No.
“Hello, little sparrow.”
She was tied to a chair and Cal was standing over her, looking, if not pleased by her current state then certainly not very sorry.
Oh god, it was all coming back to her now—the green book, the murders, the talk of deer and sparrows. And then she had gone to the sheriff in spite of the niggling doubts reminding her that Rael and Cal were friends, that Ephraim had been in the employ of the original Caledon. But the road was out and she had no choice, and thenGideonhad stuck her in the neck with a needle full of God-knows-what and now she was—here. Withhim.
“Am I—dying?”
“No, Nadine. Despite your best efforts, you’re still very much alive.”
He was wearing jeans but no shirt, and that scared her almost as much as waking up in this chair did, because if he’d had the time to tie her up, he could have also bothered to fucking dress himself.
Maybe he didn’t want to get blood on his clothes.
Her eyes swept desperately around the room. He had a fire going in the grate and while there were no hot irons waiting there, there was an unpleasant smell coming from it that reminded her of burning hair.
She jerked again, kicking a little in case he got too close. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing.” He seemed surprised, even offended, that she would ask. Maybe it really didn’t make sense in his mind, she thought hysterically. What was the fun in toying with something that only looked half-alive? “I’m not sure what you were trying to accomplish, though,” he mused. “Running through town like that. Making wild accusations. I warned you about your sister.”
“They weretrueaccusations,” she said through her teeth.
“Nadine.” He drew a gentle fingertip down her arm. It made her nipples pucker, even as she tried to shy away. “If you really want to find out what happened to Noelle, I’ll show you. But you’re going to have to give me something in return.”
“Like what,” she said, but it came out garbled. She knew like what. His eyes had drifted to her breasts and she could see a bulge in the front of his jeans. “Like what?’ she repeated, terrified.
“We’ll come back to that,” he said. “First, let me tell you a story.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“But you know part of it already, darling. That’s right,” he said, when she went still. “You read it in the journal.”
“No.”
“Caledon Cullraven was a jaded and dissolute man who believed life wasn’t worth living if you didn’t burn it at both ends. The dictates of the Victorian uppercrust had no appeal for him and he left his home of England to come here, to the very edges of the mountainous California wilderness: a place where he could live as he wished,howhe wished. Which is how our story begins, because none of it was ever enough. He grew bored again until, for the very first time in his life, he felt something close to the passion that he had always secretly craved.”
“Murder.”
Cal gave her the sort of quelling look a teacher might give a disruptive student. “He was a gentleman, so he gave them a choice. He always gave them a knife. Even deer have antlers. He told them if they survived the night, they could live in peace. But they didn’t survive, Nadine. Ever. Because he was very, very good at what he did.
“When he married his second wife, he told her how much he loved the killing and the blood. He said it filled him with vigor and made him feel like he was a god. God, that power. It was more addictive than opium and infinitely more illicit, but that only gave it a flavor that was all the more suited for his perverse tastes. So he gave her a choice, too. She could keep her silence and fuck him when his blood was up, and for her, the hunt would be bloodless. Or she could try her luck in the woods, and see if she could outlast him.”
Her eyes snapped up to his. “Outlast . . . him?”
“In a fight for survival. To the death,” he added dispassionately.
Nadine cringed back against the chair when she looked at him, seeing all those hard, lean lines not for their beauty, but, for the first time, as the streamlined edges of a ruthlessly maintained weapon. A fight for survival.
(sometimes they turn on each other)
Was that whatthiswas? Was he going to make her fight him?
“The sparrows—” she choked, feeling as if she were drowning in his eyes. “Oh god, they’re . . . they’re women, aren’t they? So—what, y-you’re going to kill me in the woods?”
“Sparrows get to choose, Nadine.” He ran a finger up her throat. Tracing the bite he’d left, she realized sickly; it seemed to fascinate him, because his eyes didn’t leave it. “For you, it doesn’t have to be destruction. Evangeline Cullraven was the very first sparrow. She saved herself.”
“Because she married a psychopath. Why doyoudo it?”
