Page 105 of The Hunter
“I know.” Dorshaw chuckled again. “There are many things that Argent and I have in common, other than our taste in women, of course. One of which is that our work keeps us so busy, we don’t have the time to properly woo a woman. And, when there’s competition for the affections of the lady we desire, things become so much more complicated, and so we must take matters into our own hands.”
Millie gathered her courage, looked him in the eyes, and asked the question she knew she didn’t want the answer to. “What do you mean?”
The cold bite of steel pressed against the base of her throat, and dragged lower, slicing through the gauzy fabric at her neck and chest, to dip in between her cleavage.
Millie stopped breathing.
“You’ve stolen the heart right out of my chest, Millicent LeCour.” Dorshaw’s eyes burned with earnest intensity. “My only recourse is to return the favor.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Millie let anger drown her panic. She must stay angry if she was going to remain alive. Fear made her weak and reckless and muddled her thoughts.
“Argent is coming for me,” she lied. “He’ll find you.”
“I have no doubt he’s looking for you.” Dorshaw’s scalpel pressed against her breast, not hard enough to break the skin, but with just the right amount of pressure to let her know that he was a master of this blade.
Some of Millie’s anger gave way to the panic she desperately tried to smother.
“No one will find you down here. No one ever does.” Dorshaw traced the outline of the tops of her breasts with the scalpel, the lace giving way beneath the blade. Millie would never forget the sound of fabric cut by a surgery knife. “You belong to me. Don’t you see? I’vewonyou. Body, heart, and soul. You’ll become a part of me.” He pressed an ear to her breast, listening to her heart, and Millie had to stop herself from tossing the contents of her stomach all over him.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to my body, you’llneverhave my heart,” she vowed. “It belongs to my son.” The other bits were tattered by a man more lethal than this one but not even half as mad. “And my soul is my own.”
“But is it, though?” Seizing her sliced décolletage, Dorshaw ripped it away, baring her corset. “I’ve learned that a mother’s love is an extraordinary thing. Almost superhuman in nature. Mothers are stronger, more desperate to live, more accustomed to pain and fear and worry.” He leaned in, pressing his mouth to her ear. “They’re so much harder to break than other women. Take your friend, for instance, dear Agnes. She fought like an animal. She called Jakub’s name up until the end, you know.”
“You beast!” Millie screamed. A ball of something dark and heavy expanded behind her ribs. It gripped her in its clutches, brushing all fear and reason aside. “You bloody wretch!” She spat at him. Hoping he’d hit her. Wishing he’d do something to break her out of this near-hysterical rage. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done to her. I vow it. If I have to come back and haunt you, if I have to trade my soul to the devil, so be it! I will have vengeance for her life. And mine.”
He was hard; she could see it through his trousers. His breaths were labored and his eyes bright, and his hands trembled. He wiped her spittle from his cheek with his free hand and then licked his palm.
Millie gagged.
“Look what you do to me.” He held up his tremulous scalpel and made a sound of disbelief. “You are certainly not like the others. You’re special, Millie LeCour. How bored you’d have been with Argent. He’s such a cold fish. Such a wounded bird. But you and I, we’re alike. We’re creatures of life, of passion, of expression and experience. I’ve never wanted a woman while she was still alive. Not like—” Swallowing hard, he turned from her then, and Millie immediately began a succession of desperate movements as he rummaged through his satchel, this time producing some sort of clamp that could only be used to pry something delicate open and hold it there.
Millie’s movements became more frenzied as she struggled and swayed. No matter what happened down here, he wasnotcoming near her with that thing. If she wasn’t surviving this, she wasn’t lingering, either. She wouldn’t be fodder for his sick amusement. She’d fight him to the last. She’dratherbe dead while he carried out whatever indignities he had planned for her.
He picked certain instruments, inspected them, and set them on the edge of the table. “I wonder, my love, how much pain do you think you can take before you offer your heart to me? How much fear and horror can you behold until you’re bartering your soul? As much as a mother who’s borne her child in her own body? Is there a difference with a surrogate?”
The first bolt gave, and Millie rattled her chains to cover the sound, in the guise of a fruitless feminine struggle. “You’ll never know, you evil monster.”
He paused, and for a breathless moment, Millie thought he would turn around and put a stop to her struggles. But he resumed his work, organizing unneeded tools in his satchel. “Evil monster? Am I, though? Is there such a thing as evil?”
She actually paused to gape at him. “Youmurderpeople. For money, for pleasure. You take their lives from them, from the people they love.”
“Yes, but doesn’t your lover also do that?”
He had her there.
“He doesn’t delight in their pain. He doesn’t do these… these sick experiments.”
“Argent has never delighted in anything. God, he’s such a yawn.” Dorshaw snapped his satchel shut and strolled to the corner to stow it in its hiding place. “I would say that making love to him must have been like swiving a corpse, but the simile would be inappropriate considering my specific proclivities.”
He glanced back at her after putting the satchel where it belonged, and Millie froze as she captured his gaze with her own.
“If you think of it in these terms, I’m really not so bad.” He smiled encouragingly. “I’ve killed a few dozen people in my lifetime. Maybe a hundred. More than some, less than Argent. But do you know who can claim more casualties than even us?”
Millie shook her head, desperately trying not to glance upward, and praying he wouldn’t, either.
“The queen, for one,” he said smugly. “Pretty much any regimental soldier. An executioner for the crown. I met men in America who almost single-handedly slaughtered entire villages of native women and children. Beat and raped and burned them all, and other men bought them drinks in the taverns. ButI’mevil?” Shaking his head, he gave a sigh of disbelief. “I think of myself as more akin to a predator in the wild. In order for me to survive, there must be casualties. But I don’t take more than is needed. I’m not at all greedy.” Turning, he crouched down and lifted the stone that would seal his satchel back away.
