“Are you afraid?”
More raised brow, then, “Yes.”
“For you? I know it’s not –”
“No. For you. For you. Always for you. The doctor smells bad.”
“Uhhh. Okay.” Off with the fairies again. “You can’t smell someone you haven’t met.”
“Why should I go?”
Because you’re barely you anymore, Grimm. I’m losing you. My own brows knitted as the worry percolated. I want to save you, not that animal I see growing inside your head.
How crazy could he go before it was irrevocable?
I decided to try a different tack.
“How much can you remember of Australia? Do you remember the park? How you helped me get rid of Reuben?”
“Yes. I do.”
“You could think better then. I liked you more then. I want you back, Grimm.”
My eyes betrayed me and I began to weep. I dabbed my face with the back of my hand. My chest tightened and I distracted myself. I should leave the bandage off soon. The holes were small. The redness gone.
“You liked me more?” His breathing roughened. “I can think better than I say. I do remember.”
That was news. Welcome news. And yet he behaved differently too. Maybe he was ignorant of what he’d become? It was a puzzle. One I wanted gone.
“Do you remember vowing to help me when we were with Einar and Kaage?”
He nodded, his face stern, and I was sure those memories were bad ones...mostly.
“You vowed to help me, to be my knight in bloody armor, no matter what happened.”
“Yes. I am still your knight.”
Said so clearly too. I perked up, smiling, sitting straighter. “You helped me, saying that.”
“Good. Then you shot me.” He put his hand on his chest. “I know why. I killed your friend. I am sorry.”
“Yes.” I closed my eyes, reliving that flash of a scene. It was inevitable. Every single time. “Yes. I forgave you.”
“I remember.”
Sadly, I wasn’t sure he would remember it tomorrow.
Recovering from brain injuries was never simple. Even I knew that. We had to get rid of the cause and then see if he could recover. Now I knew why cancer sufferers went to Mexico for quack cures – because hope was an essential. No one could live without hope, or not for long.
And yet he wouldn’t leave.
I needed to keep him thinking, exercising his brain, until I found a way to get him to come with me.
“Can you tell me some stories? About your life?”
He looked thoughtful. “Not a creature was stirring, and all through the night...”
Christmas lyrics? I rummaged in my own memories for the rest. He had it back to front.
That seemed bad, though lyrics were not my strong point either.
“Do you remember the days travelling north, up the coast of Queensland?”
We went through memory after memory and I ended up with his head in my lap while we talked. Heads are damn heavy but I didn’t mind. Without the strange setting and the chain around my ankle, we might have been ordinary lovers. I ran my fingers over his face and through his hair – the curls were growing longer – and I imagined us as an old married couple doing this, laughing about how silly we had once been when young.
A cliché of sorts.
My heart ached with the possibilities.
The next morning he brought me little yellow flowers. Daisies of some variety, gathered from the forest. They lay scattered on his palm, crushed, reminding me of other times he’d given me flowers – at the park, after the sadistic chess game. It was Grimm’s signature move, his way of showing happiness or maybe love?
With the chain in hand, that he’d freed from beneath the huge block he used to anchor it, he went for a walk through the forest with me by his side, his poorly trained bitch.
I almost wondered if Tarzan would come swinging from the trees, or a witch with a gingerbread cottage. Now that would be something.
The chain looped and slithered along behind us, between us, like a metal snake that’d adopted us. Perhaps it would scare off the real snakes and the rats and whatever else rustled in the bushes.
A solution came to me. What if I escaped and brought the doctor to Grimm? If I did, I should contact Mavros too. He might have advice, ideas, provided he hadn’t given up on us. There was a thought. He might have given up. Grimm had punched him unconscious then we’d vanished. I wouldn’t blame him, though I really hoped not.
He was insufferably conceited and self-serving, but if he simply walked away from us, there’d be a hole left. I would feel his absence.
This was all so conjectural. Right now I had enough to worry about.
Chapter 25
Mavros
Lazing around a swimming pool in swimming trunks getting sunburnt wasn’t where I should be. Nevertheless the bikini bodies were a sight for any man to enjoy. I shaded my eyes. Sunglasses weren’t enough, even with the palm tree leaves above me. Only one susceptible woman and she was a waitress for the island bar that sat in the middle of the square pool.
Getting her to strip off to her underwear and perform for me was probably a bad idea. Perhaps my room, after her job hours ended?
It held little allure. Yet her ass was big, her figure elegant and stunning, and she would be willing.
I sipped from the strange cocktail I’d ordered. A black crocodile?
If I didn’t want this woman, I must be sick.
I turned that over. I’d changed. Maybe this was what any mesmer would do after he’d worn out a few hundred women.
Zorie was more interesting. More...different. I squirmed into a better position on the white and gold pool lounge. More of a challenge. Getting a susceptible woman to suck my dick until her lips were sore, or ride it until her thighs burned from the exercise – simple, every day. Getting Zorie to do it required some finesse, or perhaps a second mesmer like Grimm, and if she grew unhappy with me, there might even be some knife dodging involved.
Yes, Zorie was more interesting.
Which was why I was going to all this effort to find them.
