22. Strangers
Strangers
Tara
Ididn’t fight back. Didn’t drag my feet through the hallway or turn to bite the hands gripping my shoulder as I was shoved into a familiar bedroom.
One of the men from the hall took two steps forward. I recognized him.
The driver who ran me off the road. There was a grin on his face when I backpedaled. His body jerked. The muscles in his face twitched.
Those yellow eyes burned into me.
I didn’t breathe.
“Trey!” The other one snapped. His eyes were no longer glowing, irises giving way to white as they widened.
Trey didn’t respond, too fixated on my neck where my pulse was going crazy.
“That’s enough, Trey.” The voice that came around the corner was smooth and accented, hiding the monster underneath.
I always knew there was something off about Jay. I never imagined it was this.
Trey stiffened, lip raised in a silent snarl. He twisted, sidestepping out of the room. Never giving his back to the other two men.
“Welcome home, Tara.”
I sucked in a breath.
Jay was well-dressed, as always, not a single hair out of place. For the first time, the collar of his button-up was lying flat, revealing the extent of the scarring on his throat.
He never wanted to talk about the scars. Now I knew why.
“You had me kidnapped.” I dug for courage, keeping my voice steady. Maybe I could still reach him.
He ran his hand along the quilt on the bed, face angled away. I focused on his movement, reading that careful, smooth way he moved when he was disguising his anger.
Jay turned his back to me. Cold dread crept through me. The anticipation of his outburst was what ate at me. Always on eggshells. Never knowing when his mood would turn.
But it wasn’t his mood taking over, was it?
When the angles of his face sharpened, eyes bright, it wasn’t Jay at all. It was his beast.
Somehow, that was less frightening than a bad temper. It was predictable, in a way.
My gaze followed his hand as it dropped to the quilt again, and I realized the bed was still made, exactly as I left it.
It hit me—how sad it was.
He was a monster—not because of what he was, but because of who he chose to be.
“No one would have hurt you if you hadn’t run away.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was a prisoner here. I thought this was a relationship.”
“If that was true,” he hissed, finally turning to face me with all that angular fury on his face, “then you wouldn’t have humiliated me by fucking my cousin!”
“I didn’t know he was your cousin! I didn’t even know you had a cousin.” I lifted my hands, softening my voice. “It was never my intention to hurt you, Jay. But I couldn’t stay after what you did. I couldn’t trust you.”
“I gave you everything.” He bared his teeth, looking every inch the animal he was. “You were supposed to give me an heir. A son.”
I dropped into the nearest chair, too stunned to say more than, “A son?”
“Yes, a son. I gave you half a year. In return, I wanted a son.”
“You’re serious?” I could barely whisper the question.
“This was always the arrangement, Tara.”
“No, it wasn’t! I thought you wanted to start a family, not to—why do you want a son?”
“First of the First.”
I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the way he said it gave me chills.
“You were using me to give you a child? Throwing money at me and barely tolerating me just to get me pregnant?”
“And you were using me to have a better life. That’s the way this works.”
I shook my head so hard I was dizzy. “No, Jay. No, it’s not.”
Was this all a lie? A transaction?
“I tried so hard to love you.” I thought there was something wrong with me when I couldn’t. I wasn’t the problem.
This time, he was the one to look shocked. “Don’t lie to me.”
“It was never a lie. Not to me.” I swallowed. “It doesn’t have to be like this—Jacques.”
“Don’t call me that!”
I shrank away. “Isaac is your family. You don’t want to hurt him. I don’t think you want to hurt me, either.”
“I do want to hurt Isaac.” He smiled at me, that rare glimpse of the man I thought he could be. “But not yet. You might have something very precious to me.” Jay reached into the pocket of his slacks, procuring a small piece of plastic.
Bile climbed up my throat as I stared at the little pink stick.
“It’s been almost four weeks. Too early to tell, perhaps, but until I’m certain, you’ll be safe from harm.”
I shook my head again, pain pounding in my skull with the movement. “No. No, no, no. This is crazy. There’s no way—"
I wasn’t pregnant. I was sure of it. I couldn’t let him know that. Not yet.
Grasping for something—anything—I blurted, “What if the baby is Isaac’s?”
Jay stilled, his hand still resting on the pregnancy test as he set it carefully on the nightstand. “Was there anyone else, besides Isaac?”
“No.”
He relaxed, dropping the test and readjusting the collar of his shirt the way he always did when he was calming his temper. “Then it doesn’t matter. His blood is my blood.”
“This isn’t you, Jay. I know what Saul did to you. I know everything and—"
He moved so fast I couldn’t see it. Suddenly, Jay was towering over me, eyes wild, face elongating in that terrible, otherworldly way.
“You don’t know me.”
He crossed the room, his lip twitching as he said, “Now I’m going to see my cousin.”
“Please don’t!” I jumped up from the chair, racing after him.
“Larson will give you thirty minutes to take that test. If you don’t use it, there will be consequences. For both of you.”
The door slipped between my fingers as it slammed shut. “Don’t hurt him! You don’t have to do this!”
I twisted the knob, realizing too late that it had been reversed, putting the lock on the outside of the bedroom.
I raced into the bathroom, digging through drawers until I found a bobby pin.
I fiddled with the lock until my fingers cramped. The pin hit the floor with a quiet clink.
The window was next. I pulled the curtains back, swallowing a scream when I saw the man from the SUV standing just a few feet away from the glass.
His grin was animal, his features sharpening in the way I was coming to recognize.
I whipped the curtains back into place, backing up until I hit the bed.
My lungs seized. Stars danced in my eyes.
The pink plastic of the pregnancy test stood out on the dark wood of the nightstand. I took it between my fingers, chewing the inside of my cheek.
I rushed into the bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet and dry heaving. My elbow hit a row of cleaning products, knocking them to the floor. I stared at the blue bleach spilling out of the cap, my mind racing for a way out.
Okay. Thirty minutes.
I knew what I had to do.