“Enough!”
I scream, my voice echoing through the sterile chamber, drowning out the hum of the cooling units.
“You want to talk? You want to provoke me? Then stop hiding behind a goddamn speaker system like a coward!”
I take a step toward the camera, my chest heaving, my latex-covered hands clenched into fists at my sides.
“If you want to witness my 'darkness', if you want to lecture me on my work and my life, then have the balls to stand in the same room as me. Show yourself, Deimos! Come out of the shadows and look me in the eye when you tell me I'm yours. Or are you just a psychopath who's afraid of the light?”
The speakers crackle with static, then fall dead silent. The sudden absence of his voice is almost more terrifying than theprovocation itself. I stand there in the center of the morgue, surrounded by the suffocating silence, waiting for the world to end. Then, the heavy hydraulic lock on the main doors of the autopsy room clicks.
Not the hiss of someone entering. The heavy, final thud of the doors locking from the outside. The lights overhead flicker once, twice, and then plunge the room into a dim, red emergency glow.
“Be careful what you wish for, little storm.”
I don’t turn around immediately. I can’t. My heart is a frantic bird. I forget how to breathe. The air behind me grows cold, a localized chill that tells me he is standing mere inches away.
“You’ve spent so much time dissecting the dead, Madeline. I wondered when you’d finally find the courage to voluntarily face the one who provides them for you.”
His voice isn't coming through a speaker this time. It is real. Rich. It hits me with a physical weight I am not prepared for. I slowly turn, my boots squeaking against the sterile linoleum.
He is standing by the table, draped in the deep darkness of the cooling units. He is taller than I remembered, a silhouette of sharp lines and dark, expensive tailoring. He is a mountain of a man, and the way he stands. Perfectly still. Perfectly balanced.
My hand snaps to the scalpel lying on the dissection table. I point it at him, my hands shaking. His smile only grows wider.
“Mhm,” he hums.
“Do you want to play, Madeline?”
He takes a few steps closer as I back away slowly.
“Let’s play then.”
He stands there, never taking his eyes off me, as he tilts his head, looking me up and down.
“I’ll stab you!”
I yell at him in a panic.
“I’ll take it,” he murmurs, his pupils dilating until the amber of his eyes is almost completely swallowed by black. I think I might as well have lit a match and thrown it into the gasoline.
With a few long steps, he’s already caging me in, pressing my body into the wall behind me. I press the sharp tip to his neck, my eyes boring into his. He doesn’t flinch, in fact, he presses closer against the scalpel.
My eyes go wide as I watch blood beginning to pour from his neck. He’s even more insane than I thought. He bites his lower lip as his gaze drops to my mouth, then he takes the surgical instrument from my hand slowly and slips it into his back pocket.
I can feel the heat radiating from his body; I can feel his muscular chest rising and falling against my body. His gaze snaps back to my eyes.
He brushes the blood dripping from his neck with his fingers. Suddenly, he grabs my chin roughly, and his blood-covered fingers smear across my lips. He’s marking me in his own twisted way.
The metallic scent of his blood fills my lungs, mixing with the sharp disinfectant of the room. I stand frozen against the cold wall, my breath coming in shallow, terrified rasps. The hand on my chin grips tighter, anchoring me to his darkness.
Deimos leans down until our noses touch. He doesn't care about his wound. He looks at my mouth, stained with his essence.
“Feel that? It’s not just adrenaline. It’s the blood of the man you’re too afraid to love, running down your lips. A proper blood pact for my little pathologist. Every breath you take in this room from now on is ours,” he says in a low rumble.
Then he chuckles, a mechanical, scraping sound that skips through the red light. I can’t move. I can’t scream. Without breaking eye contact, he reaches down.
He slides his large hands under my thighs, gripping me firmly under my backside as he hoists me up. My feet lose their grip on the floor, and my legs instinctively wrap around his waist to keep from falling.
