Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

D r. Greene left shortly afterward, and Ambrose and I watched as he was swallowed by the night. My temple throbbed and as his figure disappeared into the darkness I wondered if he'd even come at all, if it hadn't been but a fever dream.

We didn't bother crawling back into bed, instead finding home back on the couch, bathed in the soft light from the kitchen. Ambrose laid beside me, my head on his chest and my fingers intwined his and we simply…existed outside of the chaos that seemed to be circling campus, the ravenous sharks waiting for the right time to strike.

And there, on his chest, in the stillness, I could pretend that this was my life. That he had chosen me of all potential partners, and we were merely a happy couple caught in the blazes of passion, taking respite.

"It won't be long now until morning. I wish you'd sleep," he murmured after quite some time.

"I know." I snuggled deeper into him, desperately wanting to crawl beneath his skin and seek refuge by his heart .

"You'll be exhausted in class if you don't rest."

"I'm always exhausted in class these days," I teased.

Ambrose sighed. "We will need to be more diligent. Halloween is tomorrow, and if my father has the whole flock looking for you…" His fingers skimmed my waist as he trailed off.

"Walt and Sam are going to lose their minds." It struck me then, an opportunity to stay out of harm's way, to preserve our peaceful little bubble as long as we could. As I rose, propping myself on my elbow, I smiled. "What if we just stay here? Until its over? Bar ourselves in?"

"Staying here is never a bad idea," he murmured. "But, we have some digging to do. I assume your brother was in the Chamber last night when my father made the announcement, and I'd like to discuss it with him. Today."

A chill swept over me. I was constantly worried for Walt's safety now…if he'd reacted poorly who knew what Dr. Wilder was capable of using as punishment.

"Why were you not summoned to the Chamber?"

"Oh, I was. But I told my father I was otherwise occupied." He chuckled, kissing my fingertips.

"Has this…ever happened before? Where someone hid a dove?"

"Not that I've encountered in the book, but we both know that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't. Three hundred years is a long time to be pulling off a stunt like this, and it is entirely possible I'm not the only one to find himself in this most precarious position. It's shocking that my father would even stoop to this level, but I suppose he's only making a point. You see, it's tradition for the initiate to hunt his own dove and bring her to the Chamber without assistance as a show of his commitment to his brothers. If he's enlisted every single initiate to hunt you, I do wonder what other extreme measure he might utilize to get his way." His nose came to the crown of my head, inhaling deeply as he nearly echoed my same sentiment. "It's a cruel punishment to have lost my mother to this goddamn society and now, to have fallen in love with an intended dove."

I laughed, a light and uncertain sound.

He couldn't have said he had fallen in love with me. He couldn't have, I had to be mistaken.

But those spider fingers came under my jaw, tilting my head to look at him, snatching my breath from my lungs.

Storm cloud eyes shimmered with tears, bloodshot and utterly worn. He brought us to sit, a tangled mess of arms and legs, until he took both my cheeks in his hands.

"You laugh like you don't believe me. How can I prove it to you? I don't know how it happened, or if it's even right—no, I know it's not right. But I do, Vivian. I do love you. And if anything happens to you, at the hands of White Dove or anyone else, I promise you I will tear their beating hearts from their chests. Not a soul will survive my rage."

"Ambrose." I searched his face, looking for a what, I don't know. Anything, an inkling of a lie as means to protect myself, my own heart which choked on the joy of his admission. "I—I?—"

He kissed me, taking my mouth with a gentle hunger, his hands cascading down my arms and slipping beneath the hem of his shirt over my soft, round frame.

"Fuck, when I saw you coming down the stairs in my shirt," he started as his mouth trailed my neck. "I thought that was it. I would take you back to my bed and ravage you while he waited."

I let out an airy chuckle, seeking purchase on his arms. His warm palms and wet mouth were dizzying, and I needed to tell him that I?—

"It was made so much worse by the fact that I could just make out your perfect little pussy on the way up the stairs." He lifted one of my legs, propping it up so that he could tease my clit with broad circles. "Then you went downstairs, utterly marked by me so that he had no doubt in his mind whose you were. Mine. And that alone…well…I could have taken you in front of him, made him watch it all."

I was blazing, my breath audible as his words caressed ever so seductively over me.

Sucking my lower lip into his mouth, Ambrose tightened his circles sending electric zaps through my core and up my spine. "I'm yours," I moaned, inching my hips forward so he knew I needed more. So much more.

"All I've wanted to do since that very first day is sink into you and feel you come undone around me over and over again." He gripped my hips, bringing me to straddle him while his thick erection fought the unbuttoned trousers for release.

With a thumping, unsteady heart, my palms steadied on his shoulders and flames licked at my veins raw. "I dare you," I challenged. If anyone could, it was Ambrose. And I was certainly ready to sit front and center and enjoy the display.

