8. Ash

Chapter Eight

ASH

M y watcher never slept.

As if he always had a ready supply of batteries to exchange throughout the night, it was impossible to find a means of escape. It simply added to my theory that Lamb was not human, but a fantastical feat of engineering and AI technology gone wild.

“You’re thinking deeply about something.” Lamb’s voice slipped into my thoughts.

I looked up in the mirror at him, powered with what little energy I could muster. My restricted supply of alcohol kept my addiction at bay, but that was about it. Feeling as if I was in a constant state of hungover, my day-to-day life was becoming a challenge. I swayed with the ripple of the bath water, wanting nothing more than to press my face into my thighs and sleep there.

“I am tired,” I grumbled, the warm water bleeding through my skin and deep into my bones.

Fingers grazed my face, and for a moment, I let them.

Then my mind sobered, and I jerked my head back, glowering at the offended palm left hovering in the air.

Lamb did not look discouraged; he never did. Instead, his hand followed my motion, once more cupping the damp skin of my cheek, his chocolate eyes transfixed on the movement. He brushed away a stray strand of hair sticking to my skin, and I fought not to press my spine any harder against the back of the tub.

“If you want to sleep, then sleep,” Lamb uttered, his low and rumbling tone touching a deep, instinctual part of my brain. I shook it off.

“I want to leave,” I replied, forcing his eyes to meet mine. “Let me leave.”

Lamb’s soft and curious expression vanished. “I’m acting in your best interests,” he explained, eyes flickering between mine, searching for something in them. “You can trust me.”

“So long as my interest aligns with yours, you mean?” I brushed away the lingering rogue hand and sat up, allowing myself to lean closer to him. I could smell his woodsy cologne mixing with the soft floral scents of the bathwater. “I am not a fool, Lamb. Play me however you want, but at least do not lie to me.”

“I haven’t,” Lamb said. “I haven’t once tried to deceive you. Not truly.”

That stunned me.

“Yet another lie,” I managed, shaking my head with incredulous disbelief.

Lamb sat back from the bath stool, where he had managed to inch himself closer over the days. At five p.m., without fail, Lamb would draw a bath for me, and during my moment of freedom from my room, I was not to be left unsupervised.

“It’s not useful to lie to someone who can see through them.” Lamb shrugged, giving me an appraising stare.

I frowned. “I do not know—”

“I saw it the moment I met you,” he interrupted. “From the way you’d never catch my eye, how you avoided me at all opportunities, and even now, you shy away from my touch. You, from the get-go, have seen through everything .”

The bath water felt cold, and my skin broke with goosebumps.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I might simply dislike you?” I brushed him off, averting my gaze into my reflection, the bleary-eyed, warped woman staring back at me, as unease weighed on my chest.

I knew the moments he was referring to.

I had never been oblivious to Lamb’s nature. At first, something had felt off, and I had never been able to put my finger on it. As time went on, and our interactions and shared spaces overlapped during my brief stay with the Black Angels, my suspicions had grown.

Nevertheless, I was not walking around, acting as if I was Lamb’s own lie detector. In fact, I had spent more effort trying to avoid him than earn his attention. Ironic, considering my current situation.

“That look.” Lamb leaned forwards again, ignoring my comment as he joined my reflection bathwater’s surface. I refused to look towards him, staring down only at the rippling mirage of his face. His warmth invaded my space, so close I could feel his words roll over his tongue and caress my cheek. “It intrigued me.”

In the water, a hand moved forwards, reaching out to touch me. It lingered midair, only a hair’s breadth away, and my skin electrified with anticipation as it grew closer.

It never came.

Lamb rose from my side, moving his seat towards the back of the claw tub as I released the breath I’d unknowingly held.

He settled behind my shoulders, and I watched him from the corner of my eye. “Sit back,” Lamb ordered before waiting patiently for me to respond.

I lingered, considering his command. As indecision flittered through me, he sat in silence, waiting. An image of Lamb, thousands of years from now, unchanging and eternal, sat in the same place, with the same expression, ever patient, passed through my mind. An intense emotion I could not decipher settled on my chest. It was as heavy as stone, but it was neither uncomfortable nor painful. I shook it loose, staring at the mortal man staring back at me. If I focused, a little remnant of that weight remained beneath my ribs and the image lingered behind my closed eyes.

I shifted, the water cooling around my body, and instead of fighting this uncertain change, something else crept in. Curiosity purred in my ear, and something about that lingering weight had my resistance crumbling.

With a tight breath, I gripped the tub, angling my back towards him, and settled against the smooth porcelain curve. The mirror edges were fogged with moisture, but in the middle, I saw my face looking back.

The creak of his stool bounced across the tiles before it settled behind my head.

“Sit still,” Lamb said, adjusting himself behind me.

I stared through the tall mirror, fastened to the scene unravelling inside. Lamb was tall, but the low sides of the tub and the even lower stool bowed his back and shoulders.

He pumped some lotion or shampoo and began to lather his hands, suds and bubbles building with each rough caress. With ease, he pulled the length of my hair over the edge, the wash of water showering the floor at his feet. With care and extreme concentration, he started to detangle what others would have long since given up on, myself included. I wanted to yank my hair from his grasp, to scathe and hiss at the touch I’d grown far too comfortable with, but an unusual emotion gave me pause.