Even Grimm.
I’d had time to simmer down. What he’d done to her wasn’t him. It was the mesmer in him and that was partly my fault. It might have been the severity of the situation that’d set him off. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt until I found them. He’d reached Zorie first and killed those five men because saving her was his primary focus, his driving need.
I’d talk to him, listen, before I did something drastic and irreversible.
The tracker in Zorie’s tooth hadn’t fed back location info for days.
The iPhone was still with my IT man in Spain and was giving him headaches, though he had a friend of a friend who might have a back-door solution. Just the term – back door – had amused me.
All I knew was that they might...might, be in the same country as I was – Thailand. Only not at this hotel, the Grand High Something. Hotel names blurred after a while.
The practice in London was suffering. My partner, Harnover, could run it but he was bearing an extra load and not amused. For the first time, I thought about selling. A message would get that ball rolling. I was so tempted. I didn’t need it any more. I’d let Harnover buy in years ago and he’d love to own it all. I wanted other things.
I raised my hand and summoned the cute waitress, admiring the sway of her hips as she walked across the little bridge over the pool and headed my way.
“Yes, sir. May I get you something?”
“Another of these, please. A crocodile?”
“Of course, sir. Anything else?”
There was. It was that niggling question. The last answer had seemed less than I needed.
“Tell me. Just in your opinion, what is love? This isn’t meant to be personal. It’s about my own situation.”
There. I’d admitted it to myself now. Having seen Grimm and Zorie together, there seemed something missing
from my life. A tooth that I’d not seen fall out. A flower gone from a bouquet. An absent part of my heart or soul.
Romantics would say the latter.
I wasn’t sure. I was curious.
“Sir?” Her smile was bright yet her reply hesitant.
“Please?”
She bowed that small bow they did in Thailand. “Love, sir. It is this beautiful feeling you get here.” She placed her palm on her peacock-blue sari over her heart. “When you have your loved one near you. When you see them in the morning, when they kiss you. It is beautiful.”
I nodded, digesting her answer. An emotional one. I wasn’t sure I connected.
“I will bring your drink, sir.”
“Thank you.” Maybe the last answer had been a good one. This one was too fluffy.
Chapter 26
Zorie
Another day went by. Our conversation about the past seemed to have affected Grimm. Though his lust for me was advertised in every glance, every not-so-accidental brush of his hand on my flesh, he restrained himself.
How long that would continue was the critical question. I’d pointed out that food might become scarce. If a husband forced his wife to stop wandering off, and surely the woman had some relatives, some friends who would notice, we might starve. Wherever this was, someone who wasn’t under his control would find us.
He did nothing.
If he wouldn’t free me, I had to do it. I needed some heavy implement to lever away the wire from my ankle chain bracelet, and then...phone? Call Mavros, the doctor? If Grimm didn’t catch me, I should drive away and wait for help. Or go for it myself.
Sounds outside made me wonder what Grimm was up to. He’d gone off to collect whatever offerings we had for today. Rice again, cooked meat, maybe. Fruit. We always ate the meat early before it went off. So far neither of us had suffered from poisoning from the food or the water. The water here could have contaminations we couldn’t see – parasites, other material, bacteria.
The orange-and-red sari I wore had been cut off shorter so it didn’t get caught on branches so often.
From the grunting, Grimm was lifting something. Heavy footsteps warned of his approach and he appeared in the doorway with a stone block, which he deposited in the middle of the room. After going back out and retrieving a second block that he wedged alongside the first one, he took a cloth that had been tied around some food package, and draped it over the blocks.
“A table?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “We’ll be civilized, today.”
“Good. That’s good.” An improvement. I smiled and rose to my knees. “Can I help?”
“No.”
The chain leading from my foot still snaked out the door.
Next he brought in plates with rice and fruit and a few raw vegetables.
A clucking sound from outside made me wonder if his woman had brought us chickens so we could cook them ourselves. It would mean fresh meat, but I didn’t relish killing them.
“That’s nice.”
Without answering he exited.
A burst of clucking then silence, repeated twice, made my stomach lurch. Grimm had clearly killed some chickens. We had no fire to cook with but it shouldn’t be difficult to set up a campfire outside then roast them.
Grimm stepped through the door with a featherless chicken carcass in either hand. Blood stained his fists, and even, his mouth. He must’ve wiped his hand across his lips.
Ignore. “Would you like me to cut them up so we can cook them? I’d need a knife.”
My request hung in the air and I wondered if he’d think that I might use a knife on the chain.
He put one of the dead chickens on a plate on the table. My smile faded as he raised the other one to his mouth and bit into it. Blood dribbled down his chin and I swear the thing twitched.
“Fuck.” I looked from the dead thing to his face. “I’m not eating it raw. That’s disgusting.”
“It’s good.” The words came out muffled around a mouthful of chicken flesh.
“Grimm,” I said quietly, trying not to throw up. “We have to cook that.”
Instead of doing anything sensible, he leaned in and put his chicken on a plate with fruit on it. Then he kneeled at the table, took the other chicken in both hands, and ripped it in half.
