Page 17 of Incipient

8. A CASE OF YOU

I’d spent the better part of Sunday in bed, my body lapsing in and out of sleep as though it were working overtime to heal itself from Dominic’s surprise visit last night. Without a dose of his pick-me-up blood, I was having to heal the plain old way. Granted it was still much faster than your average human might heal, but not fast enough.

The throbbing ache in my heart, however, was going to take a lot more time to heal than just a full day’s rest. That wound was wide open and showed no signs of closing any time soon.

To my surprise, Trace had taken the day off work and came around to check on me every so often, offering food and hovering around the door with his dark brows knitted with unease, but he didn’t dare try to coax me out of bed to join the world of the living.

It was as though he knew I needed time to heal, inside and out.

By the time the sun had begun to set behind the tangle of ashen clouds, I had had just about all the sleep I could tolerate. My body tensed as the memory of last night materialized behind my eyes. Apart from using my body like a bag of blood, Dominic had also compelled me to meet him at the Manor tomorrow night, though I had no idea why he had chosen that night specifically.

Did he need time to work out the details of whatever he was planning to do to me?

Did he want to make sure that Trace had his guard down?

Or did he just want to torture me while I waited for the day to come, fruitlessly trying to come up with a plan of action to counter something I knew could not be resisted?

My pulse pounded hard in my throat as I sat there feeling weaker and more hopeless than I had ever felt in my entire existence. How was I going to find a way out of this, to wrangle myself a stay of execution when I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it?

A gentle knock rapped at the door as Trace poked his head inside the room, this time carrying a takeout bag from All Saints. “You hungry yet?” he asked, peering down at me, his expression half concern, and half hope, like this was the last trick he had up his sleeve to get me to eat. He held the bag up. “Chili cheese fries, wings, and mac and cheese.”

My stomach growled at the sight, sound and smell of it.

“You brought me comfort food?” I cooed, my eyes trailing the bag as he crossed the room and then set it down in front of me on the bed.

“There wasn’t anything edible in the house. I figured this was the next best thing.” He shrugged like it was nothing and then flopped down onto the bed in front of me, a gentle charge humming between us.

With my bottom lip between my teeth, I tore into the bag, pulling out each individually wrapped Styrofoam dish and setting them neatly in front of myself. I could almost taste the food on my tongue as I peeled back each lid and shoved the discarded coverings back into the takeout bag.

“Would you like to do the honors?” I asked as I held out the plastic fork to him.

Smiling, he shook his head. “I already ate.”

“Oh. Okay.”More for me then. I swooped my fork down into the dish and stabbed around at the chili cheese fries until I had an offensive amount on the end of my fork and then shoved it all into my mouth, sans etiquette.

Damn, that’s good!Peering up to thank him, I paused my chewing as I noticed he was just sitting there, staring at me with a slight smile playing on his lips.

“What?” I glanced down at myself. Had I dropped some on my shirt in my rush to get the food into my mouth?

“Nothing,” he said and then gave me a strange look. It was the kind of look you might give a lost puppy that you found abandoned in the cold, wet rain. “You’re hair…it’s cute.”

My free hand rushed up to my head as I smoothed my palm over my hair to verify the alleged ‘cuteness’ and then cringed as I felt a hugebird’s nesttype situation at the back of my head.Great.I had bed hair.Just perfect.

My cheeks flushed with heat as I combed my fingers through it without meeting his eyes. His quiet, husky laugh swept through the room, making me blush even harder.

Avoiding his eyes, I swapped my fork for the spoon and then dug into the mac and cheese.

“You want to talk about what happened yesterday?” he asked, his baritone voice taking on a serious edge.

I gave my head a quick shake and then took another bite, still not looking at him.

“How long are you going to keep letting him do this to you?”

Shame and guilt melded inside of me, turning my stomach around and eviscerating my appetite. I dropped my spoon into the dish and then pushed my plate away. “I don’t want to talk about this, Trace.”

“You mean you don’t want to talk about itwith me,” he guessed as he pushed the plate back in front of me.

“I mean Ican’ttalk about it.” I met his eyes and faltered. “I wish I could, but I can’t. Not yet.”

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