Someone who is stroking my hair back and brushing their fingers against my cheek.
Afraid everything might ramp up again, I remain still. Bracing myself for the next sensory explosion.
But nothing happens.
The only thing that feels out of place besides the person holding me is a steady throbbing coming from my thigh.
Gathering up my courage, I crack my eyes open and see Nikolaos staring down at me with a look of awe on his face.
“You’re awake,” he says softly, and I cringe at the affection in his voice.
I almost ask him how long I was out, but I quickly decide against it. I’d much rather get away from him than engage in conversation. Especially because there’s something deeply unsettling about the way he’s holding me.
He’s cradling me in his arms as if I’m his lover or someone dear to him.
Squirming, I try to wiggle my way off his lap, but his arms tighten around me.
“Do you know how precious you are, Chloe?” he asks, and I instantly still.
Staring down at me with a strange intensity in his eyes, he begins to stroke my cheek and answers his own question. “You’re the most precious thing in this shit-infested world.”
My skin crawls where he touches me, the sensation reminding me of bugs scurrying across my face. His presence alone has always been uncomfortable, but there’s something about it now that really sets me on edge.
“Please let me go,” I plead and try again to wiggle out of his embrace.
Nikolaos smiles, but there’s absolutely no humor or joy in the smile. “No.”
His nearness is becoming more and more oppressive by the second. Like there’s a weight to his aura that’s pushing at me, urging me to put space between us.
The throbbing coming from my thigh also seems to be increasing. Pulsing so hard now it’s traveling upwards.
Not understanding what’s happening, I work harder to escape him. Grabbing his arms, I try to pry him off me.
“Please…” I beg now, needing to put distance between my body and his.
Arms stiffening, resisting my tugs, he shakes his head. “Never, Chloe. I’m never letting you go.”
Dread and impending doom flood through me at his declaration.
I have to get away from him. I don’t know why… but I have to or I’m going to die.
Panicking, I squirm, twist, and rock in his arms, doing anything and everything I can think of to get him to release his hold.
But like one of those finger traps, the harder I fight him, the tighter he grips me.
“You’re mine now,” he says, his eyes filling with what looks like madness. “Mine.”
There’s a wrongness in that word that rubs my nerves raw.
I’m not his.
I’m…
Someone else’s.
The ingrained knowledge of this, the deep acceptance of it, shakes me to my very core.
Then it finally dawns on me why my thigh is throbbing…
My mark.
He’s here.
And he’s coming for me.
Beyond desperate to be free now, I start to scratch and claw at Nikolaos’s arms in an attempt to get him off me.
But it’s all futile.
I’m as weak as a human and no match for his strength.
“Let me go!” I cry out, tears streaming down my face as the throbbing grows stronger.
Eyes glowing brighter with mania, Nikolaos peels his lips back and shows me his fangs. “No. Never.”
His head begins to dip down, his attention locking on my neck, and I know I’m going to die.
This is it. This is where my short, pathetic, sad little life ends.
The door suddenly bursts open.
Jerking back, Nikolaos looks over my head, fangs still bared.
The throbbing in my thigh explodes like a bomb causing crippling waves of want and need to roll through my body.
“She’s mine,” a harsh voice says.
The voice that’s haunted my darkest dreams.
Eleven
Chloe
Every fiber of my being drawn to the door like an irresistible magnet, I turn my head to see my shadow stalker staring back at me.
And my world is turned completely upside down for the millionth time tonight.
Tall, with broad shoulders, and intense green eyes, he’s everything I’ve ever feared. So beautiful, the sight of him alone makes me want to both weep and scream at the same time.
But I can’t look away.
My eyes drink in every detail of him. Converting what I know of the shadow into flesh and bone reality.
His hair, the color of dark honey, is short and mussed, like he’s been flustered or running his hands through it.
His face is so perfect, sculpted with high, sharp cheekbones and a strong, chiseled jawline, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t altered or created with a knife.
It’s his body, though, that truly calls to me. Beneath the black slacks and the wrinkled charcoal shirt he’s wearing, I know there’s a landscape of hard muscles and smooth planes.
The same body that covered me and relentlessly drove me to the highest peaks of pleasure in my dreams…
The urge, the need, to run to him, to be near him, to ease the emptiness that’s been slowly sucking my soul dry, makes every other desire I’ve ever felt seem paltry in comparison.