin, and every movement he makes showcases a flex of strength and power.
It’s no wonder he was able to kill people.
It’s no wonder he was able to carry me around like a sack of potatoes. It’s no freaking wonder.
But my stupid eyes keep looking at him, taking in the way his biceps curl as he pulls his shirt over his head and catching the final sight of the thick V muscle that starts at his hips and disappears beneath his jeans.
Heat blooms low in my stomach before I can stop it.
No, Blair. Absolutely not. He is a murderer! A freaking kidnapper!
“You’re an insane person,” I snap, because anger is safer than acknowledging what just happened inside me. “You realize that, right? Everything you’ve done today is a serious crime!”
“I’m not insane,” he says, and it’s downright confusing how calm and controlled he appears. “But I can understand why you’d think that right now. You’ve been lied to and robbed of half the story, and everything about the way we’ve had to start this relationship lowers your trust.”
This relationship? He must be joking. I don’t need him understanding me. I don’t need him to earn my trust. I need him to let me go.
If I can make it back to my parents’ house soon, I can call Holland and find another way to get to New York, where Damien Snow is waiting for me. The chances were high that he could’ve chosen me as his mate and set me up for life.
And instead, I’m here. In this filthy, simple cabin with an insane but handsome man.
A man who’s ruined everything.
My feet are moving before my brain can catch up with what I’m doing. Between one blink and the next, I’m standing right in front of him, and then, I slap him straight across the face as hard as I can.
The crack echoes off the walls of the small bedroom, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even blink.
And my palm burns like I just attempted to hit a freaking statue.
“I hate you!” I push against his chest with both hands. “You’ve ruined my life!” I shove him again and again and again, but nothing happens. He doesn’t shift his balance, doesn’t take a step back. He just stands there, both feet steady on the ground, gaze squarely on me.
His eyes are an incredible shade of green, but for the briefest second, they showcase a violet undertone.
Déjà vu hits me like a truck, and a vision of my childhood doll fills my head again. My breath catches, but I force the bubbling thoughts out of my head.
But that memory isn’t the only one that wants to come to the surface out of the now open hatch. Visuals of the men in my driveway and how fast they went from standing to lifeless on the ground. Him standing over them without so much as a labored breath. His eyes cutting to me.
It all happened so fast. Too fast. I didn’t see his hands move. I didn’t see him strike.
“You…” My voice wavers. “You moved so fast in my driveway. And…and…and you killed them. You killed those two men.”
“Yes.” The word is steady. No apology. No hesitation. No denial.
“And earlier…” I swallow hard against the tightness in my throat. “I was screaming…” I pause, but he says nothing. “I remember screaming.” I keep going. “But I couldn’t hear myself. Nothing was coming out of my mouth.”
He stares at me patiently as pieces of comprehension begin to click into place. Human men don’t hold power like that—only vampires do. They have powers beyond human understanding or capabilities.
“You’re a vampire,” I whisper. “I know you’re a vampire, but you’re not…” I swallow. “You live in a cabin. In the woods.”
“Yeah,” he says, qualifying, “Well, for now, at least.”
“You’re not rich?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m a repo man.”
“You’re a what?”
“A repo man. I repossess shit for a living. Cars. Trucks. Furniture, jewelry, whatever people don’t pay on. It’s my job to take it back.”
“You work a blue-collar job?”
He nods.
“But h-how can you be a vampire if you’re blue-collar?” That word unsettles me more than the killing. My whole life, I’ve been told all vampires are elite. All vampires are rich and powerful men.
If he’s not elite, then that means that I’ve been lied to… My mother would never.
“No, clearly, that can’t be true,” I try to refute. “Clearly, you’re not telling me the truth.”
“I would never lie to you, Blair.”
It’s such a strange thing, standing in front of this man, and knowing I should feel frightened. I should be trying to claw my way out of this stupid cabin. But it’s as if every cell in my body knows he’s not going to kill me or do something terrible to me.
Which is crazy. I should be downright terrified. All the evidence supports a gruesome finish to this spectacularly messed-up day, not something sexy.
My pulse is racing now, neediness overcoming fear in the most infuriating way. Standing this close to him feels like I’m standing near live electricity. My skin feels too tight. My lungs feel too small. And my body wants to move closer to him.
“What’s your name, then?” I question. “If you would never lie to me, what’s your name?”
“Kane Slater.”
I guess I thought he’d given me a fake name or something. I don’t know what I expected his answer to be, but it wasn’t that.
“You were at the mixer the other night, weren’t you?” I demand. “I remember making eye contact with you.”
“Yes.” He nods. “I was there, but I wasn’t there for the same reasons that men like Damien or Holland were there.”
“Why were you there, then?”
“To get information,” he says. “And to find you.”
“Find me?” I narrow my eyes. “W-what?”
“Destiny, Blair,” he says. “You are my destiny.” My heart skips a beat and my head swims. And for some insane reason, I find myself taking a step toward him. And then another step. And then another.
Oh my God, what am I doing? Stop.
“You kidnapped me,” I say, keeping my feet planted firmly to the ground. I need to anchor myself to something. I need to remind myself of what he just did.
“Yes, but not because I want to hurt you. Because I want to protect you.”
“But you ruined my life.”
“No, Blair.” Even though my feet are still planted, he steps closer. “I saved your life.”
My back bumps against the wall, but I don’t remember him moving. Our chests are pressed against each other, and his eyes are locked on mine.
So close. So warm. So solid.
I should be scared.
You are scared, I tell myself. He killed two men without blinking. He controlled my voice. He locked me in a room. This is scary. He is scary.
And yet, my body leans toward him.
He closes his hand around my wrist, and my pulse jumps violently under his thumb. He raises my hand above my head and presses his body tighter against mine. Or maybe I’m pressing my body tighter against his. I don’t know.
“All I want to do is protect you,” he whispers back. “That’s it. I simply have to protect you.”
Heat spreads through my body from the contact, and goose bumps roll up my arms. It’s as if my body is revolting against me. It’s as if my body just wants to get as close to him as it can. It’s confusing. It’s overwhelming. It’s consuming.
“I hate you,” I say, but it sounds diluted now thanks to the rapid breaths of a wanton woman I can’t seem to control.
His eyes turn violet. “Do you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer. My body is betraying me, and all I can think about is the way his mouth would feel against mine.
This man kidnapped me. And while he’s a vampire, he’s not elite. He’s not powerful. He’s not wealthy. He is not from the life I was raised in or the future I was promised. He is primal and blue-collar and work boots and something dangerous that I don’t understand.
And I want him.
The kiss happens before I can decide whether to fight it.
His mouth presses to mine, steady and certain.
For half a second, I freeze, and then the world tilts as heat surges through me like a hurricane. All the fear inside my nerves dissolves into something grounding. Something safe.
My fingers curl into his T-shirt, and I kiss him back.
I savor the taste of his mouth. I savor the taste of his lips and tongue. And I press my body tighter against his until I can feel his arousal against my hip.
I’m overwhelmed with a million different emotions, but the one that stands out the most is hunger. Want. Desire.
When he pulls away, I’m shaking and breathless and confused.
And when he leaves me locked in the room again, I’m angry. At him. At myself. At how I could kiss this man who took me without permission and still have it be the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
But, livid or not, it was the best.
And I have no idea why.