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“You couldn’t just shut up and hide behind that pretty face of yours. Too smart for your own damn good, girl,” he said, advancing toward me.
I backed up cautiously, not wanting to turn my back on him. I felt around with my hands extended behind my back until I bumped into a door frame.
“You caught me,” he said theatrically with a slow clap of his hands. “Now, what are you going to do about it?” he asked, mockingly.
My eyes darted toward the front door.
“Oh,no. I don’t think so,” he teased, with a wicked smile. “I kept you from leaving once today already,” he bragged. “Although you were harder to convince than Lord Belford, I have no doubt I can do it again.”
He began to hum. Its rhythm didn’t feel sweet or seductive like the song he sang to me before. But I could feel its pull, nonetheless. I froze, despite my overwhelming desire to leave. I had to stop him. I had to break his concentration.
“Lord Belford?” I asked, although I thought I already knew.
Cole Tragon had been vouched for the night Lord Belford was murdered. It seemed that Stefan had done Cole’s dirty work for him.
“I lured him right into that hallway. He didn’t even see the blade coming,” Stefan bragged.
He was talking, which meant he wasn’t humming or singing. I started edging toward the door again.
“I didn’t realize you were Cole’s lapdog, too,” I spat.
“Cole was an idiot. I knew it, and his mother did too. He proved that with how he handled things with you. I had to handle Lord Belford, or Cole would have gotten us all caught. The idiot would have stabbed him with his own knife and left a bloodied monogrammed handkerchief as proof,” he sneered.
“Don’t worry, though. I won’t be nearly as rough with you as Cole was. We have a place up north, therealnorth. It may be a little cold for your taste, but I’ll stash you away somewhere; somewhere they can’t find you—”
Free of his compulsion, I lunged for the door. Stefan was ready for my desperate move. He lunged after me. A surge of fear rose within me. I had failed to put enough distance between us. He was going to catch me. But before his hands could lock onto me, he fell back like he had run into an invisible wall. He fell to his ass, rolling into the wall behind him. I didn’t look back as I heard the thunk of his head against the wall. I was already out the door, running barefooted with all the speed I could muster.
I reached a crowd of people in the main hall of House Kearing and stopped running. I needed to blend in, not cause a scene. I kept checking over my shoulder for Stefan until I reached the archway of the manor and then I started sprinting again. I didn’t know where I was running until I got there. I crashed into Luke as he was walking out of the front door of his manor.
“Al?” He grabbed me.
I tried to push past him, shaking and gasping.
“Al?“ he said again. “ALARIE!”
He never called me by my full name. That got my attention. I looked up at him, held tight in his arms. I could tell that we were surrounded by one of his invisible protective shields.
“What happened, Al? Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. He pulled me into his house.
“It’s Stefan. He—”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” he snarled, releasing me and turning to the door.
“No. No, no, no, Luke,” I said, hysterical. He couldn’t leave me.
“It’s okay, Al. You’re with me. You’re safe. It’s okay,” he reassured me, encircling me in his arms again.
I took several deep breaths, my chest expanding and falling as he held me until my breaths came out normally once more.
“Luke, Stefan killed—”
“He killed? What are you talking about? Who did he kill, Al?” Luke asked, his strong hands grasping my arms and pulling my gaze up to his.
“He killed Lord Belford, Luke. He confessed to me. And that whole thing with Lord Garaud’s family, he’s responsible for that too.”
Luke stepped to the door, barricading it with a shield, then added to the protective layer he had already enclosed around our bodies.
“And then he said he was going to kidnap me, take me somewhere. I don’t know where. Somewhere up north.” I felt like I was babbling, so I just stopped talking, focusing on taking deep breaths instead.
