Chapter 32
Phaedra moved down a dim hallway, every step kicking up whispers against the embellished green walls.
A door stood cracked at the other end, darkness spilling onto its threshold, its swirling dance beckoning her forward.
Yet she stopped, some unformed thought or vague memory warning her that it might not be the right way.
But just as she would turn, hoping to find some other path out of this maze, she heard the sound of footfalls echo on the stairs behind her, and the ground shifted beneath her feet.
He had found her.
She knew it was him, knew the rhythm of his steps like the terrified beat hammering against her chest. Knew the empty pang of her lungs, the ice moving into her veins, her body caged by drowning, shuddering fear.
For how could she ever have thought that she would be free of him? That he would never find her again?
She staggered against the wall, her legs suddenly unsteady, and her head whipped around, desperate for escape.
There was no escape.
Then she saw the door at the end of the hallway, the billowing darkness pushing its wings open, and she shot off toward it, uncaring if it was indeed the wrong way, because now it was the only.
She heard him behind her, his movements slow and steady, as if he already knew she would not get away, and she urged her feet to hurry, to untangle themselves from the plush carpet threatening to swallow her with every step.
And just when she thought she was lost, that she would not make it in time, she saw the darkness swell, its tendrils reaching out to bridge the distance between them.
And before she could even register the jolt of fear over what this meant, they snapped around her wrist, and she was yanked through the door.
She stumbled into the room, then whirled, the heavy doors shrieking in protest as she struggled to push them closed. Her arms trembled as she finally managed it, and she slumped against the wood, her strength all but exhausted in the process.
Her chest ached as she pulled in a breath, her throat burning with memories of screaming, and she looked around the room, momentarily blinded by the light.
The darkness around her had dissolved, leaving in its place not the emerald flash she was expecting, but a space filled to the brim with blazing candles.
Rows lined the mantelpiece, crowding the tables, and even the floor in front of the large windows, all trace of shadows exiled to the very corners of the room. The air glowed amber, its heat a startling blast, as if she had stepped into the heart of an inferno.
With shaking limbs, she pushed to her feet, her heart thundering with every stifled breath, and her hand snaked behind her, searching for the handle. But before she could find it, a loud crash sent her staggering into the room, as something—or someone—rammed itself into the door.
She backed away, unable to tear her terror-stricken gaze from the shuddering wood, as if wanting to witness the very moment it would break.
She bumped against a table, then a couch, before backing into the wall behind it. The door seemed to rattle on its very hinges as she slowly slid down, her trembling body finally hidden in the only spot left in shadow.
There was a moment of silence, and Phaedra peered out into the haze of candlelight, her vision blurring with the heat. There was no sound, no movement, no sign of—
The door burst open, its wings crashing against the walls.
Phaedra’s hands clasped around the cry bursting from her throat, and she pushed herself back, urging her body to merge with the hard wall, praying that it would close around her not as a cage, but a refuge.
But there was no refuge. No escape. He had come for her. Again.
She heard his steps thud against the floor, his easy gait an assurance that he had already won. That she had nowhere to run.
The look in his eyes as he came into the line of light was like a storm, dark and menacing, the gold of his hair the halo of some vengeful angel come to claim what was rightfully his.
A whimper broke through her clenched throat, and she screwed her eyes shut, her arms clasping around her body as if it would make a difference. Her heart hammered against her skin, her head, the very floors beneath her, its beat multiplying with the hurried pace moving toward her.
“No,” she croaked. “Please, no!”
“Phaedra!” He dropped to his knees before her, his hands flying to her cheeks, forcing her face to his.
“No, please, let me go!” She clawed at his hands, choking on her own breath.
“A dream,” he said, his voice low but urgent, his hands firm yet gentle. “Look at me! It’s just a dream.”
And when her frantic eyes finally found his, she felt the world turn around her, the murkiness of reveries bleeding into the crispness of reality, candlelight diffused into the fire of a sunset sky breaking through the drawing room windows.
A sob broke from her chest, and Nathaniel pulled her to him, his arms stifling the tremors rocking her body.
“My God, you’re frozen stiff,” he murmured against her hair, and as if on cue she felt it, the ice in her limbs, the chill in the room seeping in through the thin layer of her nightgown, and a violent shudder raked through her, despite the warmth of his body.
His arms tightened around her for a moment, then she felt him shift, turning his head to scan the room.
