“You think I left you in the dark to punish you?” he asked her slowly, grief filling his soul at the implications of her hysteria.
“Didn’t you?” Her voice was shaking, hoarse, as she jerked the quilt from the bed and wrapped it around her shuddering body. “The lights wouldn’t come on. There was no power to the appliances. ” She was gasping, fighting for breath as she tightened her hold on the quilt and moved to the bottom of the bed. “Do you really think it’s going to work?” she screamed, her expression twisting painfully.
“Think what is going to work?” He wanted her in his arms. He couldn’t bear to see the remnants of terror that filled her expression.
“Do you think turning the lights off here is worse than being tied hand and foot in a fucking coffin? You son of a bitch, you don’t have a clue. ”
Rage, uncontained, filled with pain, fear, with the resounding echo of horror, filled her voice and filled Tanner’s soul.
“Someone buried you alive?” It was all he could do to keep his voice calm, to keep the outrage and fury out of his voice.
Her laugh was bitter, cynical. “Oh, really, Tanner. You’ve investigated me. Watched me. For how long? Were you watching me the last time I disappeared for a few days?”
He had been. He nodded slowly.
“Would you like to know where I was?” Her voice was low, guttural.
“You were at your father’s estate,” he said. “You stayed a week. ”
“I was buried alive in a coffin, in my father’s basement, because my profile of his favorite Coyote was weak. The Coyote was spying on Father for the Breeds and got away with it. I paid for it. Or did you already know that, Tanner? Tell me, did you know the punishment I would receive when Cyrus found out your Coyote was working for you?”
His hand clenched at his side. That had been his decision, placing the Coyote in Tallant’s camp, using him to gain information not just on Tallant, but on Scheme. But this wasn’t in that Coyote’s report.
“For three days, Tanner,” she snarled. “I was locked in a coffin, my hands and feet tied while a goddamned electronic voice counted down the hours of oxygen I had left. ”
The animal inside him roared in rage. A rage so black, so violent, he had to restrain the need to leave, to go hunting for the bastard who would dare to do something so evil to her.
“He took me out two minutes after my oxygen expired,” she said. “You left me air. You can’t die if you can breathe. ”
You can die of sorrow, Tanner thought grimly as he felt grief well inside his soul. And he was ready to expire from it.
“The lights are on motion sensors with a remote backup. ” He stared around the room, seeing the tangled blankets trailing over the side of the bed, their disarray indicating that she had fallen, or stumbled, from the bed. “Once you move from the bed and actually stand up, they come on. You have to stand up. ”
She stumbled again; obviously shuddering so hard she could barely stand.
Fuck this. She was shaking like a leaf, adrenaline and terror still racing through her. He could smell her refusal for comfort, her distrust of him, and that was just too fucking bad.
He had to hold her. If he didn’t hold her he was going to break apart himself.
“Don’t you touch me. ” She fought him. He had known she would.
Lifting her into his arms, Tanner ignored her struggles as he wrestled her to the couch, sat down, then pulled her into his lap.
“It’s okay, Scheme,” he whispered against her hair. “It won’t happen again. ”
“I don’t need you to comfort me, cat,” she spat furiously. “I don’t need you to touch me at all. ”
Tanner tightened his arms around her, burying his face in her hair as he forced back the snarl that tugged at his lips.
God help him, he wanted to kill. He wanted to gut her father and watch him bleed for what he had done to her. The hunger to kill was almost overwhelming, but stronger was the need to hold on to her, to calm the scent of terror still emanating from her.
If he didn’t, then the beast was going to break free, and if it ever broke his control, then it might never be reined in again.
“Maybe I’m the one that needs comforting,” he growled into her hair. “I’m sorry, Scheme…”
“I don’t need your platitudes. ” Her fists clenched tighter, the muscles of her wrists tensing further as he held on to them.
The fact that she wasn’t fighting him hurt. Deep inside, in places he hadn’t known existed within himself. She was just sitting in his embrace, unresponsive, fighting to distance herself.