Chapter 3
Rayna
“You give me the signal as soon as he touches you, okay?” Victor said, standing on the other side of the tray Rayna was holding, with a tightness bunching his face.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “We agreed I’d give the signal when I want out.”
“No—”
“V, you have to trust me for this to work. The same way I trust you’ll get me out if anything goes wrong. But you have to give me enough time with him first.”
He rubbed his teeth together like he wanted to argue, the faint crow’s feet around his eyes playing hide-and-seek repeatedly until he let out a heavy sigh. “You’re the reason Ash keeps telling me my blood pressure is dangerously high. Do you know that?”
A startled chuckle flooded out of Rayna. She flashed him an audacious grin. “Ash needs to keep his mouth shut, and you, V, need to stop spiking your own blood pressure by worrying about things you can’t control.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You. I can’t control you, you reckless child. And as proud as I am, I worry that Yasmin’s cursing my soul for all the things I’ve let you get away with.”
Rayna’s chest expanded with warmth even as a dull twinge clung to her ribs. “No, she’s not,” she said softly. “Mum would be grateful for all you’ve done to raise me, and you know that.”
Victor’s smile didn’t move an inch, but sorrow glazed over his eyes, as heartbreaking as it always was. Rayna was beginning to wonder if there was ever going to come a day when he stopped wearing that look whenever they talked about her mother.
He blinked, and the deep sadness faded to the back of his stare. “Promise me you’ll give me the signal.”
“I promise.”
Satisfied with her reply, Victor walked around her in the wide corridor outside Lord Norland’s quarantine room. She swivelled with him to face the single metal door, being careful not to tip the glass of water next to the covered plate of food and spoon on the tray.
Reaching for the small, square scanner on the wall, he pressed his thumb to the reader, and a click emanated from the metal door. As Victor stepped back, Rayna freed one hand and slowly pushed it open.
The moment she stepped into the brightly lit room, the door automatically shut behind her, sealing her in the eerily silent space.
Her lungs deflated like a pierced balloon.
Bloody woods…
Forget that she could feel the fierce presence of the room’s occupant burning into her side far more than she could see him from the corner of her eye, but the usually clean quarantine room looked just as scarred as everyone who had been dealing with Lord Norland outside of it.
Designed like a spacious, rectangular hospital room with white painted walls, blue laminate flooring, and cool ceiling spotlights, there was a sink opposite Rayna with a small mirror above it on the wall, and a cup with a toothbrush and tube of paste in it by the silver tap.
Except, a distorted image of her face reflected back at her because the plastic sheet sealing the mirror in was cracked, with splatters of what she could only assume was dried blood painted over it and tainting the white basin below.
Even the seamless sliding door next to it that led to the toilet and bathtub was marked with little dark red droplets.
On her left, the two-way glass screen that took up most of the wall had been subjected to the same treatment. Dented in three places, it was harder to notice the sprays of blood against the charcoal colour of the acrylic, but that only made it seem more sinister.
Knowing Victor, George, River, Ash, and Monty were watching from the other side, she swallowed her grimace and pivoted right to face the rest of the room.
She glanced past the pile of linen shirts and towels under the clothing rack on the wall, past the square table drilled to the floor with an unravelled gauze bandage roll piled on the surface, all the way to the metal-framed single bed draped with pale blue bedding.
Whoa…
A single bowling pin slipped behind her rib cage, knocking over the rest in slow motion. Each pin tumbled into her heart, causing it to thump harder.
Rayna had no idea what triggered the feeling. It sure as fuck wasn’t fear. Maybe it was surprise at the sight of the man sitting atop the bed. Or some sort of curious intrigue. Perhaps a touch of a reality-check too of the situation she’d gone and put herself in.
Because Lord Dominic Evander Jonathan Thorne, the eighth Marquess of Norland from the Region of Vindall, aged thirty-one, lover of horses, and rich as fuck, was in fact a large man just like his medical record had stated.
It wasn’t as if she’d been expecting to find the opposite of what he’d been described as, but she hadn’t expected…this.
A glaring lord with a big gut and a pompous, upturned nose, perhaps.
But not this man, who looked peaceful while he slept, and dare she say attractive.
Not in a pretty, peacock way. But in a roughhewn, sharp lines, all-too-male way.
Sitting with one leg stretched out on the mattress and the other raised at the knee, Lord Norland was resting with his back against a pillow and head against the wall.
He was wearing brown knee breeches that showed off large bare feet and strong, hairy forelegs, and the fabric hugged his thighs in a way that made it seem like they were a size too small.
