He’s so fast, I barely register the sting in the side of my neck until the burn of whatever he’d injected me with slips through my veins.
I stumble the moment the room rushes around me, the edges of my vision instantly darkening. It feels like slowly slipping under the water, allowing it to rush over you and steal your senses one by one until there’s nothing left.
Like drowning. Christian Cross feels like drowning.
“Chri-chri—”
I can’t get the words out. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. The world rushes around me, the ground tilting on its axis underneath me, and I sway, nearly crashing to the floor.
Christian catches me, arm around my waist, and walks me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed behind me. I don’t even realize I’m lying on my back until his eyes are over mine, consuming me.
The old, familiar scent of him washes over me.
Leather, whiskey and the forest mixed with that little bit of something mouthwatering that’s completely him.
What used to mean safety now means sure death at the hands of the only man I’ve ever loved.
How egregiously poetic.
“Shhh . . .” he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of my face. I blink up at him through the tears in my eyes, his gaze consuming me. My voice gets caught in my throat, and I can feel myself sinking into the bed beneath me. “Let it all go, sweetheart.”
He’s here to make me pay for what I did to him.
Tears slip out of the corners of my eyes, and I fight the poison slipping through my veins with everything I’ve got, but it’s no use. I can’t move. All I can do is feel him as the darkness carries me away.
“I told you I would find you, Mila,” he murmurs, brushing a loose curl from my forehead. His eyes are darkly deranged. Maddeningly handsome but so chillingly calm it steals my breath away. Or maybe that’s just the drugs he injected me with. “There’s not a corner of this earth where you’ll ever be able to hide from me.”
Then everything fades to black.
I’m dead.
That’s the only explanation for the splitting migraine radiating through my temples.
My head feels like it was split right down the center, and when I open my eyes, it throbs even worse.
What the fuck happened?
The pain is the only thing that tells me I somehow managed to survive, and judging by the fact that I’m no longer staring at a stain on the ceiling that looks like Bob Marley, like the one at the motel, I’d say last night wasn’t just some crazy-realistic dream.
Which . . . can only mean one thing.
I wiggle my hands and toes as the blood spreads through them. My legs and back are sore, like I haven’t moved in days, and my mouth is dry like I’ve been sucking on sawdust.
My eyes water as I take in the rough timber ceiling, the soft, warm glow of a lamp on the nightstand, and the antique quilt covering me.
Was I kidnapped by Christian Cross, my former bodyguard and love of my life, or someone’s sweet little grandma?
Somehow, I sit up, gazing around what can only be described as some kind of cabin straight out of a fantasy novel.
I’m in a bedroom I don’t recognize, surrounded by the softest sheets I’ve ever felt before. Outside, the wind howls, and one glance at the window shows me it’s pitch black with darkness.
Which brings me to my next problem.
Hefound me.
Not the one I was expecting, buthim.
And now I’m fucked.