Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
SUMMER
T he next day, I wait until after my last class, and the very end of Lincoln’s office hours, before I make my way inside his building. I make sure I’m the last student and smile sweetly at the receptionist in the office area before I sit in the chairs outside his door.
Xander’s words echo in my mind, like a swarm of hornets buzzing inside it.
Get the fucking hint and run.
“Office hours are over,” the dark-haired and rather plain looking receptionist says without looking up from clicking on her keyboard.
“I’m sorry, I just have a quick question for him,” I say dryly, pulling my backpack up over my shoulder. Even though I talked to him most of last night, and even got my weekly reflection done a day early. There was no sign of Mikael at all, and I want to see him.
The receptionist keeps her eyes fixed on me for longer than I think is appropriate, then grabs her coat and purse. “Sorry, Mr. Kennedy is with a student, then he usually heads home at five.”
I stare at Mr. Kennedy’s door—Lincoln Kennedy has his own shiny silver plaque engraved on the wall.
The door shifts open, and my skin starts to burn as Misty walks out, her usual natural glow replaced by pale white skin. She makes eye contact with me as she hurries by, and I think I might spill the contents of my stomach seeing her alone with him.
No challenging grin today…something’s wrong.
“It’s fine, Stephanie, I’ll take her in,” Lincoln calls out, enunciating Stephanie’s name in a way that makes my toes curl. Stephanie notices, too. Her face fires beet red as she looks at me, then through the doorway Misty just came out of.
“Lock up when you’re done, then.” She grabs her coat and leaves, shaking her head.
I rise and step toward the door. My throat closes, knowing Mikael will be the one I’m facing right now. No wonder Misty is pale—Mikael has the ability to remove all pigment with a single glance. God only knows what he’s said to her.
He’s sitting casually with his legs spread and relaxed, and his head is down, focused on the razor blade he’s twirling between his fingers. His glasses are off, and he looks more composed than I’ve ever encountered him.
“Hi, pretty girl,” he says without looking up. “I was hoping you’d come for a visit.”
I take a deep breath as blood pumps through my entire body. I glance back at the hallway, the dark empty room behind me.
He finally raises his gaze to meet mine. “Shut the door please, baby. I don’t want anyone to interrupt us. Stephanie might come back.”
Dani. I just need to call Dani. She will help me. She might be the only one who knows the extent of the power in this town.
Saying anything to anyone else is pointless—they want me dead, and I am starting to understand why. It has nothing to do with their dark god or a bullshit sacrifice. They want my inheritance. They want what is rightfully mine.
I click the door shut behind me as heat builds in my center. I need to keep him talking; I need to draw Lincoln out.
I rest my head against the door. “You’re going to fuck everything up for both of you if you front at the workplace, Mikael,” I warn him as he takes one careful step, then another toward me. “You’re being too obvious.”
I meet his heavy stare. No flicker, no calming presence…just chaos and shadows like the vein of the night.
“Bring Lincoln back now,” I demand. I saw the way Stephanie was looking at him, Misty, too. They were scared shitless.
He shrugs and moves closer. “Nah, I won’t fuck anything up for him.” He slams one arm beside my head, caging me in like a beast. “I only want to fuck you up, pretty girl.”
My heart stops. I’m used to seeing him with glasses. His angry eyes are still on fire, but he appears to have more control over himself. And that could be scarier, knowing he’s growing stronger and more confident in his skin.
His razor blade flashes in his hands and his eyes drop to my neck. My body vibrates as he reaches out and admires a lock of my white hair.
I stay rigid as he moves in closer, and I close my eyes, not having a clue what he plans to do. I can’t have him so close; it’s killing me. My skin sears from the heat of him.
He runs the blade against the fabric of my shirt, and his breath tickles my cheek. “Unexpressed emotions never die,” he whispers.
My body trembles under the soft electricity of his touch. His evil presence shoots tingles up and down my entire body.
“What?” I breathe, keeping my eyes closed as the blade moves down and he tears a hole in my shirt. His hand finds my breast and my body turns into pudding, and I let him ruin yet another expensive outfit. Because it feels so fucking good.
He continues his rambling, “They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
My eyes shoot open, half expecting to see Lincoln staring back at me. Mikael tilts his head and smirks. A vicious, cocky grin that makes my heart hurt.
“Sigmund Freud,” he muses, playing with the hole he made in my shirt. “This quote summarizes his key psychological ideas about repression.”
Those thoughts, ideas, theories all belong to someone else. He’s stealing from Lincoln.
His eyes shimmer as he beholds me before they settle into a deep brown. And I know at this moment, Lincoln is gone.
It’s the hate, anger, and the icky emotions that are left staring back at me. Broken and abandoned by the one person who was supposed to love him unconditionally. An empty, hateful soul when I know there is so much more to him.
I swallow hard, and his eyes follow the bob in my throat as if it’s taking all his willpower not to slice it open. His eyes shimmer and I know I am fucked.
“When did Lincoln disappear?” I ask him.
He licks his lips as my nipples harden under his thumb as he caresses them.
