Page 64 of Dangerous Passion

They weren’t leathery ropes, they were fingers, their grip tightening so hard she felt a rib crack. She looked up, into blood red eyes, a cruel mouth with sharp teeth. The mouth was smiling.

He had her. It was over. This was how her life would end—in pieces at the bottom of a lake of blood, dying cold and alone.

She turned for a last look at the last human she’d see. The man with the sword was running, slashing at the monster’s legs.

The monster laughed. She struggled desperately in his cruel grip, trying to free herself.

“Grace!” The man screamed. “Grace!”

She tried to call to him but there was no breath in her, the world was fading…

“Grace!”

She couldn’t breathe…

“Grace, wake up!”

She came awake on a shuddering gasp, as if she’d been underwater and crested the surface an instant before drowning, trembling and shaking, flailing madly.

Two strong arms were around her, pinning her. Oh God! He was going to kill her! She struggled, twisting wildly, butthere was nothing she could do against this kind of strength. She was going to die…

“Grace, Grace, love, look at me.”

That deep voice. Not cruel, not insane. A voice she knew…

Her eyes opened and she stilled, panting, staring into steady brown eyes. A soft brush of lips across her forehead. “It’s all right. You’re safe. You had a nightmare.”

Only one word penetrated.Safe. She was safe. No drowning in blood, no horrible clawed monster gripping her. No dead bodies.

She blinked, tears springing to her eyes.

Except, of course, therewasa dead body. Harold’s. It all came back, rushing in like a river whose dam had broken. The four men gunning for Drake, using her as bait. Harold’s head exploding off his shoulders, what was left of his body falling loosely to the ground like an empty sack, all the goodness and humor in him vanished like a light being snuffed.

The monster in her dreams wasn’t real, but the monsters loose in the world were, something her unconscious had recognized. One of those monsters had killed her friend, a man known even in the art world—a cut throat business if there ever was one—for his gentleness and generosity. A man who had truly loved art, who had never harmed anyone, had been wiped off the face of the earth by one of the monsters who inhabited it.

She’d been strong and had tucked her grief away, shoving it into a dark corner, but now it all came rushing back. The nightmare had robbed her of her usual resilience, sapping her strength. Grief welled up, fierce and unstoppable.

She turned her head into Drake’s shoulder, inhaling his scent, sensing his strength aroundher like a coat of armor, clinging to it desperately. She shuddered with her sadness and pain at the loss of Harold. Her horror of the violence at the gallery. The loss of her own life, cut off abruptly, her home. It all came tumbling out in an upwelling of sorrow that she tried to breathe down, heart pounding, trembling.

“Let it out, duschka,” a deep voice said in her ear. “Cry. I’m here to catch you.”

It was all she needed. With a wild moan, she buried her head against him and let go. She wept out her grief and her rage, her sorrow and her desperation. She wept for Harold, for the violence that was still stalking her, for the loss of her freedom. While she was at it, she wept for her mother’s immense sadness at being abandoned and for her own inability to find a place in the world that felt right. She wept for sorrows past, present and future.

She wept until there were no more tears, until she ran out of breath, until her throat ached with sadness. And then she wept some more. Grace had no idea so many tears were in her and it was only when no more came that she subsided against Drake’s wet, bare shoulder, eyes closed, dazed with the force of the tempest that had passed through her.

He’d held her all through it, without moving a muscle except for the slow beat of his heart, giving her the animal comfort of his body. She lay against him, spent, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat, feeling his even breath ruffle the hair on the top of her head. One huge hand covered the back of her head and one arm was around her waist, holding her just tightly enough to give comfort, without making her feel restrained.

Her eyes were swollen, her throat ached. She lay heavily against him, as if her skin could melt into his.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered in a soggy voice.

His hands tightened briefly. “Don’t apologize, duschka.” She had no idea what duschka meant but the tone made it unmistakably an endearment. “You can cry all you want. It is a world made for crying. You lost your friend.”

She rolled her forehead against his shoulder. It was like rubbing it against a warm rock. “Yes,” she said simply. “I lost Harold. I miss him so much.”

“I know you do.” He nodded. “And you lost your paintings in your home. Your beautiful paintings in the gallery. They’ll be gone by now.”

It was what she’d suspected. “Yes.”

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