He kissed me, bringing me down onto his cock with a groan, guiding my hips up and down in a steady rhythm. My lids fell, overcome with the way he felt inside me, gliding into my arousal, stretching and filling mercilessly.

"Open your eyes, Vivian," he instructed, hands greedily searching beneath my—no, his shirt until they cupped my breasts. "These…these are amazing."

My teeth sank into my lip as I peeled my lids open. I chased my orgasm, sucked into his husky gaze as he watched me.

"That's it, beautiful girl. Take what you need."

The orgasm was building, a hot, liquid swirl in my belly, tingling and otherworldly. My hands came to his thick, strong thighs as I curled my hips back and forth and he tore the buttons of the shirt off in one rough rip.

I gasped, relishing in the way his hungry eyes claimed my soft belly and heavy breasts. He leaned forward, taking the turgid flesh of my nipple into his mouth, flicking it relentlessly with his tongue and I knew this had to be heaven. Nothing could top this.

"Fuck," I cursed, tossing my head back. I was so close, my hips moved in erratic, desperate ways to bring me to peak. I was needy and enflamed, engulfed in his touch. I needed him to push me off the ledge, to let me fall into oblivion.

Fingers wrapped around my throat and I startled, tearing my eyes open.

"Take it," Ambrose's gravelly voice demanded. "Come, Vivian."

I nodded, moaning, trying to scream his name but his hold was too tight, too perfectly tight that as I ground my hips into him one more time, the sound of wet flesh and scent of our sex filled the air, and the coil released.

My entire body went rigid, throbbing with the ebb and flow of release as my eyes came to the ceiling and I was utterly destroyed, torn into the abyss.

"God, I love you," he murmured, but the black was creeping in and I was no longer real enough to know if he'd even spoken at all or if I merely imagined it.

Ambrose released my throat allowing me to suck in much needed air until he brought my mouth down to his, dancing his tongue over mine at the same moment his hips plunged into me one last time. He broke, a hoarse cry filling my ears and each pulse of his own release rippled through me.

"I don't want it to stop," I admitted, kissing along the strong curve of his jaw as he settled back.

Fingertips trailed my spine as he spoke, "‘Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that we sleep, we dream.'"

I laughed weakly, tucking myself into the crook of his neck. "I thought earlier that tonight seemed a weird sort of dream, something Puck would conjure up for entertainment at our expense."

"How right you are." His thumb brushed my lip. "Though, some of tonight has been dream like…the rest has been rather a nightmare."

"I wish we could stay in all day." I loved the fact that he had yet to pull out and our bodies were cooling as one. He brought his strong arms around me, and I was enveloped in his lovely musky scent.

"Say we do. Say we invite Walt over for lunch and spend the whole of the day wrapped in one another…"

My lids drooped as I pressed a kiss to his sticky shoulder. "No one can find us here. It'll be like we don't even exist to them."

He rumbled his approval, tossing his own head back on the arm of the couch at the same time his muscles relaxed beneath me.

Just as sleep brought her satin blanket over my eyes, Ambrose's phone buzzed from within his trousers, a sharp sensation compared to the sensual touches we'd shared not long ago. He grumbled, fishing it from beneath my leg only to pin me in place with a stare.

The bright white numbers on his screen sent a small spiral of anxiety through me, it was after six in the morning. We really hadn't slept at all.

But worse than that, was the name of the person who called.

His father.

"Fuck."

I made to move, but he would not let me, wrapping an arm around my waist as he answered the phone.

"Hello?" Ambrose's voice was thick of lack of sleep and well, something that can only be described as pure, unadulterated frustration .

"Good morning, my son. Would you be available for breakfast before class?" His father's voice carried through the speaker.

My cheek stung from the bite I abused it with.

"I'm actually running behind this morning, I won't have time?—"

"Nonsense, I'm right outside. I brought coffee and some of those pastries you like."

Ambrose went white, sitting straight with wide, horrorstruck eyes. "Dad, please. I'm not home."

"What do we do?" I whispered, clambering to my feet with a dizzying heartbeat.

"Don't lie, Ambrose. You lie about as well as your mother did. Now, open the door and make some time for the man you owe your very life. I promise to take my leave before you're too late."

Dr. Wilder knocked.

Ambrose twisted in his seat, hanging up the phone to grip the top of my arms.

"You can't go upstairs, he'll see you in the window. Go to the butler's pantry, close yourself in. Don't. Make. A sound." He relayed frantically. Dr. Wilder's knocks grew more and more impatient.

"Okay," I quavered with a nod.

"I'm so sorry, Vivian. I'm not certain anymore if I'm keeping you safe or damning you myself."

"Just go!" I urged, running on the balls of my feet across the cold wood floor into the kitchen. I slammed the pocket doors to the pantry shut on both sides, willing my breath to quiet and my heart to slow. My stomach had been left somewhere between the couch and the kitchen and the space sat empty and sick in its absence.

