Chapter 9
EVER
My feet pound down the steps. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting you coffee.” His boots crush the mountain of glass into smaller fragments as he makes his way to the counter. “I know you can’t wait for anything.”
“You can’t just break in!” I whisper-shriek, following him inside. But he can with the whole realm drugged. No one cares. No one comes running.
Eli pokes at the espresso machine. Then the register and blender. He opens the small milk fridge, pulling back suddenly and slamming it shut. “It’s cold.”
“It’s supposed to be cold.”
He frowns, inspecting his surroundings. “Where’s the coffee?”
“I have to make it first. Sit at the counter.” I gesture toward the raised bar and high stools with coffee bean-patterned cushions.
He spares a glance at the stools, but stays firmly in place, arms stiff and folded. He’s on high alert, his eyes darting about, seeking the dangers that lurk behind the condiment station. I smirk, turning away so he can’t see. He’s cute.
“Or stand there and watch like a serial killer.” I flit around behind the counter as if I hadn’t missed months of work, filling the canister with water and grinding beans. I brew an extra dark roast, add a huge slosh of cream and hand a steaming mug to Eli. Or at least I try to.
He stares at my offering.
“Try it,” I urge.
“You first.”
I run a finger along the rim of the mug, ending in two taps. “It’s not poisoned.”
“I broke in here so you can have your damn coffee after waiting for months. Drink it before I pour it over your chest and lick it off you. One way or the other, you’re going to enjoy it.”
I take a huge gulp, mostly to mask my burning cheeks, and scald my throat in the process. But it’s even better than I remembered. “You can’t lick me.”
A smile teases his lips, daring me to let him prove otherwise—maybe the first genuine smile I’ve seen in days.
He takes the mug and shifts it around awkwardly until he’s holding the bottom in his palm and gripping it with his fingers to keep it from falling.
All I’ve seen anyone in Sonnet drink from is a canteen.
It could be hundreds of years since he used a cup in a past life.
It’s a struggle not to help him lift it to his mouth. Milky coffee dribbles down his chin.
Now I’m the one who wants to lick it off him. Shit. I take the mug back and chug the rest, only worsening the burn in my throat. He nods toward the street as he wipes his face clean with the back of his wrist.
Caffeinated and distracted by his smile lingering in my mind, I crunch over the glass and lead him around the corner of the building and up the stairs to my room above the coffee shop.
Eli follows, looking over his shoulder twice with every step as if the street lamps might come to life.
I reach for the strap of my backpack to fling it around to the front and dig out my key.
But my pack was left in the forest months ago… when a sack went over my head.
I let out a labored breath and lean my back against the door. Every time I start to let go, reality comes rushing back. The moons light the small space between the door and the railing, the sky so clear and calm above us, it feels unsettling after the vicious skies of Sonnet.
“Your stone?” Eli asks.
I stare at him. Maybe I can make sense of this man if I look hard enough.
“For unlocking the door,” he adds.
Oh. “My key,” I correct. Recognition rounds his eyebrows, long ago memories that collide with my world. “But I don’t have it.”
He cracks his knuckles and punches his fist through the small window, glass scraping his arm, shards falling to the floor inside. Once again his skin is unscathed.
“You broke two glass windows and still aren’t cut.”
“That’s not enough to make me bleed.” He clears away the remaining pieces blocking the window. “Even with you near and weakening me.”
“I thought magic didn’t work here.”
“Having tougher skin isn’t magic, it’s part of what I am. The border only blocks gifts from working and keeps magical creatures from crossing over.” He hoists himself up on the ledge and jumps through the small window into my room.
Four seconds later the door handle jiggles. Then harder.
I smile. “What’s it like to be the one locked inside?”
“Your door is defective.”
I try not to laugh too loud. “Open the deadbolts.” All six of them. They take the same key, but they made me feel safer anyway. I couldn’t escape the violent deaths in my head, but I could try to prevent a real one.
“The what?” he asks through the door.
“The knob things above the handle. You have to turn them.”
Metal slides and clunks into place. Six times. He opens the door, panic fading from his eyes.
Darkness surrounds us, only interrupted by the moonbeams slipping through the door and window. “The light stones won’t work here either because they’re made from gifts,” he says, as if preparing me to spend hours in the dark with him.
I flip the switch beside the door, and a dim wall light flickers on, causing his head to snap around the room nervously. He slams the door shut.
I peruse the familiar space, barely a ten-by-ten foot room.
A single door on the opposite wall leads to a bathroom, which is spacious considering the otherwise tight quarters.
My sheetless mattress takes up a chunk of the floor, along with my maps and supplies scattered about in front of the television, which also sits on the floor.
Haphazard stacks of books and movies serve as an obstacle course to the bed.
My clothes are piled—not folded—on cardboard shelves I wedged inside my dresser.
It had drawers at some point, but not by the time it got to me.
A few boxes of cereal take up the top surface of the dresser, as close to a kitchen as I have.
Paint peels from the empty walls, and a perpetual leak drips from the corner.
The aroma of coffee wafts through the air ducts from below, mixing with the thick scent of stale cereal and books.
Home… but not anymore.
Eli locks every deadbolt carefully and proceeds to explore as I take off my boots and socks, the old beige carpet scratchy on the soles of my feet.
He experiments with the light, flipping the switch off and back on, then loops around the edges of the room until he reaches my bed, looking much too big for the small space.
His giant boot lands on the corner, bouncing forcefully as if checking its firmness.
The springs creak. He moves on to my makeshift shelves, shuffling through my clothes.
