Chapter 16
I can’t move, or breathe, or even blink.
My fingers flex against the wall for a moment before I reach forward to curl them around his wrist, though I’m not trying to pull him off of me.
I wouldn’t be able to, even if I really wanted to, and I’m not stupid enough to think otherwise.
Instead I squirm a little, trying to find a way not to be perched on his leg, but I can’t move enough.
“Don’t lie to me,” I murmur, but I know somehow that this isn’t a lie. He is telling me the truth this time, at least about this.
He really did eat Esther.
“You ate her?” I’m not sure how long we’ve been standing here, with him nosing along my jaw and me trying to accept the horror of what he said. The information doesn’t help today’s mental state at all, and I feel my fingers flex around his wrist as I become a little detached from my body.
After all, not being here would be easier than digesting all of this.
“Hey.” Cairo’s voice is suddenly normal, if a bit concerned.
He leans away from me while keeping me pinned to the wall with his hand still around my throat.
But his grip loosens, so he’s not impacting my ability to breathe at all.
“Hey, Fern.” His fingers flex and release, then he takes a moment to just watch me, which is unnerving as hell.
“I’m fine,” I breathe, closing my eyes and unconsciously digging my nails into his wrist. “Shit, I’m—” I ease my grip, but before I can let go, his other hand covers mine to keep my hand on his wrist.
“No, that’s okay. You dig in, little bird.” His voice is gentle rather than commanding. “You can’t break my skin with your nails, I promise you that.” Cairo holds me against the wall until I finally open my eyes to glare sullenly at him.
“I’m so sorry,” I snap, self-conscious, “that I wasn’t prepared for you to tell me you’d eaten someone that I met, that I talked to?—”
Cairo growls to cut me off, his face close to mine again.
“Don’t try my kindness, pretty girl. I’m hungry, and the mouthier you get”—he breaks off and lunges forward, running his tongue up the side of my throat, up my jaw, and only stopping at my hairline—“the better you fucking taste. I’m trying to help you so you don’t get lost on me.
You wanted this confrontation so badly.” His voice turns a little mocking.
“Frankly, I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea of me.”
Before I can ask what he means, Cairo jerks me away from the wall.
He doesn’t put me down though; he lowers me just enough for my toes to occasionally brush the floor.
With only one arm wrapped around me, he moves through my house, bringing me to my bedroom where Moro hops expectantly up on the bed, her tail wagging.
Clearly she doesn’t give a damn about Cairo’s threats of eating me, and it makes me wonder if she’d let him do it in hopes of him giving her attention.
It’s a shame my dog is ready to betray me for a man of all things.
“Not right now, Moro.” I swear Cairo’s nicer to her than he is to me, and he closes the door in her confused face, leaving her in the bedroom with us in the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” I snap, nervously digging my nails a little harder into his arm as if I’m offering some kind of threat. But that only gets me a withering, baleful look, and Cairo pushes me onto the counter before letting go.
“If you leave this room before I tell you that you can, I will eat you,” he informs me oh-so-casually. As if he hadn’t just threatened my life.
Honestly, I want to call his bluff. I want to get up right now and bolt for the door, locking him in the bathroom to create a barrier of safety between us.
I even glance sidelong at my closed-off escape, though when I feel his gaze on me, I look back to see he is indeed giving me a shrewd glance from the corner of his eye.
“Try it,” Cairo invites, opening his mouth enough to show me the tips of his fangs. “Try me. Do I really seem that benevolent?”
“What a stellar use of benevolent,” I tease quietly, never looking away from his dark eyes in the bathroom where the only light comes from the nightlight over the sink.
I still feel a little detached, and I hate the way I miss his wrist to clutch onto.
Instead, as a fallback, I sink my nails into the fresh scar, hissing at the soreness of my abused skin.
The shower is on within seconds, and Cairo is back in a flash.
Though considering my current state, I could’ve just blanked out for those ten seconds.
He pries my fingers away from my palm, snorting disapprovingly.
“Such a masochist, aren’t you?” he murmurs.
“Is that what helps ground you, little bird? If you want pain, I am more than happy to give it to you.”
“By eating me?”
