My face flushed as I realized I’d had another seizure. That car accident must have screwed me up—I’d never seized twice in one day. But I wasn’t about to admit my weakness to this stranger. I’d just let him wonder what had happened.
“You just stared back at me,” he continued slowly, and my heart began to beat faster. “And there was this vacant expression in your eyes, as if you weren’t seeing me at all.”
His long fingers brushed against my chin, tilting my face up to his. My skin crawled even as something in my chest tugged toward him—as if there was a rope that bound us, connecting me to him. “Such beautiful, golden-brown eyes,” he murmured. “I remember when you looked at me with love brimming in their depths, not fear.”
“Stop touching me.” The words burst from my lips, sharp like a whip crack. I couldn’t stand these strange feelings—the simultaneous longing and revulsion that pushed and pulled inside me. The touch of his hand only made it worse, made it harder for me to think. And the pain still throbbing in my rib cage wasn’t helping things.
His hand fell away, and I sighed with relief. But then he grabbed the front of my shirt and ripped the top two buttons open, sending them clattering to the floor.
“Hey!” I threw myself back in the chair as fear hit me hard. “Get off, you creep! I don’t want anything to do with you or Demonkin or whatever else is going on here!” The chair almost toppled to the ground, but he reached out with his other hand and steadied it. His hand stayed exactly where it was, unmoving and unflinching.
“They’re not Demonkin, dear. The Demonkin lords, much like the people you and I once served, felt they were above me. They felt they were beyond me. So, I found a different way of doing things, and I added them to the list of people who would pay for underestimating me.”
My heart jackhammered in my chest, and I waited for him to rip my shirt the rest of the way.
Stay calm, Arabella, I told myself. If he was going to rape me, he’d have to at least untie my legs at some point. That was when I’d attack.
But he didn’t rip my shirt the rest of the way. Instead, those long fingers traced the skin just above my collarbone. I knew what he was looking at—the strange, blotchy birthmark that covered the skin above my clavicles. Strangely, it began to burn and tingle, almost as if my body sensed the wrongness in this man, and was rejecting him.
“I knew it.” Shaking his hand, the Master stepped back. “I fucking knew it!” In what looked like agitation, he ran his fingers through his hair. He looked down at me, then up at the ceiling, and then back down again. “They tried to take you from me,” he said, his voice low with suppressed rage. “They knew you were the only one who could ever understand me. That as long as we were together, we were unstoppable. So they did what Sentinels always do.” His eyes burned. “They hurt others to get what they want.”
Slowly, the Master reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a golden chain. My eyes were drawn to the teardrop-shaped blue stone that swung from the end. As I stared, it began to glow. An ache began in my chest, as if there were something missing—a cavity I hadn’t known was there, but that desperately needed to be filled.
“They won’t win, Arabella,” he said softly, drawing my attention back to him. “Not this time. I still have a part of you, right here.” He tucked the chain back into his inner coat pocket, and I bit back a whimper of longing. I didn’t know why, but that gemstone was precious to me. I craved it with a desperation that didn’t make sense. I wasn’t really into flashy jewelry, and even if I was, I could always buy something just like that necklace from a jeweler. There was no good reason to want it as much as I did.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he said in a soothing voice. “I know you don’t understand what’s going on, but—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, finally regaining myself enough to speak. “I’m not your love, and I have no idea what the hell you’ve been going on about. You need to untie me now.” I fought to keep my voice even, to hide the fear vibrating in my chest. God, this guy was a madman. An absolute, raving lunatic. He kept prattling on as if we had a history, some kind of shared past, as if we knew each other—
“Of course you’re my love,” the man said in a matter-of-fact tone. “We’ve been lovers since our days at the academy, Arabella. But, of course, you wouldn’t remember that now, so I understand your reaction.” He cupped my cheeks with both hands, preventing me from flinching away. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to fix you, so that you can walk by my side again, as you were always meant to. The Sentinels may have reduced you to a shell, but it’s my fault you ended up this way.” His features settled into an expression of regret, even as his eyes burned with conviction. “My jealousy and anger got us into this mess. You were so strong, and look what you’ve been reduced to now.”
