11
His grip doesn’t loosen once as the queue inches forwards. Unzipping his black puffer jacket, he tugs his tan scarf free until both ends rest against his chest and his chin tilts as he takes in the surroundings.
‘What… How?’ The questions claw out, but the screaming in my head won’t let me form a coherent sentence.
‘Give me your phone,’ he orders. Softly. Through a smile meant to bite.
I barely get it out before it slips from my fingers and skids across the floor. He retrieves it quickly, then tucks it inside his jacket.
Left pocket.
‘You’re my fiancée, we’re going to visit my family,’ he instructs as his eyes sweep the area.
When they reach me, they snag on my engagement ring, and he gives it a scornful glare.
‘You’re going to be a good girl, Leah.’ He lifts his gaze, arm tightening around my waist until my body jolts with a warning of air-loss.
He stays warm against me, every measured word travelling through us both.
‘You’re going to do exactly as I say, or I’m taking down the plane and everyone in it.
’ He says it so calmly – as if it isn’t a threat, but an inevitability.
My mouth opens, tears beginning to well behind my lids as I zero in on two teenagers and three toddlers in the line.
‘You wouldn’t…’ I start, staring up at him. Not Elias Crane. Not the man who bled emotion into ink.
He turns me slightly until I’m in his arms entirely and he dips his head as if to feign a lover’s embrace.
With a thumb, he wipes away the tear on my cheek, the contact dragging softly over my skin before his hand settles on my jaw. Then he presses me harder against him to punctuate the warning.
‘Stop crying.’ The words are flat. No hesitation. No flicker of remorse. Nothing in his face to suggest he understands what his grip is doing to me.
He smiles down at me with hooded eyes, pretending to be entirely taken with my face.
Up close, that smile is obscenely beautiful. The harsh airport light skims over his cheekbones as he removes his cap. It catches on the straight line of his nose, the dark fan of lashes that should belong to a poet – not a man threatening mass murder.
His mouth curves in that soft, private smile I used to believe was reserved for me, breath warming the space between us. It could almost pass for devotion—
If I couldn’t feel what his fingers are doing to my ribs.
I grunt out a breath. His hold on me loosens but doesn’t quite let go. He smells as if he’s brought winter with him and wrapped it in clean, black cotton, and I struggle against the onslaught.
Security is already behind us. Nothing left now but the boarding gate and half a dozen people who could save me if I could make one of them understand.
When he looks up again, he takes in the queue and the security desk at the front of it. A woman argues with her husband over passports, a teenage boy stares at his phone.
Elias’ gaze moves from face to face, to the desk ahead, lingering wherever someone might be watching us for too long. The hairs along my arms lift. He looks like he knows what he’s doing.
Only when no one spares him a second glance does the smile slacken, as though the mask has grown too heavy to hold. When his eyes meet mine, it disappears entirely.
‘Relax,’ he murmurs, his mouth close enough that anyone watching might mistake it for affection.
‘Calm down.’ His hand slides higher up my back with stark possessiveness, pinning me to the steady beat of his chest. ‘I know it’s been a while since you belonged to someone, Leah, but you should still have some idea how to behave.’
I steel myself and force back the pressure behind my eyes as I meet his stare.
The thumb of his other hand strokes my cheek once, almost tenderly, while his voice drops into something colder. ‘It means you stop looking for exits. No one is going to save you. And it means when I hold you like this, you are all mine. You breathe when I tell you to breathe.’
‘What have I done to you to warrant this?’ I force through my teeth.
He chuckles with genuine amusement. Straight, white teeth flash as he lowers his chin and nudges my nose fondly. The faint rasp of his beard catches my skin, horribly familiar.
‘You’ve done everything,’ he growls quietly, pressing his cheek to mine as his voice roughens and he breathes me in. ‘You’ve fucked it all up.’
The queue moves.
He lets me go only long enough to catch my hand and thread our fingers together. I try to pull away, but his grip tightens immediately.
We’re already at the boarding gate. I glance to the side at a man in a uniform who fumbles with his phone. My throat locks, sweat breaking beneath my collar.
‘Leah.’ Elias tightens his fingers around mine, though his voice retains the softness. ‘Look at me.’
My head lifts on its own. His half-lidded eyes first fall to my lips, then lift to mine as his thumb and forefinger reach for my chin.
‘No funny ideas,’ he whispers on a soft note, smiling that irresistibly devastating smile at me, even when the glint of his teeth promises something else entirely.
