CHAPTER NINE #2
Faster, faster, faster than those beasts behind me.
I need to outrun them. I need to run for my life, like he told me to.
Somehow make it to safety. Where do I go, though?
How far do I run? I don’t know. I don’t know.
All I know is that I hear a snarl particularly close to me.
So close that I can feel something soft, like fur, brush against the backs of my bare thighs and my nausea rears up again.
I’m about to throw up. I’ll probably break something the way I’m jumping over fallen twigs and heaps of dead leaves on the ground.
I’m about to crash into one of these trees and die on impact.
Better than how I pictured dying, though.
Somehow, I burst into another clearing, and for a second I think, I’m safe.
Only to realize this isn’t just a clearing; it’s the edge.
The edge of the cliff, and there’s nowhere for me to go except to plunge to my death.
Panting and dizzy, I spin around and find the fucking animals I’ve been running from—all of them, I think—lined up in almost a semicircle by the tree line.
I notice their bodies heaving as well. Their teeth are bared and their eyes are locked on me.
Fear is a brick in my stomach. Fear is a choppy sea, sloshing against my insides.
This is it, isn’t it? I’m going to die now.
I either jump to my death on my own or be eaten alive by these beasts he set on me.
And no, it’s not better than how I pictured meeting my death. Nothing is good or better about dying.
I take a step back, and I swear to God, I hear the rocks rolling off the edge, the ground opening up, the chilly breeze whooshing against my back.
Suddenly, a whistle bursts through the air.
The same one that brought the wolves forward in the first place, and I know this is really it.
This is the moment. I’m not proud of it, but I cover my face with my bound hands.
I can’t watch them come toward me. I can’t watch.
Everything happens at once then. My foot slips.
A scream erupts from the center of my soul.
I’m about to fall to my death when I feel a tug at the rope, sharp and commanding.
My hands are yanked away from my face. As my eyes pop open, my vision is filled with him.
I go crashing against his body and my bound hands automatically cling to his shirt.
With a pulsating jaw and glittering eyes, he growls, “You ever, fuckin’ ever, put yourself in danger like you did tonight, I’ll let ’em fuckin’ feed on you.”
My heart is beating, beating, fucking beating in my chest and there’s a rush in my ears. I can hardly hear him. I can hardly breathe. Instead, strange noises are coming out of my mouth, wheezing noises, and I grip his shirt tighter. “C-can’t… b-breathe. Can’t…”
His brows furrow and concern flashes through his features. Pure and undiluted. And in the next moment, I’m in his arms.
My bound hands are still clutching his shirt, but my feet aren’t on the ground anymore.
He’s picked me up and put his arms around me, and somehow my thighs know what to do.
They know to spread and boost up, going around his muscular waist. He flexes his arms, squeezing me to his body, and my ankles know how to cross and find a home at his back.
Once I’m secure against him, he starts walking.
He also moves his arms to put one hand, splayed open, on my spine and the other on the back of my head.
He gently but firmly pushes my face into the crook of his neck, and my nose nuzzles into his hot skin while he strokes my back.
He lowers his face, his stubbled jaw rustling against my clammy cheek as he shushes me.
As he whispers in my ear, “Shh, you’re okay now. You’re okay.”
I’m too frozen to realize what’s happening, but I still cling to him. I still burrow into his neck and squeeze my thighs around his striding body. He comes to a halt, but I’m still hiding my face away on the side of his neck and I don’t see where we are.
“I’ve got you, yeah?” he keeps whispering. “Just breathe.”
I shake my head, fisting his shirt. “I-I’m… I’m so—”
“Shh,” he goes, all gently, softly. “Breathe now, darlin’. I’ve got you.”
Maybe it’s that rough but also gentle whisper of his; maybe it’s the fact that he called me darlin’ in that drawling voice, the voice I’ve overheard gruff cowboys use with their women.
Or it could be the way he’s still stroking my back, going up and down, warming me up, loosening my petrified limbs, while still cradling the back of my head.
Whatever it is, I draw in my first full breath, relief bursting through my body.