“Eat!” Fist and half the chicken was shoved at me until Grimm’s fist was inches away from my mouth. Blood splashed onto my face and neck. The flesh twitched and inside the torn chest cavity, the heart was beating.
Lub-dub, lub-dub. The classic notation for the sound of heartbeats sprang into my mind.
“Eww.”
His face flushed red, instantly, and he growled, almost subvocally, but I heard it. Every hair on my body stood up. I needed to leave. I couldn’t eat that. Perhaps, if I simply walked away?
I shut my eyes. If he kept eating, so be it.
“I’ll just be out there.” Simultaneously, I pushed off my knees and waved toward the door, suppressing a gulp.
This was not a good sign.
His eyes surely followed me, watching my every step as I negotiated the table and headed for that doorway, with the chain clinking. Would it be wise to move slower or faster? They said predators liked to pounce on prey that ran away, or turned its back.
The urge to turn and look overwhelmed me. Just past the doorway I swung, only his mesmer power smashed me to my knees. Half turned and kneeling, with rocks poking at my skin, caught in place, I watched as he stalked over, his bloody fist clasped over something.
“Eat!” He opened his hand before me, revealing two small beating hearts.
Bile leaked into my mouth mixing with the saliva from my nausea. “No.” I shook my head. “Fuck no. I can’t eat that. I would throw up.”
His growl fascinated me to the point that I couldn’t look away, though I was shaking. Was this Grimm or some feral beast? His gaze dropped, cruising over me, fixating lower.
“Show me.”
“Show you what?” Relieved at the change in him, I looked down and saw the trickle of blood curling over the top of one breast and into my cleavage.
“These.” He pulled me forward, onto hands and knees, ripping the sari away as he worked his way down my body. My panties were torn away, exposing all of me. An appreciative grunt and the unzipping of his jeans made it clear what was coming next – him.
Sex was better than the last thing on his agenda, but when he wrapped his bloody hand around his erection, I baulked.
Freed, to a degree, I scrambled away. He followed me, his hands bloodied, each step deliberate and slow, calculated to induce fear. I could tell from the way he stomped with great weight, the mean glare he wore, and the way he held his cock. This wasn’t a man, it was a creature intent on fucking, and fucking rough without consideration for the victim. I didn’t intend to be something for him to hide his cock in.
“Grimm. Stop. You aren’t thinking properly.” I grunted, straining to shift muscles that were being told to stay where they were – hands that seemed welded to the stone floor. Sweat prickled onto my skin and ran into my eyes and down my back to the crevice of my ass.
I retreated, move by agonizing move, still on hands and knees, unable to rise, pinned under the weight of his command. I needed rage and couldn’t summon it, finding only fear and sorrow. Grimm had gone somewhere else and I wouldn’t bring him back. Not soon enough to stop him.
I had no gun, no knife, only words.
“Stop!”
No answer and he stooped to pick up the loop of my chain that ran near him. His cock wobbled, seeming immense with blood painting it.
The end of the chain was free. The blocks he’d used for the table must have held it down. I twitched the chain and it swirled on the floor. His grasp missed it by half an inch.
Panicking, I managed to swing about and scramble for the outside. Grit scoured at my knees.
Ignore the pain. Ignore –
I jerked to a halt. Not by chain but by a shimmy of power th
at filled in all the places in my mind that let me do...anything.
Stop. Stay.
Gasping, I listened to him walk, my heart counting the time in solid thumps that jolted my chest and temples. Leaves crackled as they were crushed underfoot. The chain tinkled musically as it slid on the stone. A monster approached.
A lizard, small as a teaspoon, scampered past, stopped to watch me, beady-eyed, then ran off to vanish in a crack in the wall.
I was stuck. Superglue wouldn’t have held me half as well.
His hand arrived on my skin, on my flank, caressing me, sliding down to hold one side of my ass.
A nuance of his command had me bowing my front half of my torso, until my nipples touched the floor – my arms stretched above and my head down, presenting him with a better view between my legs.
“Stay.” A guttural but audible command. He pried apart the lips of my pussy until my entrance seemed gaping open, held apart by his fingers.
His fingers tunneled in, pushing deep inside me.
He was deliberately fucking me with blood.
How far had he fallen?
How far had I? Heat swelled from where he held me wide and penetrated me. The wet noises grew more obvious with each onslaught because I was getting wetter. My obeisance deepened as I sought more of the perverted act, more force, more pain, more fucking.
My sobs of frustration were ignored.
As I was jolted back and forth, I stared at the stone before my face, knowing, knowing I shouldn’t...be...so...turned on.
Where was my rage?
Then he shoved and entered me. Scratches were notched on my palms as I slipped. His cock drove in, feeling bigger than the broomstick the mesmers had intended to assault me with. Sliding in until his cock must’ve butted up against the very end of my cunt.
Blood as well as my own exuberant wetness lubricated the repetitive shunting of his cock.
Too hard a thrust and it seemed as if he’d burst out into my body, puncturing me, splitting me. The extra throb made me weep at my helplessness, at my rising desire. Blunt and brutal, he brought lust with his assault. Soon I simply wanted him to go as far as he could.
Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3) Page 12