My eyes slide off his face and find the gate agent again.
‘Leah,’ Elias warns again, lowering his head and suddenly—
He takes my mouth in his.
It may look like a gentle kiss at first, but when he brushes his lips against mine, he makes sure his teeth catch – just enough. He nuzzles my nose as I suck in my wounded lip, tasting metal beneath the clean bite of mint on his breath.
‘I mean it. Misbehaviour will be punished.’
‘You don’t have to do this, Elias,’ I murmur.
‘Oh, I really do.’ The words come out on a silky snarl, and he suddenly unfolds from me. ‘Now, smile bright, eyes on me.’
My throat goes for another swallow as the gate agent holds out her hand for my passport and boarding pass.
This is the moment everything should collapse. His passport should flag as invalid. His boarding pass should fail to match. Some hidden discrepancy should flash red across the screen and tear his entire scheme open.
I fiddle with the document in my pocket just as Elias puts his in front of her. The woman starts typing something into her computer.
A breath sits on my tongue.
My fingers are too shaky to grab onto the goddamn passport, and I pull out a gum wrapper instead.
Then the agent asks a question in what I assume is Norwegian.
And he—fucking—answers.
I whip my head towards him with disbelief. He meets my stare without a trace of reaction, and the confidence in his eyes jolts me back into the role I’m supposed to be playing.
I drag a smile to my face as the woman turns and cheerfully asks me something.
My eyes start blinking rapidly. I must be stroking out, because I can’t understand a single word that comes out of her mouth.
‘My fiancée is English; she doesn’t speak Norwegian,’ Elias says to her.
Something irrational pinches me when her face brightens for him.
Of all the things my body could choose to do right now, jealousy should not be on the list.
‘Your accent,’ she continues in English as she looks up at him. ‘Nordland?’
I finally hand her my passport. She skims over it while Elias hooks his forearm against the surface of the counter and graces her with a despicable smile. ‘Good ear. Helgeland,’ he divulges, pronouncing it the way only a native Norwegian might. ‘My family’s close to R?ssvatnet.’
‘Have a good flight, Mr Halvorsen, and welcome home.’
Home?
Her gaze flicks to me, a warm smile attempting to thaw reality. ‘Future Mrs Halvorsen.’ She nods at me and cheerfully hands back both our passports – which Elias snags right under my hand.
My mouth dries.
Our eyes meet. I watch him pocket my passport in his jacket.
My way home.
No…
We pass.
Oh my God—we pass?
Those last three steps before the archway swallows us, I throw a single glance behind at the security and open my mouth.
And then Elias yanks me into the tiny lift. My cabin bag rumbles over the threshold while I struggle to steady it. The man already inside takes one look at Elias filling the doorway and mutters something under his breath before he backs out.
Elias’ thumb finds the button before the poor bloke can reconsider, and the doors slide shut.
There’s nowhere to go.
The handle catches the small of my back as he closes the distance between us.
‘What did I say about misbehaviour?’ he grumbles into my face.
‘Elias, you can still stop this, Conall can—’
‘Conall can do shit!’ he interrupts. ‘I told you not to dig. I told you to leave things as they are, so now… you’re stuck with me.’
The doors part with a bright electronic chime, and he is already pulling me out by the elbow.
‘What do you mean?’ I manage, trying to catch my breath when the strong swipe of wind blasts into my face as we rush towards the plane.
‘“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”’ The line from Frankenstein drops almost casually.
It tears through my chest like a lance and lodges there, twisting and turning.
His proximity scrambles everything. My thoughts stutter. Breath catches between a scream, a sob and a laugh, and the ground tilts further whenever I turn my head too quickly.
As we reach the stairs leading up to the front door of the plane, he stops and turns, taking me into his arms again – tight.
Tighter.
Air leaves me in a thin, startled hiss.
‘You decided to be my Victor anyway. You dug, you argued, you put a bloody lawyer on me,’ he all but snarls as he buries his face into my hair at the neck when a couple moves past us to climb the stairs.
The words spill hot beneath my ear, scorching a path down my skin that my pulse tries to reclaim.
I shiver from the onslaught of fear and…
him. ‘It would have looked bad on me if I declined. You cracked the bars after I told you to leave them the fuck alone.’
Stepping away, he steers me upwards, his hand entwining with mine in a tight grip, but not enough to hurt me.
I almost yelp when he pulls me up the first stair.