Page 5 of Take

 

 

I ROLLED OVER MOANING AS the deep roar of a bike’s muffler sounded outside my bedroom window. I put the pillow over my head as it skidded in the gravel and then the engine revved before it shut down.

I flicked an eye open and glanced at the red digital number on the clock sitting on my nightstand—one fifteen. What was Xamien—?

The front door slammed shut and I bolted upright.

Xamien was in Toronto with Waleron.

Xamien didn’t have a motorcycle.

Darts of fear speckled my skin as I heard the footsteps downstairs. My heart slammed against my chest and I threw back the covers, jumped out of bed then knelt on the floor and felt around until I found the slightly raised tile. I dug my fingernails underneath and pried it loose then slid it aside.

I reached in the hole, pulled out my handgun and quickly checked it was still loaded, although I always left it that way. I never assumed I was safe even after years of being free of the monster. Nor did I pretend to believe the feeling would ever go away.

A gun wouldn’t stop him though. Nothing would if he found me.

I clutched the gun, finger curved around the trigger as the booted feet took the stairs two at a time. Two at a time . . . Drake would never take the stairs like that. He’d do it calmly, quiet and with grace. Complete control. Dignified.

I quickly glanced at my hands . . . they were normal, no heat. After years of healing Drake’s lungs week after week, my hands used to automatically heat up whenever he was near. It became my warning sign he’d arrived . . . home. Despite what happened there, it still had become my home for six years. I had nothing else. I had no one. He’d made sure of that.

My heart beat steadied and the trembling in my body stopped as I realized it couldn’t be Drake. I may no longer be afraid to die, but I was smart enough to be scared of Drake and going back to him. Of what he’d do to me if he ever found out what I’d been hiding from him all those years I’d lived with him.

My one strength was that I’d learned to be numb. To shut off the inner coil of emotions. It was my way to not feel the pain. To stop my abilities. To stop everything.

Until him. Jasper.

I tried to ignore the spark igniting inside me at the thought of him, but for months, I imagined the touch of his fingers on my hips when he pressed me up against the wall. I smelled his scent on the breeze that drifted through the window at night as I lay in bed. And those times, I swear he was watching me . . . that he was in my room when I was sleeping. It unleashed a craving for him that refused to be dulled.

And I hated him for it. I hated how he awakened something inside me. He was like a maggot burrowing deep in my skin that I couldn’t get rid of.

While he’d so easily controlled his emotions, mine had been all over the place like butterflies in a wind storm.

Steps strode confidently down the hallway and I quickly tiptoed behind my bedroom door and pressed my back against the wall.

I held the gun with both hands in front of me, my finger firm on the trigger as I waited for my door to open. I glanced at my window and thought of running, but I didn’t want to run. I’d spent four years learning how to handle weapons and I was good at it.

A few times, I’d caught Xamien watching me from the kitchen window as I relentlessly practiced wielding my circular blades. I saw the sadness in his eyes and the disappointment. He never pushed me, but I knew he wanted me to trust him. To tell him who I was and what happened to me. All he knew was that I was a Scar and my name was Max, although the latter was obviously a lie.

My breath hitched as Jasper’s familiar scent trickled under the heavy wooden door. My heartbeat rocketed and my nerve endings stood at attention.

I heard the creak of the handle turning and then the door burst open so hard, my foot that was meant to stop it—didn’t, and I was crushed between the door and the wall.

He strode in, turned and kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot.

That cocky smirk he’d worn so easily at our last meeting was gone. Now he looked . . . vicious. Merciless. And suddenly the relief that it was him was washed away and uncertainty took over. His narrowed grey eyes blazed with a steady gravity as he looked at me. The sharp outline of his jaw pulsed and the corded muscles in his neck tightened.

“Get changed,” Jasper ordered. There was no apology for hitting me with the door. No explanation. No acknowledgment of the gun in my hands pointed at his chest.

And I wasn’t going anywhere with him. I had no clue why he was here in the middle of the night, but I certainly didn’t trust a rogue assassin Scar, no matter how much I’d thought about him in the last six months.

“We need to get the fuck out of here.” I watched as he strode over to the window, parted the curtains then looked out. He was wearing black cargo pants that hung easily off his hips and a snug black t-shirt with a holster slung over his shoulder. My eyes slid down his tatted arm to his hand that was curled around the hilt of a knife.

He swung back around and came toward me. “Fuck, sunshine. You have an issue with instructions?” He grabbed my forearm.

I immediately reacted to his rough touch and tried to wrench my arm away, but he refused to budge. “Let me go. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

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