You’re crazy, I wanted to say to him. But that wouldn’t help anything. Lunatics rarely made sense, and it did no good to point that out to them. Even so, I couldn’t deny the strange feelings brewing in my chest, or the sense of familiarity that clung to me as I looked at him.
“Look,” I finally said. “I’d like to believe you, but I have no reason to. Your men kidnapped me, and you’ve got me tied up here like a prisoner. There’s no way you and I are going to have a rational conversation like this. You need to untie me, and then let me go. If you do it now, you might get out of this with a slap on the wrist.” A lie, of course, but it wasn’t necessary to be honest with a criminal when one’s life was in danger. That was Cop 101.
The man let out an incredulous laugh. “Are you talking about the police, Arabella? My God, but they really have done a number on you.” He threw up his hands. “Why do they think they can just play with people’s lives like this? Why do they think they know best?” He shook his head. “But that’s why you were so perfect, because you saw what I saw. You saw what they would never allow themselves to glimpse, for fear of stepping outside that stifling little box they’ve penned themselves into. And this is what happened to you as a result.”
He turned back to face me, and there was such pain in his eyes that, for a moment, I felt sorry for him. My chest ached as he lowered himself to his knees in front of me, reaching for my restraints. For one breathless second, I actually thought he was going to let me go. But instead, he brushed his hand against my ribs and began muttering under his breath. The words were guttural and utterly alien, and they sent shivers beneath my spine. That same harsh red light began to glow from his palm, and pain suddenly stabbed me in the side. I cried out from the force of it, but it subsided almost as quickly as it had come.
“There now,” he said, stepping back. There was a look of supreme satisfaction in his eyes as he regarded me. “Don’t you feel a little better now?”
I blinked, and then tentatively stretched my torso as much as my bound position would allow. My ribs still protested, but the pain was severely lessened, as if they were only bruised instead of broken. “What the hell? How did you do that?”
Lucas gave me a broad smile. “That was only a taste, Arabella.” He reached out to stroke a thumb across my cheekbone. “I can give you so much more, if only you would allow it. Let me help you,” he murmured, his breath brushing against my earlobe as he leaned in. “Let me bring you back, to show you what we could be like together.”
“If by ‘help me,’ you mean untying me and letting me go, I’m game.” I refused to let him see the longing that seared the inside of my chest at those words, a longing that made absolutely no sense. After all, I didn’t know this man. We had no past, and there was no reason I should desire to be with him. No reason for this strange longing. Besides, beneath the longing was a simmering hatred, an anger so deep and true that it brought me balance and kept me from giving in.
“Just let me go,” I said, desperation creeping into my voice. “You’ve obviously got me confused with someone else.”
“No, darling.” He pulled back, shaking his head, and there was that same deep sadness in his pale blue eyes. “You’re the one who has confused yourself with someone you’re not. But you won’t be, not for much longer.” His expression hardened. “You’re going to help me find the Infinity Key, so I can finish what we started. I’ll bring him back, Arabella, and your memories along with him. And then we’ll finally be together again.”
“This is ridiculous,” I snapped, tired of this circular, delusional conversation. I’d made the decision to ignore the little voice in the back of my head that whispered he might be right. Entertaining it would only prove I was just as crazy as he was, and I wasn’t. Right? “We’re not long-lost lovers, and you don’t know me. Stop pretending otherwise.”
“Darling,” he answered, straightening up to his full height. “I’m the only one whodoesknow you. But since we have to pretend we don’t know each other, at least for a little bit, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Lucas Moranius. Soon, you’ll say that name with all the love and trust that we used to share, instead of the revulsion and fear that you so misguidedly cling to.”
With that, he walked back out, leaving me alone but for a tangled mess of thoughts and emotions that I couldn’t begin to make sense of.
* * *
