Chapter 7 #2
His brows slam down, and his mouth twists. His hips shift upward, and if his hands weren’t occupied, I know he’d have them wrapped around my throat by now. A thought that sends a flutter of fear and awareness through my body.
“What are you doing?” he demands.
“What are you fucking doing here?” I snap back.
The curse sends his brow skyward again before it slants back down, and a wry smile appears. His wits are back. He studies me for a long, silent moment.
“Mask off then? Good. It’s about time. Nice to finally fucking meet you, Zephyrine.” He says my name like it burns his tongue, and the fact that he knows it confirms just how much danger I’m in.
“What do you want?” I sound scared even to my ears.
“You’re doing all this, and you don’t know what I want?” He’s amused. He’s tied up and pinned down, and it’s amusing to him. He has zero interest in taking me seriously now, and it makes my mind run wild with panic.
“I can call the abbess. Report you for impersonation. You won’t like the consequences.” I try a threat in the absence of any real power in this situation.
“What will she do? Give me a stern talking-to? Tell me I’m not welcome back here to enjoy the stiff mattresses and the ice-cold showers?”
“She’ll report you to the order. I’ll report you to someone even worse,” I warn him.
There’s a sharp snorted dismissal in retort.
“Ah. There she is. Daddy’s little girl. I was surprised she didn’t come out to play sooner. Only when you’re feeling threatened then?”
“I don’t feel threatened. You should be the one worried.” I nod to the rope around his wrists to remind him—and me—that he can’t do much in this position.
“Should I?” He lets out a dark laugh, and it’s the only warning I get.
He rolls his hips hard and fast, bucking me up, and I have to scramble to hang on to him and avoid being tossed to the tiled floor. I let my nails dig deep into his skin, punishing him for the act, but he doesn’t flinch. In fact, his wry smile grows into something more devious.
“You like this,” I blurt out loud because it’s a revelation.
I’m used to dealing with men who are blatant assholes.
I’ve got plenty of experience with them.
It’s how I ended up here. But I've never had one this good at pretending. He deserves an Emmy. “I don’t know how I ever thought you were a priest.”
“I don’t know either,” he agrees easily, and I feel a flush of embarrassment.
He’s not scared of me or my threats. Not even a little bit. If I'm going to get him to admit to anything, I'm going to need some bite to my bark. I push away from him and move from the bed, quickly glancing around for something to make him talk.
I spot the thurible I’d been getting ready to clean earlier today on my desk.
There are still coals inside, and I grab matches out of the drawer.
I flick one against the striker. The flame rises from the tip, illuminating the corner of the room.
I press it to the little black lumps, and they quickly catch fire.
I blow on the matchstick, extinguishing the flame, and try to steel my nerves as I look back at him.
“Going to try to hold an exorcism? It won’t work.” He continues to taunt me from the bed. Not a single care or worry in the world. It must be nice.
I grab the aspergillum out of the pile of other things I meant to polish before I was sidetracked by the night’s events. I stuff it into the thurible and then glance back over my shoulder.
“Tell me why you’re here,” I demand.
“Why do you think I’m here?” He glances behind me, and then his eyes come back to mine, unbothered by the threat he must see brewing there.
“I don’t know. I’m here on this island with nothing but nuns, and you come all this way to put yourself in the middle of it.”
“That’s odd, don’t you think? That a normal college girl just suddenly drops out.
Moves to Europe not long after. Then ends up joining a convent.
Would you consider that normal behavior?
Do the nuns know about your family?” He knows far more about me than I would have imagined.
I wonder if he already knows why I ran away and is just playing me to see if he can rattle more information free. A chill runs down my spine.
“I think people have all kinds of reasons to do what they do. It doesn't make it odd.” I didn’t have a choice—it was this or the end of my life, and I wasn’t ready to go out just yet. Not like that.
“I suppose not for someone like you.”
“Like me? What am I like?”
