CHAPTER 13 THE ASHES OF MY RUIN POV SYBIL #2
I lie down on the hard, freezing floorboards, pressing my left side entirely against his uninjured right side.
The contrast is jarring. My skin is freezing from the exposure, but his skin feels like ice.
I wrap my right arm entirely around his broad, muscular chest, avoiding the heavy bandages on his left shoulder.
I throw my right leg over his thick thighs, pulling myself as flush against his massive frame as physically possible.
I press my cheek against the hollow of his neck, burying my face against his cold, clammy skin.
"Thayer," I whisper, my breath ghosting over his collarbone. "I'm here. Please, stay with me. You promised me I would never sleep alone again. You can't break that promise."
I squeeze my eyes shut, using every ounce of my willpower to stop my own shivering, trying desperately to transfer whatever meager body heat I have left into his failing system.
Time ceases to exist. There is only the darkness, the howling wind, and the terrifyingly slow, shallow rhythm of his heartbeat against my chest.
Minutes bleed into hours. My muscles cramp, locking into painful, rigid knots against the hard floorboards.
The cold completely seeps into my marrow, numbing my fingers and toes, but I refuse to pull away.
I press myself harder against him, completely enveloping him in my desperate, terrified embrace.
Slowly, agonizingly, the terrifying chill radiating from his skin begins to change.
The freezing clamminess gives way to a faint, creeping warmth. The violent tremors wracking his massive frame begin to subside. His breathing, previously a jagged, rattling struggle, slowly evens out, deepening into a heavy, rhythmic cadence that moves my body with every inhale.
My heart leaps against my ribs. It's working.
But as his core temperature stabilizes, the fever sets in.
The faint warmth rapidly escalates into a burning, unnatural heat. His skin turns flush, radiating a furnace-like intensity that sears straight through the thin white lace of my bra and underwear. A sheen of hot sweat breaks out across his forehead and chest, mixing with the dried blood and ash.
He shifts violently beneath me, a low, agonizing groan tearing from his throat.
"Shh," I soothe, my hand sliding up to cup the side of his jaw, my thumb stroking his hot, stubble-roughened cheek. "It's okay. You're safe."
He doesn't hear me. He is completely lost in the delirious, burning fog of the fever and the blood loss.
His head tosses back against the floorboards, his jaw clenching tight. "No," he mutters, the word a dark, broken rasp. "Don't... touch her. Kill them. Kill them all."
The sheer, unrestrained violence in his subconscious mind is terrifying, but it is entirely directed at protecting me. Even as he burns alive on the floor of a rotting cabin, his brain is entirely consumed by the singular directive of my survival.
"I'm right here," I whisper, pressing my lips to the burning skin of his shoulder. "No one is touching me."
Suddenly, his uninjured right arm sweeps out in a blind, frantic arc. His heavy forearm collides with my waist, his massive hand instantly splaying wide across the bare curve of my hip.
He grips me with a bone-crushing intensity, pulling my half-naked body completely on top of him.
I gasp, the breath completely knocked out of my lungs as I sprawl across the hard, muscular expanse of his chest. My bare legs tangle intimately with his, the soft, sensitive center of my body pressing flush against the heavy ridge of his arousal resting beneath his dark boxer briefs.
"Mine," he breathes, his voice a guttural, feral vibration that rumbles directly into my chest. His eyes are still tightly closed, completely trapped in the delirium, but his physical response is absolute.
His hand slides frantically up the bare skin of my back, his long, calloused fingers tracing the delicate line of my spine before tangling violently in the dark, messy waves of my hair. He holds my head in place, his hot, feverish breath washing over my lips.
"Sybil," he groans, my name sounding like a prayer and a curse tearing from his throat.
"I'm here," I answer, the words trembling, completely breathless.
The sheer physical friction of our bodies—the contrast of his burning, feverish skin against mine, the terrifying, intoxicating weight of his hands completely dominating me in the dark—ignites a dark, violent fire in my blood.
The cognitive dissonance completely shatters the last remaining barriers in my mind.
I should push him away. I should be repulsed by the monster who manipulated my father into putting a hit on my head. But the vulnerability of his delirium, the absolute, undeniable proof that I am the only thing anchoring him to the earth, is a psychological aphrodisiac I cannot fight.
I slide my hands up the heavy, hot muscles of his chest, my fingers tracing the edges of his dark Syndicate tattoos. I lean down, my mouth hovering mere millimeters from his.
I don't wait for him to wake up. I don't wait for permission.
I press my lips directly against his burning, feverish mouth.
It is not the violent, aggressively dominant kiss he forced upon me in the bunker.
It is a desperate, seeking pressure, a raw, undeniable admission of my own twisted, terrifying devotion.
I open my mouth over his, tasting the salt of his sweat, the lingering phantom tang of blood, and the dark, intoxicating essence of his breath.
Thayer groans into my mouth, a deep, primal sound of pure surrender.
His hand at the back of my head tightens, holding me impossibly closer, completely devouring the kiss even in his unconscious state.
His hips buck upward instinctively, grinding the heavy, hard length of his arousal directly against the aching, desperate heat pooling between my legs.
A sharp, breathless moan tears from my throat.
The physical sensation is completely overwhelming.