“Wait here,” he said, then stood to walk back toward the table she had nearly upturned in her flight. Beside it stood a chair, something like a shawl draped over its back, and as he pulled it free, allowing the burnished light to fold around it, she knew exactly what it was.
The color undulated from light to shadow, like a living thing tumbling from his hands, and Phaedra rose, unable to pull her eyes away, her body drawn forward by the single unrelenting desire to touch it. To feel it against her skin.
Nathaniel stepped closer, draping the fabric over her shoulders, and it was an effort to bite back the sigh of pleasure as the weight of it met her body.
But she could not mask the hitching of her breath as he pulled it closed around her chest, and his eyes shot to hers, their previous worry slowly morphing into something very different. Something searching. Something hungry.
Something dark.
She almost missed the clench of his jaw, before he pulled on her arm to turn her around, and she froze as his fingers grazed the nape of her neck, lifting her hair over the fabric.
It spilled over her shoulders in an ebony wave, and she felt him close at her back as his hands followed the dark curls down her arms. And when his cheek finally rested against the side of her head, a long breath slowly expanding his chest before cascading like fire down the column of her neck, she knew this would be it. The moment of her surrender.
The heat of his body enveloped her almost to the point of incandescence, and when he spoke, his voice was low and deep, as if made for poetry.
“I know I should apologize for my boldness. That this is not the way gentlemen behave. But you see…” He dipped his head, his lips grazing over the shell of her ear.
“I cannot seem to stop myself when I am around you. The touch of your skin, the sound of your voice, the very sight of you possesses my mind like no one ever has. You make me forget all my manners in favor of the things I wish to do to you.”
She sucked in a breath as his hand slid around her waist, and she was pulled back, flush against the hardness of his body. The haze of desire descended upon her like a dark net, and she felt unable to move, to think, only to sink into the need crashing against her.
Her head fell back against his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed on a ragged exhale.
“You cannot imagine what you have made me suffer. The torture you’ve put me through. Yet the only thing I can truly call unto my defense is that I know you feel the same.”
She made a sound deep in her throat as his lips met the flushed skin beneath her jaw. The ache in her core deepened with every movement of his hands roving over her body, and the tremor in her limbs was no longer a sign of the cold, but of a fire moving through her, consuming her whole.
“Ever since I heard you, I could not think straight. All I could think about—all that I want—is to hear my name shatter on your lips like that again.”
Need ignited like a fuse reaching its end, and Phaedra thrust her fingers into his hair, her lips claiming his with hungry abandon. A groan rumbled through his chest, his body tensing behind her, and in a moment she was turned to him, her back pressed against the wall.
His mouth devoured hers as he pulled the fabric open around her, gathering the hem of her nightdress. His hands were searing as they met the backs of her thighs, and she moaned at the hardness pushing against her as he lifted her legs around his waist.
She gasped as his lips broke from hers, his hand pushing into the tangle of her locks, his teeth grazing over her jaw and down her throat.
His body drove her deeper into the hard surface behind her, and with frenzied fingers, she freed him of his jacket, then moved down to the tight space between them, fighting the buttons of his trousers.
With a growl that was barely human, Nathaniel tore into the neckline of her nightdress, her fevered skin connecting with the cool surface behind her.
Her head fell back as her body arched into his, the tatters of her gown slipping from her shoulders, the shimmering fabric falling away to pool at his feet.
There was a moment of stillness as his ragged sigh met her chest, his fingers digging into the stiffened flesh of her thigh. Then he raised his head, breathing heavily, as if waiting for her approval.
Phaedra opened her eyes, her fraying voice ready to consent, to urge, to beg, but froze as she saw the look on his face.
His eyes burned like dark jewels in the half-light, the heat of the moment still aflame in his cheeks, but the way he searched her face spoke not of barely restrained desire but of bewilderment. And a held-back fear on the point of breaking.
“What is it?” she choked out, her voice cracking on the words, her heart hammering against his palm. The rush of blood was loud in her ears, and she had a sudden sense of dread climbing up her spine, as if something was very, very wrong.
And then she saw it, the burst of color coming to life in the periphery of her vision, pulling at her gaze with a force that could not be denied.
She barely noticed as she was carefully lowered to the ground, her hand pulling the ruins of her nightgown closed over her body, her feet moving mechanically toward the mantel and the wooden panel framed above it.
Toward the painting she did not remember finishing.
The painting she had yet to start.