Chapter 7
My body buzzed as I picked at the lunch spread out for the guests.
Apparently Gabriel was somewhere doing training for the upcoming season, and I had been deposited here with an order to behave.
But all I wanted to do was escape.
Someone had left their keys out carelessly on the table, and I looked around guiltily before I slipped them into my pocket.
It wasn’t like I was stealing anything. Not really.
My need was definitely greater than anyone who raced a BMW against Gabriel.
“I’d like to schedule a call with the top brass at the HNL,” Lucian said, coming up behind me. “Are you ready for Gabriel’s first therapy session? I’ve always been impressed by your conviction that everyone can be helped by therapy.”
That conviction seemed incredibly foolish and misguided now.
“Didn’t you see him charge at me yesterday?” I hissed. “How dare you even suggest I be alone with him?”
Lucian’s face didn’t change.
“That was very out of character. He doesn’t usually seem affected by women.”
“You seriously expect me to sit here and tell you he isn’t a psychopath?”
“I think you’ll be doing that,” he said smoothly. “Have a few sessions with him. You’ll see.”
What else was Lucian covering for?
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as the energy in the room changed. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
I felt him behind me, my skin breaking out in goosebumps as the molecules between us charged with electricity.
“Don’t go—” I started to say, but Lucian had already turned away.
Gabriel smelled like heat and smoke, the wicked scent of his cigarettes making my nose sting.
He ran a hand up my back, then tangled it in my hair, raising a heavy handful so I could feel his breath on my neck.
I shrieked as I heard him spit, landing directly on my neck, then dripping down the back of my shirt.
“Right here,” he said in a domineering voice. “I could put a tracker right here. It took me a few minutes to find you, and that would be unnecessary with a tracker. I’d know where you were at all times.”
I choked out a gasping breath.
If I ran, how far would I get?
It was just a house. A very old house. And a lake out front. And a long driveway through some trees.
If I could somehow get out of the house. . .
There was no reason to fear there was. . .anything in the woods.
What about all those poor women, though?
But there was no reason to believe the killer was still lurking out there.
Maybe it had been some drunken tourist.
Maybe.
I tried to shake the fear away, but it clung, like a funk, like a miasma stuck to my skin.
What if the killer was. . .closer to home?
My skin crawled as Gabriel spit again. Then again, as he rubbed his deranged insanity into my skin.
I could still get away, I reminded myself. I can’t give up hope.
Under other circumstances, I would have loved the library here, exploring the towering shelves of old books with their bewitching leathery smells, and the big windows.
One even had a comfortable window seat where you could look out over the whole grounds, even beyond the red and yellow hills to the farmland beyond.
Everything was beautiful and idyllic except this little spot of depravity.
I was restless, thumbing through my textbooks.
Who had put them up here for me?
Like I was planning to stay.
I tried to force myself to think like a scholar again.
Subject might be used to relying on his looks and athleticism to get his way.
Subject seemed to have little regard for ordinary conventions or tenets of morality. . .
It all seemed so dry and inadequate to Gabriel’s terrifying vitality.
Frustrated, I slammed the textbook shut and wrinkled my nose.
Was there a moldy book somewhere in here?
There was a strange scent coming from somewhere, like maybe there had been water damage or something.
Where could it be? It was definitely unpleasant.
I jumped almost a foot when the door scraped open with a long, spine-curdling squeal.
“Follow me, Dr. Lindeth,” Branby said, gesturing back into the depths of the manor.
My hands tightened on the shelf. I was not used to being ordered around.
“And if I refuse?”
“I have my instructions to bring you.”
“Does that mean drag me?” I asked dryly.
He did not answer, but his mouth suddenly split open in a grin, exposing sharp, unsettling teeth.
“All right,” I said sourly. “No need for that, you ghoul.”
The butler led me down the hallway, for a moment my sight so blinded by the darkness that I couldn’t see anything but the slick dark coattails in front of me, the folds of his neck melting into his collar.
I tried to calm down. Perhaps I could leave before Gabriel even got there.
“Here you go,” he said, indicating a green door.
“Do you have your phone on you?” I asked casually. “I have a call I’d like to make.”
His only response was to snort and gesture inside.
The study was dark, and I tried to catch my breath as I fumbled for the light.
My breathing was harsh and jagged, and I felt prickles of sweat break out on my neck.
Could I get out this window?
No, it was way too high up.
I stuck my head cautiously out of it.
I had always been afraid of heights.
It was way too far down. There were jagged little bits of rocks sticking out of the manor wall, but I couldn’t have trusted myself getting down them. The risk of falling was far too great.
