Chapter 10
If I thought finding a dead body on the grounds of Ashgrove Manor would stop hockey practice, I was wrong.
Nothing would stop it.
I was not permitted to talk to the police, of course.
I could only watch from the library as the police and crime scene techs came, collected the skeleton, and left.
“You can come out now,” Branby said. “He wants you to watch him play.”
Of course he did.
What I had thought was just another dense grove of trees turned out to be a large clearing filled with a regulation-sized ice skating rink.
The ice smelled sharp and I stamped my feet against the afternoon’s sudden chill.
Everyone was watching Gabriel skate. He was barely padded, the athletic pants hanging low on his hips. I dragged my eyes away from his ass.
He was an evolutionary aberration; he was designed to look beautiful.
But I couldn’t miss the way the entire audience was oriented toward him, the women’s breath catching every time he skated by.
Because it was almost impossible to tear your eyes away from how he moved like a dark angel around the defenders, light on his feet and deadly.
I knew nothing about hockey, but even I could see that there was an almost diabolical grace in how he moved.
“He’s magnificent, isn’t he?” Lucian asked, coming up silently beside me.
He was looking with pride at his son, the way Gabriel weaved around the defenders.
I bit my lip, hard, as the muscles flexed in the younger man’s upper arms. The sound of his slap shot reverberated through the clearing.
It almost seemed like the barren branches of the woods beyond strained closer, too, like the whole of Ashgrove Manor was attuned to Gabriel.
“He’s always been bigger, faster, more powerful than the other boys his age,” Lucian said with affectionate pride. “He was destined to be a superstar.”
Rage choked me as Gabriel skated by, his dark eyes meeting mine.
He rapped on the glass between us, pointing with a gloved hand to Lucian.
“Back it up,” he warned me. “I told you not so close.”
To my fury, Lucian obeyed immediately.
“You always do what he tells you to?” I hissed.
A cloud crossed Lucian’s face and to his slight credit he looked shame-faced.
“It’s safer to.”
“Fucking chicken,” I spat. “Aren’t you supposed to be my boyfriend?”
“It’s dangerous to cross him.”
“Maybe he should be in jail then,” I said as Gabriel’s cum trickled down my thighs.
There was so much of it.
Maybe he was going to get me pregnant. Fuck, I needed to get a refill on my birth control pills immediately.
“He’s perfectly safe if you don’t cross him. Perfectly safe. He only lunged at you out of surprise the other night.”
I glared wordlessly at Lucian.
Well, this relationship was obviously over.
“He’s just spoiled.”
Turning my back on Lucian, I stalked away angrily.
“Good girl,” a low voice rumbled in my ear as Gabriel skated by.
“Fuck you!” I snarled, turning to grip the chain-length fence, but I was rewarded only with a spray of ice in my face.
Think, Lark.
How are you going to get out here?
I walked by Hemsworth, who had one eye on the ice and another on the play he was working on.
“Is the whole family into hockey?” I asked, trying desperately to put on my professional voice and keep the panic out of it.
“Oh yes,” he grinned. “Gabriel was a remarkable child. His mother left at quite a young age and he was always athletic. Lucian and I have more money than is probably good for us, so of course Gabriel always got the best tutors, you know?”
Yes, I did know.
Fucking asshole had everyone wrapped around his finger or too frightened to help me.
“Have your phone on you?” I asked in a casual voice.
“No, no, I don’t. Cell service is always pretty bad out here, anyways.”
Shit
There had to be service somewhere on the grounds.
I sidled up to the group of college girls, darting my eyes this way and that, even though it was ridiculous. He couldn’t keep an eye on me all the time.
He’d have to relax his guard sometime.
Right?
“Can I use your phone?” I whispered to one of the women.
“Oh, Dr. Lindeth! Sure, what happened to yours?”
“It broke,” I muttered.
“Sure!” she said, fishing it from her purse and handing it to me without breaking her gaze from Gabriel’s body.
There was a flush on his high cheekbones as he scythed over the ice, the wind ruffling through his ink-black hair.
I clutched the phone in hot hands, biting my lip with nerves as I hastily opened the Uber app and punched in our address.
I was so intent on ordering it as fast as I could that I didn’t notice the way conversation ceased around me.
But I should have.
Isn’t even a mouse smart enough to freeze when a bird of prey circles closer?
And then a glove dropped in front of me and a big, tanned hand reached down and ripped the phone out of my grasp.
“Who gave her this?” Gabriel asked, and his voice wasn’t even angry. That was what was so frightening about it.
It was completely cold, like something dead and robotic.
The silence was complete, total.
In the distance, I heard a crow caw.
“I said who gave her a motherfucking phone?” Gabriel roared. His other hand was gripping the hockey stick so tightly the tendons were snapped and throbbing.
With one vicious motion, he slammed the stick into the side of the boards. His voice was cold, but his eyes flamed. I felt rage pulsate from him.
When he did it again, this time someone squeaked out,
“It was me. I’m s-s-sorry, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to.”
Gabriel’s face went blank and with one swift motion, he flung her phone into the lake.
“Dr. Lindeth doesn’t get a phone. Now get out. All of you.”
He jerked his chin at one of his friends. “Take all these bitches out in your car. They need to go.”
The women began to mewl unhappily as one of Gabriel’s friends pulled keys from his pocket.
My mouth practically watered with jealousy at the sight of those car keys.
Fuck! Why couldn’t I escape too?
I began to move toward this guy’s massive SUV, hoping to go unnoticed in the crowd.
“I’ll pay you a thousand bucks if you slip me your phone right now,” I hissed under my breath at one of the other women.
She hesitated, looking back at me, but a cold voice landed like an anvil on my back.
“Get away from her. Now.”
They all scuttled away, leaving me alone with no one within a twelve foot radius.
Gabriel was leaning over the boards, his white T-shirt stuck to his muscular chest with sweat.
“I’m going to fucking kill the next person who tries to help her leave. Is that clear?”
They all mumbled in agreement, and were shoved or pushed into the big SUV as I watched in jealous envy.
Shit shit shit
As the vehicle disappeared into the long, windy driveway, I heard a thump and Gabriel had left the ice, throwing his skates against the boards with an loud clatter.
“Phones here.”
He pointed at an athletic bag, keeping his eyes on me as he did.
I would not let him see the fear in me.
Obediently, all his rich little fucker friends dumped their phones in the bag.
So much for hoping he’d be distracted by any of the many other women he’d brought.
“I think we’re ready for the HNL brass to come out tomorrow?” Lucian asked into the silence. “Right, Dr. Lindeth?”
“She’s ready to be a good girl now,” Gabriel said, his arm laid firmly on my shoulders.
“Move her stuff to my room,” he ordered Branby as we came inside.
There was that smell again
“Wait—what—no—” I protested.
I looked wildly over at Lucian.
Surely he’d object to that.
But he didn’t, only nodded.
He didn’t meet my eyes.
Gabriel smelled like salt and power, his heavy hand clamped onto my shoulder.
There was still straw in my goddamn hair when he shoved me into his room.
I only got a flash of it before he threw me onto the bed, glimmering dark flashes of expensive electronics paired with heavy, sinister paintings that might have been hanging in this same room for generations.
“You’ll be here with me from now on,” he said, and there was a note of exultation in my voice that I recognized very well from my studies.
Possession
He had marked me as his own.
Gabriel pulled off his T-shirt, his eyes still on me. His body was ungodly, ripples of abdominal muscles and sleek, deadly lines of power.
He pulled down his pants and settled over my body, pointing his dick at my mouth.
“Clean me off,” he said. “I’m ready to go again.”