My body arches against his, completely abandoning the last shreds of my conditioned shame.
I want him to wake up. I want him to open those terrifying, glacial gray eyes and completely ruin me on the floor of this cabin.
But his body is completely exhausted. The feverish surge of energy is fleeting. His grip on my hair slowly relaxes, his hand sliding down to rest heavily on the small of my back. The frantic rhythm of his breathing slows, the deep, exhausted sleep claiming him once again.
I pull back slightly, my lips swollen and throbbing, my chest heaving as I stare down at his peaceful, bruised face.
I rest my head against his chest, listening to the steady, rhythmic thud of his heart. I am completely trapped. Not by the locked doors of a penthouse, not by the heavy steel walls of a bunker, but by the undeniable, terrifying reality that I am completely, irredeemably in love with the devil.
The storm outside eventually begins to break.
The violent howling of the wind tapers off into a low, mournful whistle. The torrential rain slows to a steady, freezing drizzle. The faint, muted gray light of dawn begins to filter through the cracks in the wooden walls, illuminating the grotesque, bloody reality of our survival.
I am completely exhausted, hovering on the very edge of unconsciousness myself, lulled by the steady heat radiating from Thayer’s body.
Then, the absolute silence of the morning is shattered.
It starts as a low, mechanical hum in the distance. The unmistakable, heavy rumble of powerful engines cutting through the dense forest.
My eyes snap open. Every muscle in my body goes completely rigid.
The engines grow louder, drawing closer to the abandoned cabin. The heavy crunch of specialized off-road tires crushing dead branches and mud echoes through the trees.
I scramble off Thayer’s chest. The sudden absence of his body heat is a violent, freezing shock, but the pure, unadulterated adrenaline flooding my system completely masks the cold.
The Commission. If they found the tunnel. If they tracked our footprints through the mud.
I don't panic. The fragile, terrified girl is completely dead. I am the only thing standing between the unconscious Don of the Thorne Syndicate and the men who want to mount his head on a spike.
I grab the oversized dark gray t-shirt from the floor and quickly pull it over my head, completely covering my sheer underwear. The cotton is freezing, but I ignore it. I crawl across the floorboards to the heavy tactical duffel bag.
I reach inside and pull out the matte-black 9mm Glock.
I check the safety, clicking it off with a sharp, metallic snap. I grip the weapon with both hands, bringing it up, my elbows locking straight.
The heavy engines cut off entirely just outside the cabin.
The sound of heavy combat boots slamming into the mud surrounds the structure. There are at least half a dozen men. They are moving with lethal, tactical precision, entirely securing the perimeter.
"Clear the porch!" a harsh, commanding voice barks outside the door.
I back up until I am standing directly in front of Thayer’s unconscious body, completely shielding his bleeding form with my own legs. I raise the heavy barrel of the Glock, pointing the suppressed muzzle directly at the center of the rotting wooden door.
My breathing is completely silent. My hands, miraculously, do not shake.
Heavy boots step onto the porch. The rotting wood groans under the weight.
“If it is not me... you empty the clip into their chest. You shoot to kill.”
The heavy wooden door is violently kicked open, the rusted hinges tearing completely free from the frame.
The pale, gray light of dawn floods into the dark cabin, illuminating the massive, tactical silhouette stepping over the threshold. The man raises a heavy assault rifle, the tactical flashlight mounted on the barrel blinding me completely.
I don't flinch. I don't lower the gun.
"Drop the weapon!" I scream, my voice completely shredding the silence, a dark, commanding roar of absolute authority that I didn't even know I possessed. "Take one more step and I will put a bullet directly through your throat!"
The man freezes instantly. The blinding beam of the flashlight drops, hitting the floorboards instead of my eyes.
"Hold your fire!" the man shouts, his voice thick with absolute shock, rapidly raising his left hand into the air. "Hold fire!"
My vision clears, adjusting to the light.
It is Dante.
The underboss of the Thorne Syndicate is standing in the doorway, completely covered in ash, mud, and dried blood. Behind him, half a dozen heavily armed Syndicate soldiers lower their weapons, their eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated shock.
They are not looking at the blood on the floor. They are looking at me.
Sybil Vance. The pawn. The fragile, broken girl their boss went completely insane to protect. I am standing over the unconscious, bleeding body of the most feared man in Chicago, holding a loaded Glock 9mm with the dead, completely unblinking focus of a seasoned killer.
Dante slowly lowers his assault rifle, his dark eyes sweeping over my pale, blood-smeared face, and then dropping to the massive form of Thayer lying in the dirt behind me.
"Is he..." Dante begins, his voice completely raw.
"He is alive," I command, not lowering the gun a single millimeter. My voice is absolute, cold steel. "He is bleeding. And if any of you take a step toward him without my explicit permission, I will kill you myself."
Dante stares at me for a long, heavy second. The sheer, profound cognitive dissonance completely shatters the seasoned underboss. He recognizes the absolute truth in my eyes. I am not the Don's captive anymore.
I am the Donna.
Dante slowly, deliberately bows his head, his eyes fixing firmly on the dirty floorboards.
"Understood, Donna," Dante murmurs, the formal title completely lacking the forced reluctance from the morning before. It is heavy with genuine, terrified respect. "We are here to take you home."