Page 56 of Torn By Fate

It was like staring at two versions of the same face. We weren’t the exact replicas of each other… no, but the familiarity was unmistakable.

My throat tightened. “I look like you…”

The words came out barely a whisper.

She swallowed and then I saw it—the most devastating guilt on her face.

“Or…” I turned toward her, my heart pounding even harder. My gaze drifted back to our reflections before I looked into her eyes again.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“...you look like me.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SERAFINA

I had been asleep for maybe two hours, maybe less, when something in my subconscious screamed at me to wake up.

It wasn’t a loud sound that reached me. It wasn’t anything in particular that should have woken me up; it was barely perceptible, a shift in the darkness.

I lay perfectly still, my heart a frantic beat against my ribs. A cold tremor sliced through me, my spine tingling with awareness. Every nerve inside me vibrated with a frenzy; every inch of my flesh came alive, goosebumps peppering my body.

It was almost a whisper in the air, the softest creak of weight shifting on the carpet, a sound that my body had somewhat recognized before my brain could catch up.

I wasn’t alone in my hotel room.

The presence was thick and overwhelming.

I inhaled, my chest rising with the breath I took. I expected my husband’s familiar scent to fill my nose, but instead it was lemon, cigar, and something else entirely… everything about it was unfamiliar.

My eyes snapped open.

A shape, massive and dark, filled the space above me, blotting out what little light existed in the room. I knew it was a man before anything else could register.

He was impossibly tall and broad-shouldered, his features swallowed by shadow except for the pale gleam of his eyes that were flat, fixed on me in a way that wasn’t entirely human.

I didn’t think… I didn’t allow myself to before my hand reached toward the nightstand. Toward my gun.

His hands moved faster.

He was on me before I’d fully processed the threat, one moment at the foot of the bed, the next bearing down on me with a speed that should have defied the physics of a body that large. The mattress dipped violently under his weight, and I felt the sickening heat of him before he was on top of me.

My eyes widened; my lungs caved. Breathless, awful terror slammed through me.

My mouth parted, and I screamed.

The sound tore from my throat raw and ragged, but his hand was already there, clamping over my mouth before the scream could fully form. His palm, enormous and calloused, swallowed my scream as he pressed it hard against my lips. My teeth cut into the inside of my cheek, the taste of copper flooding my mouth.

My body erupted, my need for survival kicking in. I bucked and twisted, driving my knee upward, and it connected with something solid. He grunted low, but his grip didn’t loosen.

His other hand found my throat, fingers spread wide, the threat of what was coming more terrifying than the act itself.

God, no… I wasn’t going to die tonight. I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

Unshed tears burned my eyes as I fought him, this nameless man trying to kill me.