He holds up a pair of blue underwear, inspecting and stretching it between his thumbs. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“It’s a thong. That’s how it’s made.”
“For better access?” He squints at it as if trying to imagine it on my body. “It’s not like the one I took.”
“Put it back. What are you doing?”
He stuffs it in his pocket. Then four more. “Stocking up.”
I hate how he makes me laugh. He looks up at the sound of my suppressed snort. The way his stare burrows into my soul has me speaking simply to keep my heart from opening doors I must keep shut. “So all six of us will sleep in my bed?”
He dismisses my sarcasm. “No. We get the bed. They get the floor.”
“I’m not sleeping with you.” I smirk at the thought of Kelter on the floor. “And Kelt would be pissed. He’s slept in this bed dozens of times.”
Disgust unfolds across his features. “There’s no way you’re sharing with Kelter. If he kisses you when you’re half a foot away from me, what would he try in bed?”
Nothing, actually. “What do you care?”
His endless eyes are the only thing I see. The taste of blood overwhelms my tongue, but a soft breeze hits at the same time, his light and dark sides mixing, turning gray. “I don’t.”
Right. As I thought. But it still hurts.
“But you’re my prisoner.” His shoulders lift with each bitter breath. “No one will have you but me.”
I drop my gaze to the floor. Maybe I can hide the flood of feelings building up, but before I get the chance, they slam into a protective dam and retreat, never hitting their target—my heart.
“You can’t even put your hands on me.” The number of tiny touches that often go unnoticed are glaringly obvious when they’re forbidden. I shouldn’t want them, but I do.
He strides across the room until his chest is in my face, then tucks his hands away in his pockets with a seam-ripping force, as if physical restraint is required to keep them off me. “Eyes up here.”
I bend my neck back until I have a clear view of his stubble. His eyes tack onto mine. “I’m not your prisoner anymore,” I whisper, the argument no longer sounding as convincing as it did in my head.
He levels his face with mine, his lips hovering over my mouth. Steamy breath passes between us in tension-thick puffs. “If you need cuffs and chains to remember who you belong to, I won’t object, but a little gut-wrenching pain won’t keep me from touching you.”
It doesn’t help that I actually want his hands all over me. My lower lips swell and moisten, a steady pulse creating waves of pleasure. I curl my toes. How hard is it to stay mad at this man? Genuinely I-don’t-want-to-fuck-you pissed?
Impossible.
Because I would have done the same if I were him… planned an abduction, lied, killed maybe. I’d do anything to rid my mind of these visions. At least I don’t have thousands of ancestors throwing thoughts around my head all day.
He draws in air through his nose, then his low chuckle hits my face. “But I clearly don’t even have to touch you to make you soak those panties. You can hand them over to me later.”
It could be the thought of what he’ll do with my wet underwear in my room tonight while everyone sleeps, or the grin that reaches his eyes with slight crinkles, or it could be the rising rebel in me, itching to make him eat his words, but I don’t care which spurs the moment—I grab his ears.
He grunts and staggers back, tripping on the edge of the mattress and landing on his ass with a laugh. “Fucking magic.”
Magic. “Hold on. Why does it still happen in Caldera? This was my mother’s gift.”
“It’s not a gift now that it’s in you. It’s something deeper. I don’t know why or how, but you break every damn rule of nature.”
I hold my stomach and look straight at him as the quiet words leave me. “I don’t want it.”
“You need to learn to control it.”
“Why? You still haven’t learned to control your cock.” I roll my eyes toward the bulge in his pants.
He straightens his back and shoulders. “I’m not going to hide that I want to fuck you.”
“You wouldn’t make it an inch inside me without cowering in pain.”
He takes off toward me without warning. I shouldn’t be running when I’m the one who can hurt him, but something about the glinty, blown-up black of his eyes has me on the move.
But the room is so small. I dart back and forth, indecision wasting a precious half second, then leap to the side and sprint past the door, jumping over the broken glass and hugging the wall.
He steers the same direction, following me around another corner.
His legs are so damn long, but I’m fast and nimble in this tiny space.
I barely slip past him with a laughing squeal as I look over my shoulder.
His hand shoves off the wall behind me, a mere step away. I dive forward, only to find myself captured midair, his arm slung around my middle. He swivels, flinging me around and dropping me onto the bed with a roar of pain. The springs screech under the assault.
I clamber off the bed, only making it as far as the next wall. The man stands over me, looking down at his catch, still hard, painfully so judging by the lust-laced grimace on his face. I’m trapped. And turned on. Dammit. I scoot backward and tuck myself into the corner.
He crouches in front of me.
“What?” I hide my arousal with a scowl so hard it hurts my forehead.
“Why so pissy, runaway?”
It’s easier than facing the truth. “Did you forget you abducted me from my life?”
“That’s not why you’re mad.”
“And you know what I feel?” I ask.
His eye twitches in the most unsettling way.
“I can smell how much you want me, hear your heart. It’s like a drum, forcing mine to go along.
And the way you’re looking up at me right now—that’s your fuck me face.
You’re pissed because you want me to touch you.
Even if it hurts me. In fact, you like that part. ”
I have a fuck me face? My nose wiggles as I try to memorize the feel of it—so I never let it happen again.
“What else would I want from you? We’ve established you’re fuckable, and I’m trying so damn hard to hate you like you want, but you—” The hurt infiltrates my voice, softening it.
“You made me think I mattered to you,” I sputter, gripping my knees and pulling them closer to my chest.