He slams into the case, shattering it and sending shards of crystal and glass crashing to the floor.
Whirling around, I spot the door again and scramble toward it. Behind me, I hear a low guttural sound from Luci as he once again sets his sights on me.
I scream as there’s a sudden loud crash, and then another, just as I realize that the door I’m running toward isn’t the real one either. I turn around, looking for the exit as my eyes widen in panic.
Luci is stalking toward me, his head tilted at an odd angle as he smashes one crystal case after another along the way.
I try to take a deep breath to calm myself, only to remember that I can’t, just as my eyes spot the black door yet again. I throw myself at it, whether real or not, anything to get away from Luci.
This time, it’s not a reflection.
I nearly burst into tears at this, but my new found joy isn’t meant to be as I’m suddenly yanked back by the back of my dress.
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Luci says as I fall backward against his chest.
“Please, Luci, I didn’t mean to—”
My words are cut short as he grabs the front of my dress and tears it open. I try to pull away, but he spins me around, taking my wrists in both hands as he forces me back against the door.
I move to knee him, but Luci just uses this to shift his body between my legs. Lifting my hands over my head, he pins them against the door with one hand, the other moving to my cleavage.
His breathing is heavy as he wipes up some of the dark liquid that gushed out from between my breasts earlier with one finger. Raising his finger to his mouth, he sucks it clean, and I watch in horror as his head and shoulders twitch unnaturally in reaction to it.
As soon as the twitching stops, Luci drops his face to my chest and presses his tongue down between my cleavage as he hungrily searches for more of the drug. He grows more feverish with each drop of the liquid. Forgetting his hold on my wrists, he grabs the corset and tears it halfway open along with the chemise, exposing my breasts to him.
“Luci! What will Valen—”
Again, my words are cut off, though this time from an uncontrollable gasp of surprise as Luci pulls one of my breasts into his mouth and sucks hard. Of course, my stupid body betrays me as an aching heat begins to build within me.
Luci pulls back, using his fingertips he smears the dark liquid over more my chest before dipping his mouth to it once again. His tongue plays with me, drawing designs over my breasts as he works to lick the drug from my body.
Circling my breast, he works his way up to my nipple before sucking and teasing it as his hand gropes and kneads the other. Suddenly, he latches onto my nipple with his teeth before sucking my breast into his mouth, the sharp edge of his teeth sending an electric shock racing across my skin and bringing me back to my senses.
I hit out against him just as he bites down on my me.
The fiery pain is instant and all-consuming as it shoots through my body, burning its way along my veins.
A scream unlike anything I’ve ever heard before erupts from me, shattering two of the crystal cases closest to us, and somehow startling Luci enough that he releases me and stumbles back a step.
I don’t waste any time. Throwing open the door, I tumble out into the hallway. I make a split-second decision and race off and around the corner.
“Please, please, please be open,” I mumble to myself, wrapping an arm around my chest to keep my breasts from painfully flopping off in every direction.
I can hear the thunder of Luci’s footsteps behind me as I run. He’s obviously no longer worried about the hunt.
Almost missing it, I skid to a stop. Luci slides past me, reaching for me but missing as he scrambles to change directions.
Hurling myself against the door, it opens much to my surprise. Tripping over my skirts, I’m sent sprawling across the floor as I topple into the room.
Luci is on top of me the next second as he jerks me over onto my back to face him. His hair floats around him in wild waves, his eyes crazed and hungry as he stares down at me.
He moves to drop his mouth to me again, but I somehow manage to shove my palm up beneath his jaw. The action stuns him enough that he’s forced to look up and into the room.
Almost instantly, I feel a shift in his body as the fight in him dies.
“Anna?”
Her name slips from his lips as if it were coated in honey and pain.