Fingers traced down her arm with absent affection but there was something almost mocking about the gesture. “Did you dream of me?”
She had told him that he haunted her nightmares, she realized. Which was true, because he did. What surprised her was that he remembered what she had told him. That he had bothered to care about what she said at all.
Even when he hadn’t had to.
“It’s this house,” she said. “I hate this house.”
“I know.”
“What happens now?” she asked desperately.
“Well, I imagine the good sheriff will be working hard to smooth over the edges left by my father’s and brother’s absences. There probably won’t be any more hunting festivals. At least, not for a while.”
“What about the money they bring in? Won’t that hurt the town?”
“Some things deserve to die.”
His voice was so fierce, so . . . angry, that there was no doubt as to what—or who—was really on his mind, or the pain that his thoughts were bringing him.
(Why wouldn’t the serpent consume its own tail when it got bored enough?)
Nadine reached for where his shoulder should have been, but when her fingers stretched out, she touched only air. He had gotten up from the bed. The mattress was lighter now, flipping her up from his departure. She could hear the scuff of his feet on the hardwood as he paced.
“What happens to me?” As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the shape of him: the gleam of light on his shoulder, a brief flash of the whites of his eyes.
“You.” He paused, standing above her, and made a harsh sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “Well, I imagine you’ll leave, Nadine. Now that there’s nothing to hold you back, that would be the wise thing to do.”
“But I can’t go back! Not to how things were before! My aunt—she loves me, but she doesn’tneedme. And my sister’s . . . gone. I don’t have anything else. I don’t haveanyoneelse!”
Only you, she thought, trying to hold back tears.You told me in the cellar that I had you.
“And what do you want from me, sparrow? Would you prefer a cage to your loneliness? Would you like to be like my mother, quaking in fear of the man who haunts her nightmares—and her bed?”
His voice, which had been rising, dropped to a whisper.
“When I came into your room that first time, I almost took you then. In your sleep. Defenseless. And I would have enjoyed it, Nadine. Just like I enjoyed hearing you scream when I bit your pretty neck. Tormenting you makes me hard—and so does the fear in your eyes when you run from me. Sometimes,” he went on, stepping closer, “I want you so much, I can’t fucking stand it.”
She shivered and he made another darkly amused noise.
“Is that the kind of man you want?”
“I want someone who wants me,” she whispered. “Whoneedsme.”
“Good,” he said coldly. “Find him and fuck him, then.”
“I want you.”
The bed sank as Cal leaned over her, his hands braced on either side of her body.
“And if I drag you into the woods?” he whispered. “And if I hurt you? If I hunt you?”
“You saved me,” she said. “You care aboutme, in your strange, twisted way.”
Because he did, she was sure of it. Sometimes when he looked at her, his eyes were almost soft. There had been moments when he was almost tender—the food plate at the wedding, the picnic with the ghost pipes, the way he’d laid his hand on her leg and consoled her in the car. If he had only wanted to hurt her, surely he wouldn’t have done all those things?
Unless he really,reallywanted to hurt you, her brain whispered.That’s how you do it.
Her heart gave a painful throb. Was he that cruel? Cruel enough to save her, just to deliver the killing blow himself?
