Page 5 of The Prophecy
Why didn’t he do what he had come to do? It was one thing to accept your death. It was quite another to wait agonizing seconds for the blow to fall. Then she heard a noise, not one she expected, and she opened her eyes.
He was still watching her but had taken a cell phone from his back pocket, was punching in a number, then what looked like a short text.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Raven wanted to ask who he had messaged, but when she opened her mouth, her lower lip split, and she winced at the sting of torn flesh. She licked her lip, tasting her own blood. His eyes watched the movement then wandered down over her body. Holding her head up high, she stared him in the face. His lips twitched slightly.
Yeah, she was so funny. The big bad vampire.
“You’re a mess,” he said.
The words took Raven by surprise, and she scowled. She’d like to see anyone look better after being beaten up by an angry fire-demon.
She swallowed, forcing herself to speak. “Would you pass me the water?”
He frowned but picked up the bucket, putting it down in front of her. She lowered her head and drank deeply. When she glanced up, he was watching her, as she drank like an animal. But wasn’t that exactly what she was? What Sorien had reduced her to? She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, clumsy in the chains.
He turned from her and was inspecting her cell. There wasn’t a lot to see, just a bare cot and four stone walls. He paced the length of the room, which took all of three seconds, then back, finally facing her again.
“Have you been put here as some form of punishment?” he asked.
She wished. She shook her head. “Nope. This is as good as it gets. This is how I always live. Since I was fourteen and...” She trailed off. She didn’t really know who this guy was, what he knew. “Who are you, anyway?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. “How did you get in here?”
He didn’t answer; instead he unbuckled the shoulder holster and dropped it and the gun onto the small cot. He clasped the hem of his T-shirt and peeled it from his body.
What the hell?
For a moment, she just stared. Her cheeks flushed. He was…stunning, and the heat sank to her belly, settling low down.
Well, what did she expect? She was repressed, that was all. Hardly unexpected when she’d spent the last seven years in a cell, with absolutely no release for her rampaging teenage hormones.
He was so big. Her eyes were drawn to the vast expanse of honey-gold skin. His arms and shoulders were satin-smooth, his chest lightly furred, his stomach flat and ridged with muscle. She waited, her breath locked in her throat. But he didn’t undress further, just crouched down in front of her. He dipped the T-shirt in the bucket of water, squeezed it out then reached toward her.
Er—what the fuck is happening here?
At the first stroke of the cool material against her face, Raven flinched, then held herself immobile. He gently wiped away the blood, and when her face was clean, he rinsed the shirt and started on the rest of her. He hesitated at the point where her tank top skimmed her breasts, revealing the marks—deep, red crescents where Sorien’s claws had broken the skin.
“Did you really have a vision of Sorien’s death?” he asked.
For a second, she didn’t understand the question. Her brain was hardly functioning to its full capacity. Then she remembered her words in the great hall. He must have been watching. She shook her head.
“Pity,” he murmured.
He carried on with his cleaning. Raven closed her eyes. She didn’t know why he didn’t kill her straightaway. Maybe he was a vision after all, but the stroke of the soft material against her bruised skin seemed real. It had been nearly seven years since anyone had touched her with anything approaching tenderness.
She felt a little…strange. And Raven couldn’t understand the need to cry welling up from somewhere deep within her. She swallowed it down. She’d never cried—it was one of the rules of her existence—and she wasn’t going to start now.
He finally went still, and Raven opened her eyes. He was still crouched in front of her, the pity back in his eyes making her steel herself against him.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Doing what?”
“This—” she nodded at the T-shirt in his hand. “Being…nice? Why don’t you do what you came to do and get it over with?”
“And what would that be?”
He was playing with her. She rolled her eyes. “Kill me.”
He shook his head. “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to get you out.”