But somehow, I had to get out of here.
Was Branby the serial killer?
It seemed like there had been something almost gloating and pleasurable in how he announced the murders. Certainly not the attitude of a decent, well-adjusted man.
There was something wrong at Ashgrove Manor. Some deep rot.
My searching fingers finally found the light switch and I flicked it on in relief.
But as light flooded the room, I couldn’t suppress a terrified little scream, my hands clutching the smooth fine wood paneling.
Gabriel was sitting at the other end of the big desk, in a crisp white polo shirt and navy slacks, his dark hair looking a bit slick, like he’d just taken a shower.
“I’m here, doctor,” he said in a low, wicked voice. “Ready for my therapeutic examination.”
“No!” I snapped. “I don’t need an examination to know there’s something seriously wrong with you.”
“Don’t you want to find out what?” he countered, a smirk on his face.
“No,” I said again.
I had a sudden, overpowering fear of turning my back on him as I gripped the chair, then the shelves behind me.
“I’m not participating in this farce,” I said firmly, before whirling around.
Gabriel snorted.
“Get back here, Lark. You think I’m letting you leave this room without filling your cunt with cum and your little belly with my babies?”
His babies?
“You fucking little shite,” I snarled, full-on sprinting now, my heels sinking into the soft carpet.
Just a few steps and maybe I could lose him in the dark corridor. . .
I didn’t even hear him get up, but a second later, I felt a hard body slam into me, and I clutched at the door handle, but it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough.
He was way too massive, gripping at the collar of my shirt with a hard hand and lifting me up in the air.
“Sit down, Lark.”
“That’s Dr. Lindeth to you!”
“It’s whatever I want.”
He deposited me into the chair.
“Stop saying you’re going to impregnate me! It’s not going to get a reaction out of me.”
“But it is getting a reaction out of you,” Gabriel hissed, pinching my full breasts so hard I yelped in pain. “I can see your nipples hardening. You’re a liar, doctor.”
“Stop calling me doctor!” I cried. “You’re frightening me, can’t you see that? Can’t you see I’ll never willingly help you?”
“I’ll call you whatever I want. I’ll put you in whatever state I want. Whether you want it or not. Sometimes it’s fucking fun to see you run. And sometimes it’s fun to watch you squeal. But now you’re going to sit down.”
I squeezed my thighs together at the gravelly roughness in his voice, willing the painful throb in my pussy to subside.
There were a variety of objects on the table. A fresh pad of paper. Some pens. A paperweight.
A penknife.
“How long has your father known you’re a psychopath?” I asked, placing my hands on the table and forcing them to be still.
I felt bitterly angry at Lucian.
“He doesn’t know what I am. But he suspects.”
That penknife was so close.
If he would only look away from me, but he didn’t. His pupils expanded as they stared at me, like he could pin me in place with his predator’s gaze alone.
“Now how about you answer my questions?”
Sharp daggers of fear shot through me at the idea of giving Gabriel any more information.
“I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“What’s your plan for getting away?” he asked.
I said nothing, glaring at him as he leaned back in his chair.
The dark slacks couldn’t contain the massive bulge pressing against the fabric of his pants.
“What made you even come here? Don’t tell me my weak father was persuasive enough to get you out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Don’t tell me you did it to become a stepmother?”
I ignored him.
“My father isn’t strong enough to keep me away from you.”
My heart pounded with panic.
I knew now that was true.
“Stepmommy,” he said reflectively. “It has a certain ring.”
But then he grinned at me, a feral, sharp look.
“But I think I’ll keep you instead.”
“You can’t keep me. You can’t keep a person.”
“Oh, I think you’ll see,” he said, his face hardening. “When you’re knocked up with my baby. When that little belly is too big to move anywhere.”
His eyes flicked down to my belly. Just for a second. But it was enough.
I let my sleeve cover the penknife, and I pulled it carefully off the table.
“A pregnancy doesn’t last forever,” I whispered. “9 months maximum.”
He grinned, placing big, tanned hands on the table, then getting up from his chair. Sleek, fast, predatory.
In a second he was parallel with my chair, looming over me and blocking out the light.
His forearms were big too, hard cords of muscle, somehow managing to combine an athletic form with powerful strength and a massive wingspan.
I tightened my fingers around the little penknife. Could I do it?
How could a smile, how could a devil’s face like that look so horrifically beautiful?
Move, I tried to scream at myself, but I was too stuck in the old prey instinct of freeze and watch.
Move! I screamed silently. You’ll never escape him sitting here!
“Who said anything about one pregnancy?” Gabriel smirked.
I turned and stabbed him, as hard as I could.