Page 29 of Exposing Adonis

My body still hummed from the thrill of my kills. Like a good hunt, it created a buzzing sensation in my head and a thirst on my tongue that no water could soothe. But maybe she could. I wanted to say her name and feel the sound of it on my lips, but with the current company, that would be unwise. But God, she could control a beast inside me with just the offering of her luscious body.

“Have any trouble?” I asked Leo, who clutched the steering wheel and glared past the windshield.

He grunted, as his right hand moved the gear shift and we bumped down the dusty road.

“A man of few words.” What had my friend so agitated? Shouldn’t he be happy that we’d successfully rescued Chloe? I tried to keep things light, the tension in the vehicle as heavy as a foul mist. “I like it. You and Hugo can have long, absolutely silent conversation together.”

I turned to the backseat. Chloe squeezed herself into a tight ball, her hands covering her head. She had her white medical scrubs with the Bass Medical Tech logo emblazoned on the pocket. It was the same thing she had on the day she failed to evacuate the camp. Now it was covered in dirt, wrinkled, and as battered as she was. With her face covered, her head was a mass of matted, uncombed chocolate ringlet curls.

“Hey Cabbage,” I turned in my seat, and reached a hand toward her, grabbing a ringlet curl that covered her face and flipped it back. “You alright?”

Her arms lowered slowly. First one eye, then another peeked from behind her hands. Then she lowered her hands to the seat, blinking at me as if she expected me to disappear.

What I saw broke my heart. Her cheek was red and swollen. Her bottom lip was thick, and cut. Maybe from a blow, but it could just as easily be because they never gave her water, and the dry skin of her lip naturally peeled apart. Either made my blood boil. What bastard thought they had the right to treat our Chloe like that?

I stopped a scowl from crossing my face, though I wanted to batter my fist into my seat.

“Cally?” She said in a tiny whisper, sounding so much like the six-year-old girl in a plaid skirt, standing at my dorm room door with a teddy bear in her hand. She was the little girl who had been dropped off by a chauffeur, no family in sight, and handed to the headmaster with rolling luggage that was as big as she was. The child who was begging for a bit of comfort, and a sense of family.

We were alike in that way.

“Yeah, Cabbage,” I tried to sound calm, but the bruise on her cheek made me want to break the window. “You okay?”

She wasn’t okay. There were red marks on her wrists, probably from zip-ties that were pulled too tight. Or, more likely, ties she had struggled against. She brought her hands down, then looked sideways at the driver’s seat, looking suspiciously at the back of Leo’s head.

As if Leo could feel it, his hand tightened on the steering wheel, curling away from him, and testing the leather.

“He’s with you?” she asked, tentatively. Her Parisian accent shining through. She had never been able to lose it after all these years. Much like Geordie hadn’t lost his Scottish accent. In fact, being a chocolatier made them hold onto it like a security blanket, thickening it for a piece of their identity.

“Leo?” I said, trying to smile. Despite a medical degree and numerous accomplishments in science, she’d always be a kid with daisies in her hair. “We’re best friends now!”

Leo snorted in response, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

She glared at him, her eyes turning molten, and her fingers clutching at the fabric of the seat. She frowned, crinkling her nose. What had he done to her?

“Did something happen?” I asked, glaring into the side of Leo’s face where an angry muscle ticked in his jaw. “Did he do something?”

I said it as a threat. If he did something untoward, I’d end him right here and explain it to Lea later. After I disposed of his body.

Chloe shook her head, but I couldn’t be sure if that was the truth or if she was scared of him. Though, the latter seemed improbable. Her face didn’t scream fear. No, it was more like bitterness. Resentment.

I had seen that face a dozen times on Pippa each time I refused to pick a date for the wedding.

“We’ll explore that a little bit later, Cabbage.” It was easy to resort to her childhood nickname. As the youngest boarder at St. Michael’s, Pippa had taken to calling her the endearment,petit chou.Little Cabbage. She was still small in stature now, and the nickname stuck. “How are you physically?”

She sat up in the seat, coming to the split between the front seats, leaning over the center console. Her hands came onto my backrest, where a missing headrest would have been. She placed her chin in the space between her left thumb and index finger. Her forehead was close to mine when she said in a faint voice, “He had to relocate my shoulder. I think it’s fine. I sprained my ankle though. Stupid, I know. It happened when I was just getting up.”

She blushed, as if her admitting this would somehow disappoint me. Poor thing had never gotten over looking at me like I was a big brother. Maybe even a father. It was a role I gladly played.

“You were tied down in the same position for days. You had no blood circulating to your legs,” Leo ground through his teeth. “I was surprised I didn’t have to carry you out.”

She looked at him, and a flash of gratitude came over her features, before she blinked and shook it away.

“A-t-il toujours travaillé pour vous?” She asked, in French.Has he always worked for you?

I chuckled. “He can understand French, Cabbage.”

She looked upset. “What about German?”

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