Chapter Two
Seraphine
I was aware of what was going on, but not strong enough to do anything about it. My jacket being taken off. Valen cursing at all the blood. Rough, calloused hands ripping my shirt at the sleeve. I knew I screamed and tried shoving him away, which only made him let out an exasperated growl.
“Stop fighting me, I’m trying to help you.
” The tone in his voice didn’t match his words, though, and I was convinced I was seconds away from being strangled to death.
Which would have been ironic, considering I’d just survived a car crash, only to get murdered by the guy I’d wrongfully accused of murder.
At some point, exhaustion took hold, or maybe it was the shock, because before I knew it, I was knocked out cold.
I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep—minutes or hours—but I woke with a gasp, my eyes flying open.
The cabin smelled of wood, smoke and leather, with an underlying scent of something close to cedar. It should have been a comforting smell, but instead, it felt like a trap.
The first thing I realized was that I had been stripped down to my panties and bra and covered with the warmest blanket I’d ever felt. Heat from the fireplace blasted my exposed skin, a sharp contrast to the cold that had nearly killed me.
The second was that Valen Creed sat a few feet away from me, his back against the roaring fire. His elbows were on his knees, fingers steepled as he watched me.
The silence in the room was suffocating.
Chills ran through me, and I tried to sit up, wincing at the shooting pain in my arm.
The glass shard was gone, replaced by neat stitches that pulled tight against my skin.
My arm throbbed in time with my heartbeat, a reminder that I was alive when I probably shouldn’t have been.
He didn’t say anything, just watched me with those piercing gray eyes. For a second, I wasn’t in the cabin. I was back in the courtroom in that chair.
A judge asked me, “Do you see the contractor who was in your house that day?” I nodded, pointed at Valen with a shaking finger. Then, “Do you see the man who killed your friends?”
I shook my head no. The judge let out an exasperated breath. I said, “I didn’t see his face clearly. I don’t know.”
The judge waved his hand, cutting me off. “That’s enough, Miss Ashford.”
One thing was clear; this was not the same man from six years ago.
No, this man had a dark presence about him.
Muscles flexed under his shirt, his hair disheveled.
His hands were covered in scars and tattoos that hadn’t been there before.
The man from six years ago had been young and looked nothing like a murderer.
This guy? This guy fit the bill to a T, wild and untamed.
“I’ll scream,” I whispered, the sound coming out breathier than intended.
He chuckled, the sound dark, like honey laced with sin. “Like you’ve been doing for the last three hours? Go ahead; no one will hear you.”
My throat tightened, my body begging me to run.
“Storm cut the power lines hours ago. Cell towers are down. Nearest house is fifteen miles through snow that you’ll never survive on foot.
” The confidence in his tone was terrifying, and I gripped the blanket to me tighter.
His eyes tracked the movement, but he remained in the same position.
“I’m not trying to frighten you, Seraphine.
I’m just letting you know to save your strength. ”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, debating running out into the snowstorm in my underwear.
Hypothermia in lingerie seemed like a much better option than whatever this was going to turn into.
The cabin was almost stifling now, the fire’s warmth making my skin flush.
Outside, the wind was still howling, blankets of snow passing across the windows.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I finally managed, which made him quirk his eyebrow.
“You crashed on my mountain, darling. Not the other way around.”
“I didn’t know.” My voice cracked on the words. “Didn’t know you were back… here.”
“Did you hope I was still in prison?” He straightened up and walked over to a table.
My pants, socks and boots were laid out in front of the fireplace, like they belonged there.
“Did you hope I was dead, Seraphine?” He poured dark liquid into a tumbler and then stalked over, towering over me.
His presence dominated every corner of the room; there was no escaping it.
I tilted my head back, staring at him with wide eyes as he handed me the glass. “I hoped…” I didn’t even know. If I were being honest, I’d hoped I’d never see his face again, and I’d hoped that he’d never see mine.
Because that was the cowardly way out.
And something told me that a fruit basket wasn’t going to be a good enough apology.
