It’s all I can think. My heart’s already pounding in my ears, and my adrenaline surges through my body. I scramble to try to get to my feet, but I’m exhausted. I slip when I try. My ankle’s still not one hundred percent. Before I can even crawl away, his hand catches my good ankle, and he drags me back into his arms.
“Levi, please,” I beg him as I try to squirm out of his grasp. “I was just teasing you. It was all in fun. Please.” I try to reason with him as he tightens his grip.
“Now you’re scared?” A sinister-sounding laugh rumbles from his chest. It makes the goose bumps rise on my skin. I try to pull away, but he pulls me back, and my body slams into his, my back against his front. I can feel how hard he is at the base of my spine and his warm breath dancing down my neck. I know he won’t really hurt me, but my body can’t tell the difference. “You didn’t act scared before, but you should be. You’ve seen what I’m capable of.”
“Yes.” I nod and close my eyes, remembering the way he slit Corey’s throat after he tortured him. He’s right. It should scare me, but it doesn’t. It makes me feel safe knowing he’d kill for me. It makes me want him even more than I already did, even when I’m nervous he’s about to punish me for turning the tables on him.
“And you still tied me up like that?”
“I’d do it again.”
“Of course you would.” He huffs, a tinge of amused pride belying his vengeful tone. “That version you built up in your head the first time you tied me up, you remember him?”
“Yes.” I forget how well this man knows me sometimes. How much he’s seen inside my head.
“You’re about to meet him.” He curses under his breath as I squirm to free myself, and his cock slips between my thighs, teasing both of us. He presses his lips against my ear again, taking a deep breath. “You’ll have an extra minute while I cut myself loose. Another two while I put my jeans and boots back on. I’d use every single one of them if I were you. Wear me out on the run. Because you’re getting every last drop I have in me when I get my hands on you free and clear.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Zephyrine
My lungs burnas I climb the next hill, the running and the lack of oxygen at this altitude tearing into my chest as I try to catch my next breath. But I move as fast as my feet will take me, up the hill and through the long prairie grass. One after another until the top of this ridge is nearly close enough for me to reach out and touch. I’m so close and yet so far.
I glance back over my shoulder. He’s not far now. Gaining with every long step of his stride. One that far surpasses mine and leaves me desperate for another escape. I'll lose the race in minutes, and he'll be on me, his hands wrapped around me as he drags me down to the ground. All reason gone. Replaced instead by the man who’s determined to get his revenge on me for my trick.
My heart flutters in my chest when I crest the next hill and see a small, slightly dilapidated church at the bottom of it. It looks abandoned—the stones are thick with ivy, and there are wildly overgrown bushes at the entrance. But if I can get inside and lock the doors behind me, it could buy me precious time.I’d wait for his adrenaline to recede, and then I’d apologize for taking things too far. It could work.
I race toward it, my feet carrying me as fast as they’ll go. It’s one last burst of energy on my part. But I make it, quickly wiping the sweat from my brow as I take one last trudge of ascension up the steps to the door.
My hands are on the door handle, my palms slippery until I wipe them on my dress and try again. It cedes to my pressure easily, swinging open and allowing me into a small vestibule. It’s cooler inside than outside, the stones working as an insulator from the sun. A sigh of relief ripples through me as I see him on the top of the hill, glaring at me as he watches me disappear inside. I slam the door shut, my fingers fumbling for a lock but failing to find one. I search for something to bar the door with, but there’s nothing. My heart speeds its rhythm, panic setting in as I see him through a window, halfway down the hill and gaining on me rapidly.
How could this not have a lock? It has to have one somewhere. My fingers swipe over the inside of the heavy wooden door, trying and failing to find a locking mechanism to bar it shut.
I can hear him now. His feet across the gravel in front of the church. I have minutes, seconds even, before he’s on top of me.
I abandon the oak door, falling back to the other side of the vestibule and slipping beyond the wrought iron gates that lead to the sanctuary of the church. My eyes float to them, rapidly assessing to see if they’ll close and discovering they’re on a track that runs along the wall on either side of the arched entryway. I wrap my palms around one of the wrought iron spindles and pull, heaving as hard as I can to bring it to the center.
But again, I fail. The iron is heavy, and the tracks are worn, gathering dust and debris from all the years of disuse.
I heave again, harder, throwing all of my body weight into it. This time, it creaks, threatening to move at first and then finally complies with a loud squeal of protest as I reach for the other one, hoping it goes easier than the first. If I can bring the second one to the center, I can find something to wedge them shut together. It shouldn’t take long. If I can just?—
I hear the sound of his boots on the stairs. The echo of them hitting the stones of the entryway, and the thud as he crosses it. I can feel him before I see him.
I look up slowly, his chest rising and falling with the effort of every breath. He’s tired. That’s my only saving grace. Because his eyes are filled with fury, and his face is as stormy as I’ve ever seen it when he’s been alone with me.
“Sanctuary.” I claim it even though it’s been centuries since anyone respected it.
He lets out a sardonic laugh in response, his dark lashes lifting as he looks around the room. The blue-green of his irises lighting as a ray streams through the stained glass, catching on them. He almost looks angelic in this light. Almost.
“It will be,” he mutters.
“Levi.” I say his name like a prayer. His eyes shift from studying our surroundings to taking me in.
He steps forward and slams the wrought iron gate behind him; the clang resonates against the stone walls and through my body. He grabs the rope I used on him off of his hip, tying the two sides of the gate together, sealing me in with him. There’s a soft staticky hum in my ears that grows along with the echo of his boots closing the space between us, one methodical step at a time. I feel the oxygen slipping from my lungs with every inch he draws closer.
He pins me against the wrought iron, the cold touch of the metal against my skin making me arch forward unwillingly. I hold up my hands, pushing against his chest in a way that buysme exactly zero leeway. He snatches my wrist, pinning it up behind my head. The second follows the first. His lips curling in a devilish sneer before he leans forward, his tongue darting out to lick the sweat that drips down my neck.
I close my eyes until I hear the distinct rip of fabric. His knife tears into the left strap of my sundress and then the right. It slips from my shoulders and exposes my breasts. He stares, blatantly, a blush blooming over my chest, and my nipples bead under his watch.