I feel it bursting through his body, too, his chest moving with his own breath, and he rasps, “Good. Good, one more for me, okay?”
I do it. I breathe.
He praises me again, his hands still at work. “That’s my girl. One more now.”
And I manage to whisper, “I-I thought I was… g-going to die.”
He squeezes me to him, his voice low. “No.”
“I thought—”
“Not on my watch.”
Something about his words soften the last of my dread and I sigh into his neck. “I liked that b-better.”
“What?”
I swallow, rubbing my nose on his neck, breathing in his scent. “You calling me darlin’.”
His chest moves again, shudders almost, and his fingers in my hair flex as he says, as if to make me happy, “Darlin’.”
I close my eyes at how good that feels. “Instead of you c-calling me… Princess.”
His arms flex around me again, and this time, he whispers, “Princess.”
He says it so gently, so lovingly, and so unlike all the other times before that all I can do is gasp. Like he knew this was what I wanted. This was how I wished he’d call me Princess. With tenderness, not with venom.
For a few moments all I do is breathe against his neck, cherishing the gift he gave me, and all he does is rub my back.
All I think about is how warm he feels, how strong and vital.
How I never ever want to leave this place, his arms, because I’ve wanted this for so long.
I’ve wanted to feel his strength for months, since the first moment I saw him.
The first moment I watched him save me, single-handedly felling the men trying to hurt me. My Phantom in a mask. My hero.
But then I go still.
Because he’s not my Phantom, is he? He’s not my hero. He didn’t save me. Not tonight or any other night. He’s the one who hunted me. He’s the one who put me in danger. Almost had me killed, almost had me eaten. By the wolves. How could I forget? How could I let it escape me that he did this to me?
All of a sudden, I’m filled with rage. I’m breathing fire instead of his scent.
I push myself away from him and look at his face.
Look at his evil, murdering but still beautiful face.
The lines of which are set firm and blank, his scar thick.
But not so blank that I don’t read the resignation on it, at what he did.
Or the realization that I’ve finally found my lost senses.
I’ve finally found my anger, my fight. “Let me go.”
He stares into my eyes for a few beats, and I think I’m going to have to make him.
I’m going to have to struggle against him, and with the way I’m feeling right now, I know I’d come out on top.
Maybe he knows that too. That now is not the time to fuck with me because surprisingly, very surprisingly, he does what I asked him to do.
He stops rubbing my spine and slowly brings his hand out of my hair.
Pulling his arms away, he lets me slide down his body.
Slowly, deliberately almost, keeping our eyes locked.
As if he’s trying to catch the last few seconds, savor them, of my body touching his before he has to let me go.
Before he has to give up the feel of my soft and rounded corners rubbing against his ridged and hard ones.
As if, like me, he wanted to feel me in his arms.
You’re delusional, Peyton. So fucking delusional. Even now.
I clench my teeth against the onslaught of goose bumps across my skin, and as soon as I hit the ground, I step away from him.
Only to bump against a tree at my back. At which point I realize we’re standing by the tree line, far away from the edge.
Thank God. I block it out, though, being chased by the wolves and how I almost went off the edge.
Instead, with my heart pounding inside my chest, I raise my bound hands and order, “Untie me.”
It’s exactly what I said to him yesterday.
And again, I’m prepared to fight him on this and win.
I’m prepared to wreak havoc if he doesn’t give me what I want.
But for the second time in the space of only a few minutes, he does what I say.
He reaches back into his jeans pocket and fishes something out.
A knife. It’s a pocketknife, too, but unlike mine, this one’s bigger, and without looking away from me, he cuts the rope with one flick of his hand.
It’s still wound around my wrists, but just like that, I’m free.
I look at him and then I look at the knife in his hand.
And before I can think it through, I snatch it away.
The weapon feels heavy, the weight. Unexpected.
I wasn’t prepared to handle it, but now that I have it, I grab it with both hands and instantly point it at him.
Then, as sternly as I can, I order, “Put your hands where I can see them.”