His scar looked different in the firelight. More menacing. But there was still that thought nagging at the back of my mind, reminding me that this was not the man who’d hovered over me six years ago and slit my throat.
This was not the man who’d slaughtered my friends.
But my body failed to catch up with my mind. I trembled uncontrollably as he stood there. I shrank back into the couch, praying it would swallow me. His eyes narrowed, jaw clenched as he held the glass out. “Drink it. You’re in shock.”
I eyed the glass, biting my bottom lip. He sighed, took a sip from the glass before putting it in my face. “I told you I’m not going to hurt you.”
God, I wanted to believe him. But if the roles were reversed, I’d already be doing math on how many pieces I could chop him into and if the lake was deep enough to hide his body. Hell, I’d probably recruit that deer to be my accomplice.
“Fine,” I whispered, and took the glass.
If my life were a movie, the people in the theater would probably be screaming at the screen at this very moment, “Don’t drink it!” But it seemed like I’d left my survival instincts back with Bessie.
He sat back down by the fireplace, watching me closely. I took a sip of the drink, my eyes meeting his over the rim of the glass. There was no bloodlust in his eyes, no look that indicated that he was about to murder me.
“I need to call a tow truck.” I coughed as the liquid burned down my throat.
His laugh was low and dark, the sound sending a very unwelcome shiver down my spine.
“A tow truck?” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Seraphine, you’re not going anywhere for days.
Maybe weeks. This storm is just getting started, and you…
” His gray gaze traveled over my body. My stomach dropped at the amused look on his face.
“You can barely sit up without shaking. You think you’re going to walk out into that blizzard?
People were warned days ago to hunker down. ”
He stood, grabbed the bottle from the table and walked over to me.
I hadn’t even realized I’d drunk the entire glass.
Oh, it must have happened when he said I was trapped here for weeks.
He poured more liquid into my cup, then took a swig from the bottle.
“You won’t make it fifty feet out there, and I’m not having the woman who falsely accused me of murder dying in front of my cabin. ”
I flinched at his words, willing my body to stop shaking so I could prove to him that I was capable of leaving. There was no way in hell I was staying with Valen Creed for days, let alone weeks. But I wasn’t stupid. Hypothermic, yes. Brain-dead, no. At least not completely.
So, I nodded without saying anything, taking another sip of my whiskey to buy myself time to think. Let him believe what he wanted, but in the morning, I was getting out of this cabin. With or without a tow truck.
Valen shook his head as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a heavy set of keys, dangling them from his finger.
“These open every door in the cabin,” he said, the firelight reflecting off the metal. “Front door, back door. Those doors don’t open from the inside without these. So if you’re insane enough to think you’re getting out of here, you’re wrong.”
His smile was cold, calculating, and I couldn’t stop the shiver that raced down my spine.
“So even if you think you’re brave enough to face that storm…” He nodded toward the front door. “You’ll have to get through me first.”
He shoved the keys back into his pocket and straightened to his full height. Exhaustion passed over his face as he grabbed another blanket and tossed it at my legs. “Now you’re going to stay right there on that couch, get some sleep, and try not to bleed all over my furniture.”
Without another word, he turned and walked toward a hallway I hadn’t noticed before. At the doorway, he paused and glanced over his shoulder.
“Sweet dreams, Seraphine Ashford.”
The sound of the door closing echoed through the cabin, followed by the unmistakable click of several locks.
I was trapped. Alone with an ex-con. And I only had a few hours until morning to figure out if Valen Creed planned on killing me or just making me wish he had.
*** ***
I woke to the sound of crackling voices coming from a stereo and the smell of bacon. For one blissful moment, I thought I was back in my crappy motel room in Chicago, and yesterday had been nothing but a nightmare.
But then every single muscle in my body hurt at the same exact moment, making me realize that I was, in fact, living the nightmare.
Pain shot through my arm as I tried to sit up, making me gasp. A burning sensation on my stomach had me lowering the blanket and groaning at the gash cutting across my belly button. The wound was clean though, which made me scrunch up my nose.
How the hell… had I cleaned this in the middle of the night during my hypothermic meltdown? Or had Valen?