She slid out of her cold, sweaty sheets. The storm was raging, rain spattering the old leaded glass. Her clit throbbed as she sat on the edge of the seat cushion, the cool glass seeping through the sleeve of her shirtdress like a ghostly hand to chill the skin beneath. “Fuck,” she whimpered, tilting her head back and slipping her hand into her underwear.
Her fingers were quickly coated. She had never been so wet in her life. She climaxed quickly, cheeks flushed, each hitch of her chest followed by a knifing breath.
It’s this house, she thought, closing her eyes.There’s something wrong with it.
Noelle must have felt it, too. Perhaps this was what the slow spiral into madness felt like. Tortured with dreams from a mind poisoned by rumor and suspicion.
(They’re killing all the sparrows.)
A creak in the hallway, just barely audible, made her open her eyes. As she stared disbelievingly into the darkness, she saw the doorhandle move with a quiet click.
She was off the window seat in seconds, searching the room for something heavy as she tugged her nightshirt back down to cover her butt. Her suitcase, she decided, gripping it. She was just strong enough to give it a desperate swing if she needed to.
“Is—is someone there?”
Silence stretched. She wasn’t sure what she might do if someone actually answered and said, ‘yes.’Yes, Nadine, I’ve been listening to you touch yourself here in the dark, and by the way, I have no eyes. Let me come in and play.
Her heart felt like a bird throwing itself against the cage of her ribs.Sparrow heart, she thought, breathing so hard now she thought she might faint. That was another fun part of the dream she’d forgotten. When Cal had pulled her heart out, it wasn’t a heart at all, but a dripping, blood-soaked ball of feathers.
There was a flash of lightning that made her jump so high, the suitcase came with her. The thud of it hitting the ground made her startle again.
She waited, and waited, but the doorhandle didn’t move again.
Nadine grabbed her candle from the dresser and tried to light it, but her hand was shaking so hard that it took her three times before the match finally sprouted flame. Clutching the candle to her breast, she unlocked the door and peered down both ways.
The hallway was empty.
But they know where to find me.
She wasn’t sure whotheywere, only that she no longer felt safe in the bridal suite. There had been three shadowy figures in the trees. Three Cullravens, all without eyes.
(There are eyes even in the shadows—and they see everything)
A dark suspicion too horrible to give words to was clinging to her skin like a sticky spiderweb, wrapping her up slowly in a nightmarish truth that would paralyze her with stinging venom if she let it. Because she was starting to wonder if maybe something evil really was happening inside of this house. She was being watched and someone had already tried to hurt her.
Maybe Noelle had found out what the evil thing was andthathad caused her to disappear.
I’m leaving, she decided, creeping down the stairs as quietly as a mouse.As soon as this storm is over, I’m leaving. I’m done. The police can handle this, because I can’t.
She almost went to the kitchen, but for some reason she went to the library instead. But someone had beaten her there—there were pale lights flickering over the flocked walls. Several tapers had been lit and placed in hurricane lanterns: two on an end table and one on the desk. And there, on the midnight blue settee she had admired on the day of Noelle’s wedding, was Cal, sipping what looked like a glass of rum as he turned the pages of a book on his lap.
He was relaxed and supine, and naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of black pajama bottoms that hung low on his chiseled hips. Drink had made his eyes heavy-lidded, and when they swept over her, she felt the burn of them like heated firewater on her skin.
“Hello, little sparrow.” He set the book facedown on the floor, leaning up to refill his glass. “Are you another shade come to torment me? You did promise me torture, after all.”
After his warning about sparrows, the nickname made her flinch. But his words left her breathless, and so did the tone they were delivered in.
She had never seen him without a shirt on. He was always buttoned into something dressy. Looking at him now, she realized just how much those clothes refined his image, because he looked wild, almost feral. Clearly he spent a lot of time shirtless in the sun, because his skin was tanned to a dark gold all over. Black hair rippled over his lean and sculpted chest, feathering around copper-colored nipples, with another, finer line of hair arrowing down from his navel, where it was framed by the deep grooves of his Adonis belt.
He was fucking beautiful and she had never been more terrified of a man in her life.
“Mm. What’s that look?” he asked, slinging an arm over the back of the sofa in a way that felt indecent. “I think I like it. Come here into the light so I can see it better.”
“That fairytale I know,” she said grimly, which made him throw back his head and laugh.
“I’m a raven, darling. Not a wolf. Though as far as you’re concerned, I suppose they are very much the same.”
Desire unspooled inside her when he raised the glass to the sharp bow of his lips and took a sip.
