“Call to your horseman,” he rasps, biting the back of my wounded shoulder.“Let him come out while I’m buried inside you.I have a lesson I’d like to teach him.”
I’m tempted.My hips are bruised from where he’s driving me into the desk, my cock is so painfully stiff, twitching with my rapid heartbeat, electric and throbbing with pure raw need.If I called to the horseman, perhaps he’d take me away from thispain.He might end up killing Crane in the process, but at least I wouldn’t be driven insane from his brutal thrusts with no release.
But before I can even think of letting the devil take over, I hear a sound from behind me, coming from the other side of the room, and a light breathy inhale.
Kat.
3
Kat
The room is too cold, too empty, too dark.The lone candle flickers and even though I keep lighting my fingertips on fire to give more light, it’s not enough and the use of this power drains me, making me feel more exhausted than I already am.There’s an uneasy feeling in this room too, an energy that doesn’t belong here.Perhaps it’s because of what Crane has told me about the ghosts of his late wife and the teacher, but there’s a sense of not being alone, like there are things watching me through an invisible wall, waiting for the right moment to come crawling out.
Then there are the sounds coming from the room next door, Crane’s room, where he’s keeping Brom.I know he told me to get some sleep, that he would take care of him, but from the floors and walls shaking, the cries and the thumps, it’s impossible to.
I want to know what’s happening.
Is Brom fighting off the horseman?
Has the horseman won and is he taking on Crane?
Is it Crane putting Brom in his place?
I know that Crane just saved Brom’s life with his healing magic, but he’s also the one who shot him and the rage he felt toward Brom was just as palpable as the sweet longing I saw between them.
Thoughsweet longingis a mild way of putting it.
The sight of my two lovers kissing and groping each other did something to me.It poked and prodded kindling inside me, stoking the flames, until what I felt for them was a mixture of jealousy, curiosity, and unrepentant desire.I don’t even know what to do with these feelings, what they mean.Both men seem so worldly when compared to me and I feel so terribly naïve, young, and sheltered.
Yet it thrilled me.Turned me on.Made me yearn for them not only individually but together.
But when I pushed my arousal aside, I was left with the truth.Truth and pain and bruises on my neck and blood on my head.
Because Brom hurt me.He hunted me down to kill me.And even though it wasn’t him when he said he’d put me in the grave, I still see his face over me, his dark eyes turning black.I fear him now when I shouldn’t, and I would do anything for that to go away.
I really thought he was going to murder me.Rape me and slay me and I don’t know when I’ll be able to shake that feeling.I hope soon.Because I don’t want to lose him as my friend, I don’t want him to stop being Brom to me.
And yet I already feel the distance, the panic that sweeps inwhen I think about him touching me.It scares me, saddens me, and makes me so glad that I have Crane to protect me, even though he’s protecting me against my own best friend.
There is still so much to sort through.The reason he left Sleepy Hollow to begin with.Pastor Ross?Why was Brom made to run while the pastor stayed around for at least another year?Why was the pastor not punished for his actions, an adult in that situation, when barely eighteen-year-old Brom had to leave?
And why didn’t he tell me?That’s what hurts most of all.He didn’t trust me with his truth.I would have understood.I wouldn’t have judged him.Why did he bed me, take my virginity, and then leave me to spend the next four years wondering if I was tainted goods?If I had done something to make him go?
Did he tell you?
I gasp and spin around on the bed, staring at the empty space behind me where I swear I heard a woman’s voice.My heart beats wildly in my chest and I press my fingers there, swallowing hard.I must have imagined that.
Did Ichabod tell you what he did?
Now the voice, which I can only assume is Crane’s late wife, is coming from in front of me.I whirl around as a cold breeze ruffles my hair, threatening to blow out the candle.
I’m not about to stay in here alone now.She might be a jealous spirit.
I get to my feet and hurry to the door, feeling this cold dark presence at my back like an oncoming storm, and I’m stepping out into the hall.It’s pitch black and I light my fingertip enough for me to find Crane’s door.
I open it and step inside his room.
And my mouth drops open.