As I tucked myself into the corner by the dining room, Ambrose's displeased greeting floated through the house.

"Took you long enough," his father barked and the heels of his shoes clacked against the floor.

"I had a rough night."

"Clearly. You couldn't even bother to dress appropriately for me, I see. You must be running behind this morning."

"I told you as much."

"It won't be long. I'd like to take breakfast in the living room."

My wheezing breaths filled the space, exacerbating my terror while they situated themselves in the other room. I slid the door to the dining room open, peering around the edge to make sure they had cleared the foyer. If I could make it upstairs quietly, then I could get dressed and hide.

I would be safe.

The floor creaked softly under my feet and I was hopeful the rustling of their bags and small talk would cover the sound enough to mask my retreat.

"Three mugs?" Dr. Wilder inquired. I cursed internally, we hadn't enough time to clean up after ourselves and I'm sure the scatter of buttons over the table and floor only damned us more. "And a gun? My, there must have been something interesting going on last night."

Metal scraped against wood as I came around the dining table, the staircase was merely ten feet away, laughing at me as I eyed it.

"I suppose one could say that." Ambrose's reply was short, unamused and I chanced a glance down the hall. "What is it you've come for? Certainly not to spend quality time with me, you haven't cared about that, well, ever."

Ambrose sat on the same couch we'd been on together moments ago, his father in the very same seat Dr. Greene had used. The elder Dr. Wilder took a sip of his coffee, eyes on his son.

"Where is she this morning?"

"Who?"

I bristled, pressing my back against the wall as my chest constricted. My mouth was full of cotton and the room twisted in sickening circles. He had to be talking about me. He knew I was here.

"The dove."

"There are several doves, none of which are housed here."

"The Blackfield girl, son, don't play me for a fool. I raised you, I know you well enough to know when you're hiding something."

I didn't dare breathe, the gap between myself and refuge upstairs seemed impassable, a chasm on the far reaches of the earth.

"I'd hardly say you were present enough to have claim of raising me."

Someone banged on the coffee table, a smack that reverberated through the house with such force I jumped, slamming my hand over my mouth to stifle the cry of surprise.

"Goddammit, Ambrose! Listen to me, I am confident you have her here. You know I have heard those rather unsavory things about you and this dove—sick and disturbing things that for a while, I considered fodder. It didn't occur to me that these things might be true and that you weren't merely rebelling against me to make a point. Now, I am unsure. Robert was here last night and what reason would he have to come if the rumors were false?"

"Robert's an eccentric individual, who knows but him?" Ambrose spoke so nonchalantly, so unphased by his father's anger I might have believed him if I wasn't standing in the damn house—hiding and practically naked.

"Do you deny them? Do you deny the rumors?" His father was growing impatient .

"I'd have to know exactly what they are to say whether or not I deny them." Ambrose remained stoic, giving nothing away.

"She is your s tudent, but more than that, she is a dove . And it is because of these rumors that I can promise you one thing: I will watch her blood spill on the dais before I ever watch her walk the stage, do you understand? Her fate is sealed. You cannot save her, not any more than you were able to save your mother."

Silence fell, loaded and sickening. Something splat on the floor at my feet and wetness stained my cheek. I cried for Ambrose or myself, it didn't matter. Dr. Wilder knew he had his son where he wanted him.

"You may leave." Ambrose said, from the sounds of it he'd come to his feet. I glanced around the corner just as his father set his empty cup on the table.

Now was my moment. I dashed across the foyer as quietly as possible and began the trek upstairs with strict concentration and a fluttering heart, wet palms sliding over the railing.

"Yes, I should let you ready yourself for your classes. I will give you until tomorrow. If you do not relinquish her, the flock will descend. We will have her."

"You can have any woman on this campus, Beaufort will choose another."

The sixth step betrayed me, creaking under my weight and rendering those in the living room mute. A chilled sweat broke over my skin and I hurried now, less retrained than before, my steps echoed through the foyer and the tightness in my chest crippled me.

I genuinely feared for my life.

Dr. Wilder chuckled.

"No. It will be her. Do give her my regards, she seemed a rather nice girl despite her grades."

"Get the fuck out of my house," Ambrose bit out as I reached the top of the stairs, coming around the banister where I paused a moment to listen.

"You forget yourself. This may be where you reside, but it is my home. A home I likely know better than you do yourself. One day, when I pass White Dove down to you, I will share its secrets. Until then…"

They were in the foyer below, Ambrose rigid with hatred which rolled off of him in wicked waves. "You do love nothing more than melodrama, don't you?"

Dr. Wilder was smiling, and that grin only widened when his storm gray eyes floated to the stairs. I tucked back into the shadows, hopeful he hadn't caught a glimpse but part of me knew that nothing could get past this man. Especially when it came to his own sick, twisted game.

"It most certainly keeps life interesting. Tomorrow, Ambrose. I expect her tomorrow."