Page 32 of All Saints Day
There is only a split second for me to be concerned for Caz. In the blink of an eye, I am swept away down the mating bond—my lungs on fire with the need for air; Frank’s horrible face filling my vision along with a rush of sweet oxygen.
No, not Frank—Rook.
The name is new to me—but just as surely as Louise knows the name, so do I.
Along with the name, all sorts of new information begins to flood the bond; Frank has split himself into different men. Louise isn’t sure how many lie beneath the shattered surface of Francis Stone, but he most certainly isn’t alone in his own mind.
It’s this Rook, not Frank, who tortures her now—dropping Louise, weighted like a stone; hands and ankles tied, into a tank of frigid water.
Vaguely, I can tell that I’m not actually the one being tortured. Somewhere far away, my body knows that I’m merely writhing on the wooden deck in the woods of Vermont, instead of being pushed to the edge of drowning; but only just.
“You know—we talk all about the carrot and the stick when it comes to encouragement and punishment, perhaps you need less the stick and more the carrot right around now, hmm Louise?” Rook, Frank—whichever monster he is, purrs low and dangerous as I feel Louise’s panic and arousal shoot down the matingbond.
I feel Caz and Seb as their own horror and panic builds—the three of us able to feel the fires of Louise’s libidinous need stoked by the wild flame of the suppressant melters in conjunction with her coursing adrenaline.
“Too bad you don’t have anything I want.” I hear the words as if I’m speaking them, pride swelling in my heart that Louise can put up this much of a fight after so long.
“Liar,” Rook seethes—reaching out to grab Louise.
The tears seep through hot and salty even though my eyes are still pressed shut. The feeling of Frank’s lips against Louise’s sings out to the bond in all of us, tragic and brimming with bittersweet pain.
The look on Rook’s face as he recoils from Louise as if she were a red-hot poking iron lets all of us know that he has glimpsed the bond between himself and Louise—between all of us. An inconvenient and painful truth.
There’s another spike of wild adrenaline and panic that spreads like wildfire between Caz, Sébastien, and I, then the connection to Louise sputters out into the static silence of unconsciousness.
When I surface from the episode—Dennis kneels over me, his sea-glass green eyes searching my face for any sign of my return to the present time and place.
My eyes dart beyond him to find Seb—already on his knees with a bleary-eyed Caz propped up in Seb’s lap as he whimpers weakly through thready tears.
“Hey Q, you back with us?” Dennis croons softly, snaking a hand around the back of my neck to cradle the crown of my head. He uses his considerable strength to sit me up, sliding in behind me to help prop me upright, his fingers gingerly testing the pulse at my neck as he allows me to lean into him with my full weight.
“I think so,” I grit out, my head still spinning.
“Caz, Sébastien—are you two okay?” Dennis calls to the others, his voice still soft, but underscored with urgency.
“I’m alright. I’ll be fine,” Seb answers dismissivelybefore continuing. “Caz is in rough shape, Q—can you help me get him to the bed?”
I want to say yes, but my muscles are still traitors—my legs like jello and my heart beating so erratically that I struggle to breathe properly.
Dennis takes one look at me before he begins to shift—settling me forward so that I sit upright under my own power.
“Hey, you good? I can go get Caz.” Dennis pats my shoulder, waiting for confirmation before springing into action.
As soon as I give him a nod, Dennis is on his feet—helping the wobbly Sébastien to heft the stricken Caz from his place rag-dolled on the floor.
Together, they lift Caz—his body strung between them limply as they rush him to the bedroom, lying him down in the sheets just outside my view.
Slowly, I roll up onto my hands and knees—the room spinning slightly as I wobble unsteadily to my feet.
I can’t tell how long we’d been under. With the intensity, it could have been seconds—it could have been hours; it was impossible for me to say.
Outside the large windows, the sun hangs high in the sky—my senses struggling to reconcile the reality of the here and now after our momentary resonant connection with Louise down the bond.
There was so much to take in; Frank—the split Louise had witnessed between Frank and this ‘Rook.’
There was also the matter of the suppressant melters, Louise’s pending heat, and the troubling promise that Susan Lowry had made to Louise in light of the pending release of a modified version of the Zeitnot virus.
I struggle to put one foot in front of the other on my way to the bedroom; Dennis leaping up from his place at the edge of the bed to assist me as soon as he catches my pathetic staggering gait out of the corner of his eye.