“Alters don’t disappear, Summer—it doesn’t work like that—we fuse. And now everything he was, all of it, every part of him, is mine.”
I hate that he sounds like him. I hate that he can carry on as if Lincoln hadn’t carried him through his life because he was so broken and torn, he couldn’t cope. I hate that I can’t say no to him because of the mind control he has over me—the control Lincoln gave him.
I hate how much I fuckin love him.
My stomach starts to eat itself as I will myself to run, to hit him, slap him, scratch him, rip that razor blade out of his hand and slit open his damn throat and end this.
“I hate you,” I whisper as he continues to cut open my shirt.
“I hate you more, pretty girl.”
He runs the blade along my breast, teasing the outside of my nipple, and begins to run it along my neck.
“You can’t kill me yet,” I remind him, standing perfectly still. “It’s not the ReBirth Ceremony. And that’s what you want, isn’t it? To give me to Him . To be Him …”
A deep rumble escapes his chest—a noise I’ve not heard from him before, even as he spent two days fucking me in his basement.
That rumble makes my thighs clench. So I taunt him to draw out more of him.
“Will that somehow make you stronger, you sick fuck? You’re so weak, Mikael. Killing me makes you a murderer, a cast off to society, not a deity.” I move my lips so they are flush with his cheek. “You’re not a fucking god,” I whisper.
Mikael twists his jaw and runs his hand through his hair, not even trying to hide his level of insanity. “You know what my favorite part of becoming Lincoln is?”
I stiffen at the sound of Lincoln’s name as his hand grasps my waist.
“What’s that?” I respond and my voice is a million miles away.
I close my eyes, and his heat envelopes me as I press my head against the oak door. The smell is so familiar in the dark, and I can’t tell the difference. It could be Lincoln.
“Everything about this brain is intoxicating. The way he thinks things through, his memories, his logic…all the things he did to protect you. I learned, just today from one of his memories, that it’s possible to die from intense emotions.” His knuckles find my cheek. “Emotions, pretty girl, and here I thought all I needed was blood.”
My chest rises and falls beneath him. I’m so exposed and vulnerable, and he’s so mad. “What are you talking about, Mikael? Get to your point.”
“That’s how he killed your father; he used emotions.”
I tense and whip my eyes open. “My father died of a heart attack,” I remind him. “I was there the night it happened. There was no way Lincoln could have caused it.”
Was I there, though? I was there when he was rushed in, not when it happened. In fact, he was supposed to be out of town that night. I was with Dani when I got the call.
He lets out a tiny chuckle. “You forget what I am, Summer. I’m a scientist, baby. It took a couple of days, but finally, he got so scared shitless that his heart gave out on him. It’s rare, but apparently possible.” He arches his soft brows and chuckles. “Who knew?”
He centers his knee between my legs and nudges them open. My body complies and his hands move to the line of my pants and slips them down.
“You’re mine, Summer,” he whispers. “You’ve been mine since I saw you. Lincoln made sure of that when he killed your father. There’s no one to protect you now, pretty girl. There is no one else who can. It’s my destiny to become him . It’s what my mother unwillingly handed over to me.”
I let out a moan as his fingers slide into my pussy. This man just admitted to killing my father, threatened my life because I’m the key to his transcendence , and here I am with my knees open for him, desire radiating out of me like a pheromone.
His eyes soften, his soft eyebrows arch, and I swoon a little inside with how fucking hot he is. The look he’s giving me makes my blood sizzle.
He slips his tongue inside my mouth before moving his lips to my neck. He kisses on me, running his hands along my pebbled breasts like he used to do while I was sleeping.
“You’re missing one very important thing,” I tell him as he slides my pants down. They fall off me easily enough, his hand now finding the wet spot on my underwear. He undoes his own button and pulls out his erection, steeling it against me.
“What’s that?” he murmurs as my legs open.
“I don’t love you. I love him,” I lie to him. “And it seems to me that these sacrifices were all willing.”
He pulls off me, his eyes shimmering against his pale skin as he takes in those words. An opponent…he’s looking at me like an equal for once as my lips quirk up.
He grabs my chin and softly runs his thumb over my lips. His other hand still bearing the blade tears my panties off. He’s inside me before I can choke out a breath and the blade clinks to the ground.
His hand finds my throat. “You are such a fucking liar. I embody every aspect of the person you fell in love with.”
I don’t stop him as he twists me around and pushes me to his desk. I don’t squirm as he spreads my legs and shoves himself inside me from behind. I don’t scream as he moves his hand and hooks his fingers inside my mouth and starts to fuck me savagely.
He fucks me so hard my head bangs into his oak desk, causing me to clamp down on his hand. I bite as hard as I can before he moves his hand, giving me a gentle caress in my hair. I don’t stop biting as my orgasm builds and my body might combust.
I don’t make a sound.
“I love you, pretty girl,” he says as he finishes, and thrusts so hard in me cum drips down my thigh and he falls over me. “Don’t pretend you don’t love me, too.”
I don’t scream…because I never did.