Page 26 of Taken By Raider Kings
Not like it mattered, because Lucy was dead.
She had to spend two solid minutes jabbing the key at her door, because her eyes kept blurring.Her nose was full, but she could still smellhome,and that weird musky tinge was driving her out of her head.She needed another long hot shower, and for the first time she wished she kept some alcohol in the house.
A nip of something hard would go downreallynice right about now.
She flicked the light switches for the hall and living room without thinking.The door closed, shutting the world out, and she gave a long sobbing sigh, throwing the deadbolts from force of habit as well.It absolutely reeked of musk in here, and the smell reminded her of being pressed against the wall, Zach’s face close to hers, and his body heat making it difficult to think straight.
A light breeze touched her hair, and she flinched, almost running into the now securely locked door.
“Nice place,” he said in her ear.“A bit small, but okay.Smells like you.”
Sophie hitched in air to scream, but his hand clamped over her mouth.
“None of that,” Zach warned, softly.His breath was warm, and his other arm slid around her waist, pulled her away from the door.Her vinyl purse hit linoleum with a thump.“I’m not going to hurt you.But wearegoing to have a talk.”
Oh, holy shit, how did he find me?Every muscle in her body was rigid with shock.“Going to have a talk”was one of Marc’s favorite phrases.It usually meant,I’m going to yell, and eventually you’re going to cry, and if you’re lucky maybe I’ll only slap you a few times.But if you’re not, by God, we’re going to have atalkand before it’s through Sophie is going to bleed.
Her brain utterly failed, vapor-locking between memory and the terrible present.He dragged her into the living room, such as it was, and stood for a moment in the middle of the carpet, as if looking for a place to sit.There wasn’t anything except one old ratty armchair from a downstairs apartment’s moving sale, so he pushed her into its embrace, peeling his hand away from her mouth with a meaningful glare.
All her breath had dried up.He was unshaven, dark stubble ferocious on his cheeks, his eyes dark, live coals and his hair falling stubbornly across his forehead.He was even wearing the same clothes she’d last seen him in, plus a denim jacket spotted with sleet, and he moved with the same lynxlike grace.The jacket made his shoulders look absurdly broad.
He stood in the middle of her almost-empty living room, framed by the white wall, the van Gogh print Lucy had given her over his head like a halo.He was sotall;invisible anger-fumes filled up the room until she couldn’t breathe and started gasping, clutching at the chair-arms and staring until her eyes threatened to bug out of her head completely.
“Christ.”He made a swift movement and crouched, looking up at her.The sense of anger swirled away, like static draining from empty space.
It was odd, but as soon as he did that he seemed exponentially less scary.When he stretched out a hand to touch her knee and she flinched back he actually stopped cold, his hand hanging in midair.“That answers that question, I guess.Breathe, honey.It goes easier if you take in some oxygen.”
His tone—soft, conciliatory, like Marc’s after a particularly bad beating, when he was entering the repentant phase—surprised her.Most shocking was his hand falling back to his side.Zach just cocked his head and regarded her, going completely, inhumanly still.
The gasps faded, little by little, as she stared at him.Air began to fill her lungs again.Panic attack, and a bad one.No wonder.She concentrated on the mechanics of breathing, pushing the air out, taking it in with small sipping sounds.
“Nothing’s going to hurt you.”Quietly, his gaze holding hers.“I am not going to lay a hand on you unless it’s to keep you from doing something silly, and I won’t harm you.Ever.Are we absolutely clear on that?”
Her wrists ached, and her back, and the side of her head.The scab on her palm burned.He’dalreadyhurt her, hadn’t he?Still…
Agree.Let him think you’re all right with this.She nodded, tentatively.The landline phone was in the kitchen.If she could get to it somehow?—
“As a matter of fact,” her erstwhile kidnapper continued, “if your ex-husband—because I can tell from this apartment that he’s ex, you know—or anyone else tries to lay a hand on you, I’llfeedthat hand back to them.In little bleeding pieces.Understand?”
Jesus.How long has he been in here?Sophie managed another faint nod.The armchair creaked as she shifted, so she froze again.Her back gave a wrenching flare of pain, and her throat was so dry she doubted shecouldscream.Far more likely she’d simply produce a dry croak before strangling on more wine-dark terror.
“Now.”He settled farther into the crouch, became motionless again.“Let’s take it from the top.Why are thereupirwatching you?”
What?He means the vampires, right?She decided he had, indeed, said what she thought she’d heard.“I don’t—” Her voice was surprisingly steady, even if she did have to stop and clear her rusty, desiccated throat.“I don’t know.I don’t know what you want with me, either.”
“Okay.”He nodded, once, sharply.“Let’s cover that.We need you.I’m sorry, but there wasn’t… I couldn’t explain well enough before.You’re special, Sophie.You don’t know how special.Were things smelling strange to you today?”
How did he—?Her face must have betrayed her, because he nodded again.“And you’re tired.Triggering does that, eats up a lot of the body’s reserves.The biochemical changes are pretty intense.”He rocked slightly, shifting as if his own muscles were sore.“You’re going to need at least a month or two to adjust.”
What?“What are you going to do to me?”she whispered.
Amazingly, that made him smile.All the anger fled his expression, and his eyes actually lit up.It made him even more dangerously handsome, the stubble darkening his cheeks and his mouth softening just a bit conspiring to make him raffish instead of scary.“Well, first of all, I thought I’d feed you.You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
He sounded actuallycajoling,and her heart gave another wrenching thump.She was indeed starving; she hadn’t managed more than toast despite Margo’s magnanimously granted sandwich; the former had gone down the tubes this morning and the latter into a trash bin near her first class of the evening despite the waste of food.
She hated pastrami, even if she was starving.Sophie struggled to catch up with the last few minutes, failed miserably.“I… I don’t know.”
His head came up, twitching into a tilt.A quick inquiring movement, like a cat’s, and she flinched again.