“A con woman, for starters. Don’t you worry about how you’ve lied to all these poor women?”
“Don’t you?” I hit back when the blow lands exactly as he intends. This was rich, considering he’s a blatant liar.
I’m always reminding myself that this is a means to an end, that it’s not personal. I never intended to hurt any innocent bystanders. But the friendships I’ve made here weigh heavily on my heart in the middle of the night when I think about how they’d view me if they knew everything.
“Not a bit.”
I rip the aspergillum out of the coals, sure that it’s hot enough now, and make my way back to him.
I climb onto the bed again, crawling over the top of him and pinning him down, using my thighs to squeeze his legs together as I hover the hot metal over his abdomen.
The glow from the lamp reflects off the patterned surface and creates a spray of light over his skin.
“Tell me what you want from me,” I threaten.
He merely grins in response.
“You gonna burn me with that?” He scoffs like he doesn’t think I have the guts.
“If I have to. Or you could tell me what I want.” I’d rather he keep this simple. I’m not a torturer by nature. I just don’t know what else to do, and I’m terrified of any possible reason I can think of for him being here.
“Guess we’ll see what you’re made of then.” His eyes are focused on the spot where my palm wraps around the handle, shaking as I try to work up the nerve to sear his flesh with it.
His unflinching calm rattles me. He’s completely unmoved. Disinterested almost. I have to make him see things from my perspective. My eyes search over the tattooed skin for a spot.
“Tell me,” I demand again, but I’m met with silence.
Nothing but a mocking smile comes from his lips, and I take a deep breath of frustration.
“Which tattoo do I ruin? This one with the pretty scenic view, or this one with the cowboy? Maybe we can set this whole field on fire.” I run my fingertips over the grasslands etched into his surprisingly soft skin and then look up to meet his eyes.
“What do you think?” I’m hovering a half inch from unleashing agonizing pain.
He glances at it and then up at me, unimpressed and unmoved.
The devious look etched on his pretty face only grows darker.
“I think you should do it and see what happens next,” he taunts me.
The bait works because I take it, pressing the aspergillum to his flesh and watching as his skin reacts even as he tries not to.
He barely flinches, but his muscles contract slightly, and he inhales sharply, letting out a slower than a normal breath in its wake.
Those are the only signs at all that he even felt it.
No screaming. No passing out. I pull the metal tool away from his skin to see the white and red marks it left in its wake, the intricate gothic detailing making a mirror pattern over his flesh.
“What do you want? Tell me,” I demand. “I’ll do it again.”
He doesn’t answer. His eyes, temporarily shuttered, reopen, and he looks at me like he can see through me. His lips don’t move, and his jaw doesn’t shift. He might be more determined. I toss the aspergillum to the stone floor in frustration.
“Tell me what you want!” I’m louder than I should be, given the late hour, and my eyes instinctively dart to the wall where I worry I’ll hear a sharp knock from my neighbor.
“You.” I barely hear the word before his legs shift underneath me.
He spreads them, and mine in the process, until I fall forward like I had before.
This time face-planting onto his chest because I’ve been too distracted.
His legs wrap around me, and his arms follow.
Somehow, he freed himself from the binds I put them in.
He flips us in such a rapid fashion that I barely register what’s happening before I’m underneath him.
He has me pinned to the mattress, his thighs pinning my hips and both of my wrists in a vice grip above my head.
My mind struggles to catch up with the sudden swap of power until I try to free myself and fail. My heart sinks.
It was a trap.
He reaches above my head with his free hand, grabbing the thermos I’d made him drink tea from. It’s still uncapped. The one I’d spiked with the drugs that had knocked him out. He holds it up to my lips with an expectant look, but I shake my head.
“Drink,” he demands.
I press my lips together. There’s no way I’m letting him drug me.
I have no idea what he’ll do to me. Rape me.
Kill me. Cut me into tiny pieces. Burn every inch of my skin in retribution.
