He grunts as his back slams against the ground and instinctively I roll off him. But he anticipates the move, shifting his hips to roll with me and my back slams onto the ground instead. He moves over me, his weight pinning me, even as I try to scramble out from under him. He grabs my wrist, trapping it against the ground above my head. Then he grabs the other, placing it in the same hold. Panic floods through me as I buck and roll and fight, but it’s hopeless, nothing works.
But I refuse to give in, even when I realise that it’s not a gun in his pocket pressing into my inner thigh. I continue trying to throw him off me, increasingly conscious that those movements are only serving to arouse him more and more. I try to bring my knee up, determined not to make his conquest of me easy. But he barely makes a move before I’ve exhausted myself and my body grows still, trapped beneath his, my movements subdued, limited to the rapid rise and fall of my chest. The ground is cold underneath me, leaching the last remaining heat from my skin.
‘Please,’ I whisper when he pulls back. His erection presses into my core, and I move against it, seeking… something. I writhe underneath him, cursing my body for always responding to his in ways that I find confusing and arousing.
‘Please, what?’ he asks. ‘What is it that you want?’
I try to find an answer. What do I want? Right here, right now, I want him. He’s proven himself in the most primal way, chased me down and captured me and now I want him to take me, make me his. Forever. But I shouldn’t want that.
‘Earlier… I would have let you… But you didn’t. And now… Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die,’ I say instead.
His expression hardens. What did he think I was going to say? That I wanted him to fuck me? Just saying the crude words in my head reminds me that we don’t see this act in the same way.
‘That’s it? Your only request?’
I nod and he tightens his grip on my wrists. I whimper as the welts reopen, covering his fingers with fresh blood.
‘So, I can do anything else I want to you, so long as I don’t kill you?’
‘Y-yes.’ Why does that sound so much more like a promise than threat?
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do,’ I whisper. Maybe I do mean it. I’ve kissed other guys over the years, but each and every one of them has simply disappeared out of my life as soon as things looked like they might go further. Not that any other man has ever made me want this the way Cillian does. But how can I want him to do that when he brought me out to kill me? Maybe in my own way, I’m just as messed up as he is. I stare up at him, and he gazes down at me confusion in his eyes.
‘Niamh,’ he whispers. ‘I want you just like this. Scared and restrained so I can do whatever I want to you– your pain bringing me pleasure. That isn’t something you should want.’
‘Why do you get to decide what I want?’ I glare up at him. ‘My mother told me to stay away from you. And Rose. That people like you were different.’
He looks at me for a moment, then laughs.
‘And how right she was.’
‘But what I want, that’s my choice to make, not anyone else’s.’ I shift my hips against his erection, his groan making me feel powerful despite the way he’s restraining me. He bends his head to trail a line of kisses from my ear along my jawline. I shiver, pressing closer to him. Our lips meet again, hungrier than before, our hands tearing and pulling at clothing, seeking out bare flesh to touch.
I part my legs, and he pulls my knee up so that he can nestle more easily between my thighs. He gazes down at me as he slowly, methodically grinds himself against me. Those shadowy antlers are visible again like some kind of aura around his head.
‘Who are you?’ I manage to ask between breaths. This can’t be real. Slowly, I pull one hand from his grasp and lift it to brush my fingers through the place where the antlers seem to be. They brush against a solid surface. Impossible. It’s the drugs or my exhaustion or else this really is a dream. ‘What… what are you?’
‘Niamh?’ He sits back on his heels and takes my hands in his, pulling me up. Movement draws my attention to his wrist, and I watch as the tattoo of the snake takes form beneath my fingers, writhing around before the head and upper body twist around my finger and it hisses at me, baring its fangs, and then strikes. I yank my arms out of his hold and scream.
What the actual hell?
Cillian jerks in surprise, the serpent disappearing back into the flat ink of the tattoo as we stare at it. He moves backa little, and as his weight lifts, my adrenaline surges and I kick my foot up as hard as I can, not caring where it lands. His face creases in pain and a strangled ‘oof’ escapes his lips. Then I’m rolling out from under him and scrambling away. Off and running again. And this time, I’m determined not to let him catch me.
The feel of the serpent coiling its head around my finger. The pain radiating from the two puncture wounds. What the hell is he? Or is it me? Am I the one going mad? I keep running and as I run, I send up a brief prayer to St Jude– he loves a lost cause.
Chapter14
Cillian
‘Ugh.’ I roll over, agony radiating out from where she kicked me. Fuck, I was utterly unprepared for that. I didn’t even consider she’d have the strength, so it’s going to take me a few moments to recover. As I wait for the pain to subside, I study my tattoos. The serpent on my left wrist and the tattoo of Cernunnos on my chest were completed when I took over as head of my Kin– alongside the hunting horn on my other arm. They mark a sign of leadership and power, and the pigmentation is so strong because it’s made from plants found only in the Underworld.
But why and how did the serpent embody like that? It’s never come alive before. And it certainly shouldn’t have been able to bite a human. But the way Niamh stared at it earlier, she definitely saw something, and that should just not be possible– unless she’s been consuming large quantities of?—
‘Fuck,’ I mutter, realising she and Rose had been drinking all night and if Niamh has consumed large quantities of Stox, together with whatever drug– possibly one from the Underworld– that her attackers gave her, it might explain why theGuth Dorchadidn’t work, why she seems to be sensing more, seeing more, than I would expect a human to. Or maybe I’m clutching at straws right now, trying to come up with reasons as to why she deserves to be saved. She’s defying all my expectations, maybe she could have a chance. Could I take her through to the Underworld, lead her to St Marnox and give her the words she needs to claim sanctuary?
By the time I’m back on my feet, Niamh has crossed the clearing and reached the edge of the forest on the opposite side. She disappears into the dense treeline as I pick up my pace again, determined to find her once more. There are thin places nearby, and Kinfolk only heard of in myths and legends are ready to trap and kill the unwary who wander through them and I’m now convinced that if any human is going to find one and be capable of stepping through, it’ll be Niamh.
