AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Wolf, I’d like some time alone with her,” he says, keeping his eyes on me. Fuck, is he reading my mind again? Or was that something I dreamed?
“Of course, sir,” Wolf says, heading for the door. “I’ll be just outside.” It shuts behind him.
The room itself is large but old, wallpapered walls the color of faded indigo, dark wood furniture, a window with blackout shades pulled down. The only lights are from an antique lamp on the bedside table and from a candelabra flickering on the fireplace mantle, which gives everything an extra eerie appearance, and that’s saying a lot since it already feels like the mansion from Dark Shadows.
Absolon sits on the edge of the bed, twisting his body in an elegant way to face me. He takes his finger and runs it over my arm until I’m shaking from his touch, unable to control the shivers. Whether it’s from revulsion, anger, or something else, I don’t know.
“Tell me about your tattoos,” he says, letting his fingernails trace the ink of Poe’s words, his cold seeping into me, making my skin prickle.
“Tell me what’s happening to me,” I say. “Then we can talk.”
His fingers pause and he smirks at me. “Full of surprises. I really thought you’d be more devastated than you are.”
“Who says I’m not devastated?” I say point blank.
He clamps his mouth shut, watching me closely for a moment, then shrugs lightly with one shoulder. “You’re taking things in stride. So far.”
“You said I’m becoming you,” I tell him. “What am I becoming? What are these stages? What’s happening to me?”
He frowns. “So you know something is happening? Do you feel it?”
I shut my eyes, unable to take his penetrating eyes right now.
Because I do feel it.
I feel like I’m becoming something else, and I don’t know what it is, but it’s something linked to the deepest parts of me, that dark well that I know exists, the one I’m afraid to drink from.
But at the same time, how can I not be changing?
I was kidnapped.
I’ve been held captive in a stranger’s house.
My parents are pretending like it never happened.
And I’m feeling things, hearing things, seeing things, dreaming things that defy explanation.
Other than the fact that he’s had me drugged for days.
That has to be it.
It has to be the explanation for everything.
It’s in whatever he’s been feeding me (when was the last time I ate?).
It’s in whatever I’ve been drinking (when was the last time I had water?).
“We’ve been giving you food and water,” he says, leaning in closer, running his nails down my thigh, over the tattoo of the ram’s head, my legs aching to clench together. “You’ve been refusing. It’s good, I suppose. Soon you’ll never look at food the same way again. It won’t be what fuels you.” He presses his nails into my skin until it hurts. He looks up at me through his long dark lashes. “I like this one. The ram’s head. Aries. Power to overcome and achieve. Very curious though, are the eyes. Was this the artist’s idea or yours?”
The more he touches me, the more my skin feels like it’s on fire. My breath thickens, feeling heavy. “It was mine.”
“The Eye of Ra on one side, The Eye of Horus on the other.” He takes his hand away and only then do my lungs clear. “I understand tattoos. I was covered in them once. Nordic runes. Head to toe.”
I glance at his forearms, showcased by his rolled-up sleeves. They’re muscular and strong, the kind of forearms that would make any woman salivate. But there’s no sign of any tattoos on him. His skin is pale, unblemished, flawless.
“Head to toe?” I question.
He nods. “Yes,” he muses, eyes now captured by the ravens at my calf. “It was customary at the time.”
“And you had them all removed?”
His eyes flit up to mine, glittering darkly. “Not quite.”
I swallow. “Are you going to let me go?”
He stares at me for a moment, one black brow raising like a question mark on his handsome face, unblinking. I hate that I still find him attractive after everything he’s done.
He moves up on the bed, his giant frame making the mattress sink to one side, and places a cold palm at my cheek, my eyes closing involuntarily at the contact, his hand spanning the whole side of my face.
“I can’t,” he whispers to me, his voice making my skin dance with pleasure. “I don’t know how much you’re worth.”
My eyes snap open to find his eyes just inches away. “You said this wasn’t about money!”
“It isn’t,” he says. “Money isn’t the only currency. You’re studying history. You should know that.”
“You’re trading people. People for what? Other people? Slavery?”
He gives me a dry look. “Give me some credit.”
“Credit? You have me tied to a fucking bed, in some fucking haunted mansion. You’ve kidnapped me, you don’t know what you’re doing with me but you’re a mercenary so…”
