Page 49 of Irrevocably

I clasp my hands tighter, the cold thread turning to ice as something occurs to me. I’m no longer in my house, with my father, and my studies. I’m no longer in my safe, normal little world. Now, he’s dragged me into his and I don’t know anything about it, except that it’s dangerous. No, not just dangerous. It’s deadly.

From somewhere, I scrape up some courage. “I’m not turning it off until you tell me where the hell you’re taking me and why.”

For a second, Lucien doesn’t move. Then abruptly, he leans over, grabs my backpack, upends it into my lap, grabs my phone from the pile of stuff, winds down the window and throws my phone into the darkness.

I’m so surprised that all I can do is stare at him.

He winds the window back up again, his gaze once more on the road. “Next time, do what I tell you, Tinkerbell.”

“Asshole,” I say, my anger welling up again. “That’s the second time you’ve emptied my backpack and gotten my stuff everywhere.”

He flashes another intense stare at me and says nothing, but that heat is burning in his eyes again. The fire and the hunger, and I know all at once that wherever he’s taking me, and whatever he’s going to do to me, it’s about us. About what’s between us.

A shiver goes down my spine, and once again I turn my gaze from him, shoving my stuff into my backpack again before staring out the passenger side window. It looks like we’re heading out of town, the trees of the forest around Blackwater closing in around us.

We drive in silence for another fifteen minutes, then Lucien turns the car down a stony driveway, half-hidden by trees and bushes by the side of the road. We wind through forest until we finally pull up outside what looks to be a literal cabin in the woods: made of logs, with a peaked roof and a porch out the front.

“What is this place?” I ask him as he stops the car out the front.

“A safe house,” he says shortly. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

A safe house? Safe from what?

Yet more questions I probably won’t get answers to, so I keep my mouth shut as I get out of the car and follow him up the steps to the front door. It’s a cold night, and I’m regretting my decision to wear a short dress and tights, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.

Lucien pulls some keys from his pocket and unlocks the door, opening it then gesturing at me to go inside. “Go in. I’ll deal with your friend.”

I glance at Matilda’s trunk, my heart tightening. “Don’t hurt him.”

Lucien’s gaze is steady. “I can’t promise that, but I can promise not to kill him.”

I don’t know why I believe him, because I really shouldn’t. He’s already proved that killing means nothing to him, then there’s the fact that he promised me that I should come to him when I needed pain, before reneging on that promise. Still, if he’d really wanted Wolf dead he’d have killed him in the parking lot.

I nod and step inside, flicking the lights on. It’s cold in the house – I can see my breath – and it smells damp and musty, as if no one has lived here for a long time. The hallway is dark even with the lights on, but through one door is a big living area with a large stone fireplace against one wall. The room has a heavy-beamed low ceiling, and the walls are wood, too. A couple of worn couches have been positioned in front of the fire, but there isn’t much in the way of other furniture.

This can’t be his home, can it? Not when it feels so unlived in.

The hearth is stacked with wood, ready to be lit, so I hunt around for something to light it with. I finally find a box of matches in the drawer of a large sideboard, so I take them over to the fire, crouching down to light it.

My fire-lighting skills are minimal, so I’m rather pleased with myself as I manage to get a blaze going, the heat beginning to warm the room. I sit in front of the fire, feeding it kindling, and debate using this time when Lucien is busy to escape. He’s got Matilda’s keys, though, so I’d have to walk all the way through the dark back home. But it’s not the prospect of a cold walk that makes me stay in front of the fire.

It’s him.

“You’re my target. My source. Your body is mine and so is your pain. All of you is mine.”

I close my eyes, hearing those words in his deep, dark voice. I want to know what they mean. I want to know why he said them. I want to know what happens next, because I have no idea.

He’s got me and he’s got Wolf, but he doesn’t have the information I told him I’d get. How important is that to him? Why bring me here when I could be talking to my dad right now? What does he even want with me?

“You got the fire going.”

I startle as I hear his voice behind me. For such a tall, muscular man he moves so quietly. It’s unnerving.

I turn around to find him standing there, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his expression, as per usual, unreadable. His perfect face, though, is marred. One of his eyebrows is split, blood trailing down from it.

“Wolf wasn’t happy about being kidnapped, was he?” I ask dryly.

“No,” Lucien says, equally dry. “But you’ll be happy to know I didn’t kill him.”