His linen shirt was untucked and untied from around his neck, displaying his thick throat corded in muscle and the wide expanse of his bronzed chest dusted in a dark mat of hair. He’d rolled the linen up at the sleeves, and, fuck, his forearms probably had the same diameter as her neck.
That, paired with the fact the hand resting on his knee was wrapped in bandages over his knuckles, should have sent concerned shivers skittering down her back. Instead, all she could think as she began walking towards him was that he looked like he’d stepped out of an R-rated pirate movie.
But make him a bear, just as George had said. A pirate bear.
With broad shoulders, a strong, angular jaw sprinkled with dark overgrown stubble, and a plane of hard, aristocratic features—a stubborn chin, a strong nose, firm lips that were neither full nor thin, and thick fans of black lashes set under full, straight brows of the same colour.
His hair was surprisingly well-maintained in contrast to the bruised and battered state of his hands.
Dark brown in colour and appearing thick and soft, it reached his nape at the back and covered the top curve of his ear, not softening the harshness of his features, but rather making the contrast more evident.
By the time Rayna had taken him in completely, she was standing at the end of his bed, and honestly? Might have nearly knocked into it during her distracted gawking.
Keeping her eyes directly on the man’s closed ones, she mentally shook off the weird sense of awe and unease whispering up the back of her neck. Then she set the tray down on the table, not quite turning her back on him, before facing him fully again.
Rayna slid her tongue between her lips and let out a slow exhale.
The next part was going to go one of two ways, she realised.
Lord Norland was either pretending to be asleep, in which case he was probably going to lash out the moment she called out to him.
Or he was genuinely resting, which would allow her enough time to move back so she could assure him she wasn’t a threat.
Then they might or might not have a civil conversation. That wasn’t guaranteed either way.
If someone had asked her what reaction she’d put her money on, she’d have sensibly bet on the former. But then again, maybe she was wrong. She was hoping she was wrong.
Otherwise, if Lord Norland didn’t end up killing her, Victor definitely would if she got herself hurt.
Here goes nothing.
She took a deep breath and moved two steps closer to his side. “Lord Norland?”
In hindsight, she’d moved too close. Way too close.
One moment, the marquess was on the bed.
The next, a blur of a fearsome man towered over her.
She barely even managed to stumble back before his huge, bandaged hands came around her throat in an unforgiving grip.
Oh, shit.
He didn’t give her a chance to fight or speak.
He yanked her around like she was lighter than air and slammed her back against the wall, obliterating all the oxygen from her lungs.
She clawed into his hands, choking on gasp after gasp.
Futilely, because no air was passing through her windpipe to her panicking organs.
Just when she thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, the floor disappeared from under her feet as he heaved her up the wall, bringing their faces almost level. Double shit.
His hands tightened on her throat like two thick clamps.
And tightened. And tightened some more.
Fuck, I’m dead.
Rayna was sure of it.
Because the lord’s irises, somewhere between the colour of dark gold and honey, ringed in burnt amber, were merciless. So fogged with rage and murderous intent, they were bloodshot.
And well, his teeth were bared like he was putting his all into asphyxiating her, so…
At least his breath didn’t stink.
On the other side of the glass
Eyes popped from their sockets, and everyone lurched towards the screen in the observation room when Lord Norland grabbed Rayna by the throat. Every feral grunt the man huffed out, and each desperate strangled sound she made echoed from the speakers all around them.
The four guards, dressed in white anti-contamination suits, immediately came off the wall to intervene, but as the first man reached for the exit, Victor roared at them to stop.
“He’s strangling her,” George cried.
But Victor didn’t tear his gaze away from Rayna, watching with his heart in his throat, waiting for the signal she’d promised she’d give him.
“Come on, Rayna. Give me the signal,” he muttered, his timbre rough with unease.
Except she wasn’t even attempting to lift her hands from around Lord Norland’s wrists. Not to struggle against his grasp, nor to indicate she was ready to be pulled out.
“She’s not fighting him,” River said, his gaze flying frantically between the screen and Victor.
“He’s going to kill her,” George snapped, throwing a hand towards the screen.
“Be quiet, George,” Victor roared and slammed his hands down on the console under the screen. “Rayna, give me the damn signal!”
Monty scrubbed a hand over his mouth and sighed. “She won’t,” he said resignedly. “She’s waiting for him to let go.”
Victor bit out a bunch of curses, running both hands over his hair and yanking at the strands. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to fucking kill her.” Then, without looking at the guards, he straightened his glasses and growled, “You go in on my signal.”
That signal was never given.
Within the next edgy second, Lord Norland released Rayna, stumbling back from her as she dropped to the floor with a painful thud. Heaving gasps and splutters flooded into the observation room before—
“You…you are a woman.”