Page 49 of All Hallows Game

The coffee machine screamed louder, and I startled into motion, bolting for the door. I was too shaken to close it behind myself; I left it half open and ran down the path, only stopping when I was hidden, gasping, shaking, in the shadow of a broad tree.

How long until Duncan came back? How long until Nightmare called the police to tell them a murder weapon was hidden in a wardrobe at Ford House?

I couldn’t think about that now. I could only think about Virgil.

It’s done, I snapped at Nightmare. Now let me see my brother.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CAT

By the time I’d finished analysing and scrutinising the video call I screen recorded, I was exhausted enough to pass out hard. Virgil was alive. I told myself it didn’t matter that his eyes were sunken, his bones were so pronounced he could only be called skeletal, or that his voice was a husky rasp like he’d been screaming, day after day. While I was in Death’s domain last night, sleeping happily beside my men, Virgil had been screaming.

I went over every angle, every frame of the video call, zooming in on details, relentless in my search for any clue to where he was being held. I passed out some time around two a.m. with my phone on my chest, my head at an awkward angle, and my clothes unchanged from what I wore to plant the crossbow in Duncan’s room.

When I woke up, it was still dark enough that I was disoriented for a few long, sticky seconds, and my legs were bare, air brushing goosebumps over them. No, that wasn’t air—they were hands.

“It’s just me, beautiful,” Tor said in a voice as quiet as the soft wind outside.

I rubbed my eyes until I could make out the broad shape of him crouched at the bottom of my bed. I hadn’t turned the lamp off before I fell asleep, so when my eyes focused there was no missing the rawness in his eyes, the desperation of his expression.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up and reaching for his face, running my fingers over the sharp edge of his cheekbone.

“I need you.” He met my eyes, a sharpness to the warm brown I wasn’t used to seeing. “I need you, Cat.”

I swallowed, guilt like a thorn in my throat. “Even after I told you I never felt anything?”

It was the closest I’d hinted at the truth. I only told him I felt nothing. It was never true.

Those light brown eyes gentled. Warm hands skimmed my shoulders, pushing me back into the pillows. “Did you mean it?”

I opened my mouth and tasted blood. If I shook my head, would it kill me?

Tor knocked my legs apart so he could settle between them, covering my body with the heat and reassurance of his, filling my lungs with amber and sandalwood.

“I know you didn’t,” he murmured, fingertips tracing the column of my throat. “You were hurt and grieving and in shock. But when I look in your eyes, I see the truth. So much emotion that you can’t hide it. So much affection it’s like a star burning in those beautiful grey eyes.”

His kiss was a sudden shock, the nip of his teeth parting my lips for a fast, desperate kiss.

“And I taste blood on your tongue,” he panted, “and I can’t help but wonder what you’re forbidden to tell me.”

Panic splintered my chest, so strong Tor must have seen it because he soothed me with another kiss, this one featherlight.

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want you hurt, Cat.”

The guilt was so fierce I couldn’t look at him. I wanted to tell him everything about Nightmare. I wanted to beg for his help to find Virgil. “I—”

“I’m going to find her and rip her apart, and then you can tell me.” Tor kissed the spot between my brows. “But right now, I need you so badly I can’t fucking breathe.”

I remembered him fucking me on the table in the castle and a shudder went through all my nerves.

“I need you to be mine. To love, to protect, to torment.”

It took me a moment to realise there was no capital T on that torment, to guess at his meaning, and another chill went through me, so hard that my body shook. I was hot and cold all at once.

“Tell me to leave and I’ll leave,” he said, holding eye contact. I watched darkness spill through his eyes like blood in water, his need so severe that my stomach fluttered with a mix of nerves and excitement.

“Don’t leave,” I breathed.

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