Chapter Seven
………………………….
Ily
GOD, EVERYTHING HURT.
So, so much.
Too much.
I couldn’t breathe. Think. Or move.
Hands on my body, smearing the crimson paint.
Red gloop in my eyes from him shoving a handful of pigment over my face.
The clatter of the knife as he picked it up.
The first sting as he—
“What the fuc—”
A cursing Master never finished his sentence.
The sickest thwack followed by a thud.
Rachel stopped screaming.
I didn’t know what was worse.
Knowing she was being hurt or not knowing if she was dead.
Mollie yelled something I didn’t catch.
And Kyle, who sat on my belly with his knees on either side of my hips, paused his first cut and looked over his shoulder.
His legs tightened around me, holding me down.
I tried to raise an arm—to claw away some of the paint to see, but Kyle shifted and snatched me from the ground. Crawling behind me and wrapping his arm around my throbbing chest, he pressed the tip of the knife against my throat. “Fuck off and I won’t kill her.”
Rubbing my face on his arm, I blinked through the red and froze.
Henri.
Or at least…it looked like Henri.
Sodden jeans, torn t-shirt, dirty bare feet. Orange streaks on his face and remnants of orange staining denim. His dark hair dangled over his forehead, dripping with the occasional droplet of ocean.
He looked like Henri, but…this man wasn’t Henri.
The fire in his grey eyes…extinguished.
The longing in his handsome face…dead.
With his jaw tipped down, lashes lowered, and fists balled, he looked as cold and as merciless as the caves below.
He didn’t look at me.
Didn’t even seem to recognise me.
His focus locked on Kyle and only Kyle.
I gasped in fresh pain as Kyle dug the tip of the knife into my throat. “Fuck off, Mercer.” His heart pounded against my spine, hinting he sensed the same unhinged ferocity in Henri that I did. “I won. Fair and square. She’s covered in my paint. I can do whatever the fuck I want with Victor’s blessing.” He dared to laugh. “She was open game. He said it so himself. You can’t do shit.”
A darkness rippled beneath Henri’s skin.
Nightmares flickered over his face.
Looking past him, I made eye contact with Mollie and Rachel. Beside Rachel, the older Master lay unmoving with a heavy log dropped by his head. The other two Masters stood side by side.
I’d seen how ruthless Henri could be.
I’d watched him turn into pure violence the night of the treasure hunt.
He’d taken on three men and won.
But…he didn’t seem to even notice the others behind him.
The two men crept closer with the faintest nod from Kyle.
“Watch out!” I croaked.
“You little bitch.” Kyle wrapped his hand around my neck.
Henri merely turned on his heel and glanced at the two Masters.
Quietly, coldly, he murmured, “I’ll give you one chance to leave. Just one.”
He flexed his fingers. His voice all wrong.
None of the passion I was used to.
No echoes of the man who’d confessed what he was and forced me to admit my own downfall.
Kyle spat on the ground, his fingers vised around my throat. “Gut him, Gary. I’ll finish him off.”
Henri shrugged and crossed his arms.
He didn’t say a damn word, never looking away from the two men.
His silence was absolutely petrifying.
An icy breeze whipped.
The heavy pound of surf against the cliffs sounded like the earth’s heartbeat.
I flinched for carnage.
I tensed for war.
But then…the two Masters bowed slightly and held up their hands. “This isn’t our fight. We’ll go.” With a quick glance at Kyle holding me as his shield, they marched toward the south end of the cave, brushed aside a curtain of dead shrubs, and vanished.
“Fucking cowards,” Kyle spat.
The moment they were gone, Rachel and Mollie charged back to Peter. Resting their hands on his unconscious form, they never took their eyes off Henri as he took a single step toward Kyle and me.
I scrambled for air. I flinched from the knife.
Henri didn’t drop his eyes to mine.
He seemed utterly saturated with darkness.
Kyle bristled behind me. “Take another step and I’ll slit her throat.”
Henri didn’t stop.
Footfall after footfall. He. Did. Not. Stop.
Tears stung my eyes as the connection between us snapped free.
Emptiness flowed from him.
Vacant emotions and bone-icing nothingness.
Kyle cut me deeper. “I’ll do it. I’ll fucking—”
Henri flew.
One second, he stalked us. The next, he knocked me backward, using my weight to crunch Kyle to the ground. With cold, vicious hands, he tore Kyle’s fingers off my neck, ripped him off me, then dragged him away, kicking and screaming.
Coughing and choking, I scrambled to my feet, swaying a little at the onslaught of so many pounding bruises. My skin glowed with crimson paint, but beneath the red sludge, my flesh already welted with purple and black. A morbid rainbow of bruises that marked me as the chosen one.
Rachel and Mollie charged to my side and clutched me close. “Are you okay? Did he—”
“Don’t.” Pushing past them, I limped forward, needing to keep my eyes on Henri.
He felt all wrong.
Lost.
Broken.
Kyle kept yelling obscenities and curses, all while Henri tossed him onto his back and planted a foot against his chest.
“Get off me, you cunt.” Grabbing a handful of pebbles, Kyle threw them into Henri’s face.
With a grunt, Henri fell back. Clawing at his eyes, he gave Kyle a split-second window to shoot to his feet.
He launched himself at Henri.
The two men went wheeling back, fists flying, bodies twisting.
Kyle might be smaller, but his temper kept him evenly matched.
“We have to go.” Rachel tugged my arm. “We’ll follow where the other Masters went. I know them. They’re sick, but they’re afraid of Victor, so they won’t touch us now the game is over.”
“I agree.” Mollie took my hand. “Let’s grab Peter and—”
Henri bellowed as Kyle kicked him in the balls, then charged to the fallen knife.
“No!” I raced toward him, desperate to get the blade before Kyle did.
We arrived together.
I ducked for it.
Pain as he backhanded me and sent me flying.
In a blur of tears, I watched as he fisted the knife and bolted toward Henri.
“Watch out!” I screamed.
Lowering his hands from between his legs, blinking past grit, Henri braced himself just as Kyle launched through the sky and stabbed him.
The blade sank into Henri’s bicep, the tip vanishing into his arm.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Nobody moved.
And then…whatever strings existed in Henri frayed completely.
He didn’t seem real.
Not human.
With the smoothest arc as if he were a dancer in a past life, Henri snatched the knife out of his arm, grabbed Kyle by the throat, and shoved it into his jugular.
Kyle screeched.
A fountain of red exploded, covering Henri’s t-shirt.
“Oh my God,” Mollie gasped.
Rachel moved to my side.
None of us looked away as Henri deposited Kyle almost gently on the ground, dropped to one knee as he watched Kyle’s lifeforce pump out of his throat, and then…withdrew the knife, wiped the blade on Kyle’s slacks, and pierced it directly into his heart.
The crunch of ribs as he stabbed hard.
The whimper from Kyle as he died.
The blur of Henri’s arm as he withdrew the knife and stabbed again and again and again.
He didn’t stop.
He kept going.
A blood-covered savage as he turned a person into nothing more than a hunk of meat.