“No. I don’t like to play with my food. I’d snap your neck if I were going to eat you.” He says it so flatly, in such a clinical way, that I shudder against him. “I could find so many fun, pretty ways to hurt you, Fern. And maybe if I do, you’ll realize I’m not human enough to be your friend.”
“It has nothing to do with how human or not you are,” I reply without giving myself a moment to consider staying quiet. “Human, dog, or monster, I’d be your friend. It has a lot more to do with you wanting to eat me and making threats about it.”
Cairo bares his fangs, his grin surprised and sharp. It’s the first real, surprised smile I’ve seen from him, and his mouth just keeps opening until I swear he’s dislocated his damn jaw to show off all those shiny, terrifying teeth.
A shiver goes down my spine, and his eyes glitter. His tongue licks over one canine, then the other, and it takes a moment for me to realize he’s showing me it’s longer than a human’s tongue, just as his jaw somehow opens further than a normal human’s ever should.
And then there are his teeth. His canines have to be twice as long as mine, while his other teeth are a little slanted, so every single one could do me harm. When he finally closes his mouth properly, he leans close to me again, caging me in over the counter.
“Let me hurt you, little bird,” Cairo purrs, sounding more like a cat than a person. There’s a strange, terrifying light in his eyes, making them look like emeralds instead of just plain green. “I could make you want it and keep your mind off of anything else.”
But I slowly shake my head, maintaining eye contact like I can’t look away, more like I’m looking around than actually disagreeing.
The feeling in my stomach is mostly fear. At least eighty percent is terror at the idea of him doing something terrible to me. But the other twenty percent is, embarrassingly, anticipation. Secret, subtle desire to know what it is he’d do for me to want him to hurt me.
My fingers flex against his, and he steps closer, leaning down to growl against my hair. “Sit there and stop trying to hurt yourself,” Cairo tells me. “Or I’ll be meaner, since that’s what it seems like you need.”
“Says who?” I breathe, trying for confidence and missing spectacularly as evidenced by Cairo’s withering glance.
“Do you need to clean your wounds again?” I ask as my confusion settles somewhere alongside the fear.
There’s a touch of worry for him as well, no matter how much I try to hide it, and as soon as he turns, I’m back to scraping my nails along my scar.
Though I switch to pinching it between my forefinger and thumb a moment later, wincing at the sharp sting of that particular abuse.
“Little bird…” His tone is something I haven’t quite heard before, almost like the way he says things in voices that aren’t his.
Yet somehow, the sound is all Cairo, though it’s part husky purr that shouldn’t be possible from a human throat.
“You’re just determined to push me, aren’t you?
Fine. I’ll give you what you need to make your scent go back to normal. ”
“How do you know what I need?” I snap nervously, watching him tug off his shirt. Immediately I’m caught by the way his chest looks. It’s healed, or nearly so. As if the wounds there are weeks old instead of just a day or two. “Fuck, Cairo. How did you?—”
But he’s on me before I can finish, eyes flashing to reflect the illumination from the nightlight by the mirror.
“I don’t know exactly what you need,” he admits, not seeming put out by it in the least. “But I’m willing to experiment.
You’re shaking, Fern.” When I only look at him, he picks up my hand in one of his, showing me the slight, persistent tremble in my fingers.
“You stink like fear and anxiety. And…” but he trails off, then shakes his head like he’s dismissing the thought.
“What happened today before you found me? Before you walked around in those woods and didn’t realize you were being followed by not one, but two of us?”
“Nothing,” I lie, not wanting to tell him about my day.
Suddenly, I’m afraid of showing him weakness, and unsure of where I stand in this situation.
I don’t even know if he’s being honest about not killing me, not eating me, or not feeding me to his friends.
My muscles tense, thighs pressed tight, and my fingers twist in his hand, though he’s got a death grip on the fingers I’ve been pressing to my scar, just shy of being actually painful.
“Little liar.” Cairo clicks his tongue in disappointment.
“You’re so disobedient, and I can smell a lie on you a mile away.
I don’t like it when you smell of fear unless I’m the sole reason for it.
” Again he gives me that wolfish grin, and leans in against me.
“You wanted to try me, didn’t you?” he breathes, lapping at the skin of my jaw like it’s candy.
The idea of tasting good to him sends a shudder down my spine, and I flex my hands against him in an attempt to push him away.