Page 58 of Dark Side of the Cloth

The man holding the intimidating blade turned toward her, and she dropped the stick, hands going to her mouth as her mind became void of any further thought.

Dean was dressed in all black, his face streaked with paint like she’d only ever seen in movies. Weapons adorned his body like jewelry. The hands that had shown her so much pleasure the night before squeezed the knife tighter, showing off the ripple of muscle in his forearm. A flash of his hand around her neck raced through her mind, and bile hit the back of her throat.

“Yasmine?”

Her name on Dean’s lips had her eyes finally meeting his, the eyes of the man she thought of as a kind and generous man. Flawed yes, they’d proven that last night, but this? The man that she loved was—no, this couldn’t be happening. There was some mistake. Dean took a step toward her, and as he did, the blade glinted in the swinging lantern light. She could see the fresh blood dripping off the end…Run! She turned and sprinted back the way she’d come.

She had no idea where she was going. She’d been so consumed with fear for Dean’s safety that she hadn’t stopped to mark a trail. Stupidly, she looked over her shoulder, slammed into a tree, and yelped as the impact stopped her cold. He was coming for her. She could hear him getting closer. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she spun in a circle, trying to remember where her car was. Grabbing her car keys, she frantically pushed the button for the alarm, but nothing sounded, nothing flashed.

“Yasmine, stop!” Dean yelled.

He was closer. She took off in a sprint, preferring to put space between them rather than stand still and surely die. Her breathing was loud in her ears as she rounded a bend in the overgrown path she’d found herself on—Dean’s yelling to stop loud in her ears.

“Stop! There are traps!”

She had only a moment to wonder what he meant when something flew past her face and scraped her cheek. She screamed and grabbed her face as a warm liquid traveled down her cheek. Hands shaking, she pulled it away, and what could only be blood had stained her mitten.

“Are you okay? Yasmine, I’m coming, don’t move! There are traps all around you!”

Under any other circumstances, she would’ve listened, but fear overrode any common sense. She ran to the side, away from Dean, and she heard him swear in the darkness. She hadn’t gone very far when she let out a screech as she was sent flying over a downed log. She landed hard and cried out, then screamed louder as metal teeth leapt out from under the leaves and snow right beside her. That had almost been her face.

Her heart was pounding so hard now she thought she might pass out. She stared at the deadly piece of metal, her mind envisioning the worst if it had clamped down around her neck.

She could taste blood and knew she’d bitten her tongue, and she couldn’t move. Her ankle or maybe foot felt broken or torn. She wasn’t certain. She drew the injured limb toward her and knew she’d sprained it badly, or it was broken. Her assumption was proven correct when she couldn’t put weight on it and whimpered, falling once more onto the cold ground into a heap.

“Yasmine, please stop running,” Dean said softly as if he was trying to soothe her. Like a predator of the night, he stepped out from behind a tree. His black boots crunched a little closer.

Oddly, he didn’t rush her. He held his hands up and took small steps, but hot tears ran down her cheeks as panic set in. She was going to die out here in the woods just like her sister had. Lower lip trembling, she tried to back away from him, but he easily tracked her movements. Soon she was panting, her shaking arms now wiped of all her strength. Her body shook as she closed her eyes and turned her head away as he knelt beside her.

Yasmine couldn’t help thinking about her sister. Maybe this was karma for escaping that night. No one would tell her what was done to her sister, no one would give her the details, but when she took over the funeral home, she searched for the records. The gruesome details were there in black and white, pages upon pages of violence that she didn’t even know was possible for one human to do to another.

Now, here she was in the woods with a killer, and it felt like life had finally come full circle. Like this was what the last seventeen years of torture had been teaching her.

Her time had come. It was time to pay the piper.

Dean’s hand grabbed her chin, and she yelped with the contact, terrified and mortified that she was so scared. She should fight back like she should’ve done the night her sister was taken. She clenched her fist.

“Don’t fight Yasmine, I’m not going to hurt you,” Dean said as if reading her thoughts. His other hand landed on her fist, and she shook a little harder. “Look at me!”

Dean used the same commanding voice he had in the bedroom, but now it only made her want to whimper and crawl in a hole. She swallowed a dry scratchiness in her throat and opened her eyes. There was still no sign of the knife.

“I told you, I’m not going to hurt you.” Dean’s voice was softer as his thumb ran across her chin. “You are so lucky. That trap would’ve taken your head. Hell, that arrow almost did.” He tilted her head from side to side. “This is going to bruise, but the cut doesn’t look deep enough for stitches.”

She pulled away from his touch.

“Forgive me, but it’s a little hard to believe that you don’t plan on killing me right now. You have traps set everywhere, not to mention what you were doing.” She crossed her arms over her chest, giving him as much of glare as she was able to muster.

“There’s the Yasmine, I know.” Dean smiled.

Her traitorous heart skipped a beat. How could his smile give her any pleasure after what she just saw him doing?

“Those traps aren’t mine. Now, I’m going to help you stand.”

“Don’t. I don’t want your help.”

Dean looked around the forest.

“This is a really bad time to be stubborn, considering you can’t stand on your own, you don’t have cell service, and even if you did, you wouldn’t know how to navigate the other traps still out here.”