Prying her eyes open left them feeling dry and gritty, so heavy she struggled for the tiny amount they parted. It was so very dark. Darker than any moonless night, and especially for the vibrant city still alive and awake outside her window. She whimpered as her body was jostled once more, her stomach doing an uneasy somersault at the violent motion. The shades were closed, every light snuffed out.
Something was wrong, but her syrupy thoughts wouldn’t make sense of any of it.
Cheap cotton clung to her skin as she slid over the bed, pushed this way and that by some unseen force. A warm maelstrom that moved over her, hard gusts of air feathering over her shoulder and neck.
Then there was nothing but pain. Ratcheting through every cell, every fiber. A scream worked its way up through herthroat, a garbled whimper as it escaped her lips. Blood molasses thick, her limbs refused her demands to move, to shove away the thing causing such agony.
Taking in a long breath to let out the wail ripping its way through her chest, she smelled it.
Evergreens and smoke.
Tears gathered at the corners of her lashes as her body moved in hard, short bursts. She felt she was being split in two, her hips cracking open as her thighs were shoved wide. Too weak to protect herself from the stinging bites he peppered her neck and chest with, she wept to the ceiling and the Gods beyond.
A single thought coalesced on a heavy tide of piercing agony that cleared the confusion and sludgy thickness from her mind for an all too brief moment.
He’d said she needed to be taught a lesson.
It seemed Leon Marchetti had taken it upon himself to teach her it. Elena’s sob caught in her throat, a mangled sound as she was flipped to her stomach. The pain receding before he shunted back inside of her unwilling body, taking what wasn’t his. Stealing the one thing she had to offer a mate.
Shallow breaths suffocated in the rumpled spread, she prayed for a swift end to her life. Was granted no such mercy as he growled at her ear, wrenching the blankets away. His hands slipped around her throat, pinning her to the bed as he choked her by degrees. Holding her still for each brutal thrust as he tightened his hold upon her until instinct kicked in.
Hands scrabbling over the sheets for some purchase, she bucked and jostled to be free. Twisting within his implacable grip for a single sip of air.
His hushed roar at her shoulder brought her to stillness, the erratic pace of his hips slamming into her foreboding. Elena shook her head, fists beating out a feeble tempo against the bed.
Not that. Anything but that.
He ground in deep, locking in behind her pelvic bone. The knot expanding, forcing her insides to rearrange to accommodate it.
His grip never faltering from her neck, her vision began to swim. Splotches of red and green danced around a graying outline of her arm in profile. A darker darkness in the shadowed room.
She wanted to die.
He wasn’t going to let her as his hands suddenly released.
Elena had no idea how long it went on. She only knew that by the end of it, his scent was firmly ingrained into her skin, and she would never be clean of it.
When he stumbled from the bed with a quiet laugh, she curled onto her side. Protecting herself as best she could despite the power she knew he held over her. It would take nothing for him to pull her flat once more. He’d proven it as much.
With a slap to her hip in parting, he left. The door clicked softly behind him.
Elena staggered from the bed at once, gagging as fluids she would not name dripped down her body. Throwing the locks and turning on the light, she moved around the room on legs that were watery and refused to hold her upright for long.
She needed to be clean. To get his vile scent off of her.
Diving into the shower, she cranked the taps. Didn’t even flinch as an icy blast needled her skin until the water began to warm. Then she shivered under the scalding spray as she scoured every inch of her body. Bit back her scream at the smears of bright red on her fingers when she dared to touch the space that throbbed with blinding pain.
The water had turned cold again before she abandoned her efforts, all of her soap long gone now. Even the small bottle thehotel provided was used to try and cleanse away his every touch.
She stumbled into the bedroom as she tugged the heavy cotton robe on, breaths coming in hard, gasping pants. Chest heaving, she ripped the linens from the bed. Stuffed them into the tub under the still running shower to dampen the stench of evergreens and sex.
Nothing would make it better. It was ingrained in her every fiber. In every whorl of her mind.
Shaking hands picked up the receiver, having to try three times to dial the number right. It barely rang before Jamie was on the line, asking what was wrong.
“H-He came,” was all she could get out before she collapsed to the floor in a puddle of misery and tears.
Jamie shouted something she couldn’t understand. It seemed mere moments before he was pounding on her door, yelling her name. Gone was the honorific as he cried for her to open the door.