I have no idea what he’s capable of, and the scars on his own skin tell a violent story.
Even as I refuse him, my eyes are caught on the snake that hovers over my head, encircling his forearm and wrist, frozen in time like it’s about to strangle its victim.
“Open up and drink,” he repeats, his countenance growing stormier by the second.
I shake my head, too scared to use words for fear he’ll take the opportunity to pour it down my throat.
“You won’t like it if I have to force you.”
I press my lips tighter in answer.
“Have it your way.” His patience snaps, and he pours the drink into his own mouth, holding it there as he sets the flask back on the desk.
His hand goes to my jaw, his forefinger and thumb pressing at the spot where it hinges. I move to thrash underneath him, but his body pins me in place. I shake my head and do everything I can to try to resist, but it’s fleeting at best.
As the pain and pressure mount, I lose the battle.
My mouth opens just enough that he has access.
He seizes it, squeezing tighter and forcing my mouth open wider.
He leans down, his lips practically touching mine, and spits the drink into my mouth.
It douses my tongue and rushes to the back of my throat.
I start to choke and sputter, but his hand moves to my chin, pressing my jaw upward and forcing my mouth shut again.
“Swallow,” he orders.
I shake my head, fighting him with every fiber of my being. Tears well in my eyes. I wish I’d made more noise earlier. I wish the abbess had spotted us on the way in from the lake. Anything would be better than this.
“There are worse things I could do to you. Don’t make me.” He threatens like he can hear my thoughts. He takes another swig from the poisoned flask. The look in his eyes makes my heart rate double. He’s serious. Deathly so, and his face inches closer to mine until his lips are a hairsbreadth away.
His hand whips away from my jaw at the same time his mouth descends on mine, covering it in what would be a soul-searing kiss if he wasn’t trying to kill me.
The hand that was holding my jaw pinches my nose, stealing my airways from me and sending me into a panic that has me attempting the one thing I shouldn’t.
But it’s all I can think.
Breathe.
I need air. Desperately. My body acts of its own volition even as I try to stop myself.
My mouth opens to his, and the poison pours in a second time. He holds me down as I struggle and whimper, pinning me in place until I can feel the burn in my lungs for the second time this evening.
What the man takes, he can give back. The fading edge of black seeps in at the edges of my vision, and I finally cede ground. If I don’t give in, I’ll die. If I drink, there’s a chance I live to fight another day. Even if it's burned and battered. I’ve survived it before. I can do it again.
I swallow.
As soon as he sees the bob of my throat, his fingers release my nose. I take a deep breath, pulling as much air in as fast as humanly possible. The oxygen races through my lungs, and my vision returns, along with my thoughts. Finally able to focus on something other than the vice grip of death.
Something like the fact that his lips are still on mine. We’re still locked in a lover’s embrace. It’s only been seconds, but it feels like an eternity. He starts to pull away, slowly, letting his lips glide over mine, his tongue teasing over them so gently.
I nip him in return, my teeth sinking into his full lower lip, and it draws blood.
He pulls back, using his free hand to swipe at his chin, staring at the evidence of my violence on the pads of his fingers.
Then he presses them to my lips, spreading the crimson stain over my mouth and staring at the mess he's made.
“You’ll regret that,” he warns. Somehow, I don’t think I will. I have a feeling I’ll wish I did more damage.
“I hate you.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.” There’s a grin on his face, the kind you use to cover your emotions, filled with a distant kind of misery that’s all too familiar. I almost feel a strange sort of sympathy to see it reflected back at me.
But I can’t think about that now. Now it’s about us surviving because worse than what he could do is what the drug can do. We both had more than our fair share tonight, and we could overdose with no one to find us until morning.
“It settles if you don’t shake it up. You’ve probably had…” I try to warn him. “Too much…”
“Too much what? What is it? What did you give me?” He presses for answers.
“It’s…” But my words are fading as fast as my memory, and I’m tired. So incredibly tired.