Curiosity stilled my hands, and instead, I watched him work.

“You should just cut it,” I said, allowing my grip on the tub to ease as Lamb magically worked through my hair, not a single tug or pull to be felt. “It is not worth the effort of fixing.”

“How do you know if you haven’t ever tried?” Lamb responded, voice distracted as his eyes were locked on his task.

“You can tell just by looking at it. It is a mess. It will take hours to unravel it all.”

“Just because something is hard work, doesn’t mean it’s not worth the effort.” Lamb glanced up, catching me off guard and red-handed spying. His dark, rapturing gaze caught mine through our reflection, and for a moment, I was smothered by the pressure, the deeper meaning behind his words. I swallowed, my throat feeling tight, and with great strength, my eyes turned back to the murky water.

Silence followed for a long moment, the water growing colder while Lamb patiently began to pull a strand from the rest of the strands. He produced a comb from somewhere out of sight, and I only felt its soft tension running over my scalp and down the lengths.

“Is that what you are doing to me?” I whispered, my voice barely enough to disturb the water’s surface. “Trying to fix me?”

Lamb stopped. The comb dropped to the tile floor, and the stool creaked.

My gaze snapped to the mirror as he rose to his full height, becoming a figure towering high above my prone body. My blood thickened, my skin prickled, and my body coiled.

He reached over me, his warmth and scent rushing over my skin and senses, and I’d have leapt straight from the tub if it was not for the sheer space his limber form covered. Instead, my muscles coiled, and I could see the small, faint growth of hair on his throat, so close to me I could reach out and bite his Adam’s apple. It was a vulnerable area. If I hit him quick enough, with surprise on my side, I could escape before—

Lamb gave the tap a swift turn.

Hot water gargled and poured from the ornate vintage gold taps, and with its rapidly travelling heat, I realised how cold I had grown. The goosebumps on my skin shivered with delight at the warmth subduing them back under the surface.

“Do you think you’re not worth it?” Lamb asked, not looking as he settled back down on his seat, picking back up the comb and continuing his work.

His scent lingered on my tongue, and I bit back the urge to chastise myself for readying an attack. Until it reoccurred to me that I had been kidnapped. I should have taken the chance to escape while I had it.

Instead, I considered his question, as if I had not been building the courage to kill him vampire-style. “I think there is an easier solution to your problem.”

“Killing you?” Lamb phrased the question so simply. Perhaps it was.

“Surely, you have heard of Occam’s Razor? ” I shrugged, the shift in my thoughts was not too big a leap. The threat Lamb posed to me in the present, and the threat I posed to everybody else in the future. “ ‘The simplest solution is often the correct one.’” I recited; the words summoned from a dusty shelf in my memory. “I am the reason your club is being targeted. Without me, the threat on you would disappear.”

“‘ Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,’” Lamb murmured. “Sagan’s Standard.” He allowed my hair to drop down the tub’s side, a new lightness to its fall. Then he looked up, his bitter chocolate eyes carving through the mirror. “You can tell me that it’d be easier to be rid of you, but you can’t prove it.”

“Neither can you.”

I gasped at the touch of Lamb’s fingers, long and lubricated with conditioner as they glided over my bare skin, down until they rested on the smooth, shiny scar over my shoulder. My heartbeat thrummed beneath his touch, and I was sure he felt the ripple under my skin.

Everything screamed at me to lunge out of his grasp, but it fell on deaf ears. I was anchored beneath his hand, unable to do anything but feel the electrifying sensation burning into my skin. I watched, Lamb’s eyes unmoving from mine in the mirror as he leaned his head down over the bath, his head dropping next to my shoulder.

His mouth opened, and warm breath tingled over my damp skin. “The difference between you and I,” Lamb purred, my body vibrating with the tremor of his words, “is that with every means disposable to me, I will prove that my choice is the correct one.” With his other hand, he reached up, finger cupping my chin and turning my head, eyes directly staring into mine, no more mirror between us. “Even if it means proving it to you, as well.”

He kissed me.

The taste of his tongue as it slipped past my lips flooded my mouth and brain with overpowering lust. I was both attached and distant to the version of me with the man pressing his mouth to mine, his warmth bleeding into my body, reaching deeper and further into me than I ever thought possible, my mind screaming far in the distance.

Lamb pressed deeper, and his tongue tangled with mine. The more I fought to resist, the more my body caved to the demand, wanting to give in.

I twisted in the water, turning for better access, as his hand on my shoulder travelled up my skin, settling at the base of my neck, setting a blazing fire along its path. His fingers splayed over my throat, his thumb pressed on the pulse rapidly pounding beneath.

I could not breathe, my head spinning and my heart squeezing in my chest and—

Lamb pulled away.

The cold rush of air running over my damp lips was like artic water over my head. I jerked away from him, clamping my hand over my mouth, disbelief trampling over my mind and body.

What was I doing?

Lamb reached over, his hand tightening the tap back to close, the water just about to spill over the edge. His hand stayed fixed on the tap long after the water had stopped, knuckles turning white, eyes fixed hard on the metal faucet.

What felt like years passed only in a handful of seconds.

Lamb turned away, collecting a towel from the counter. He stopped a step further from the tub than before, the towel extended at the edge of his reach.

In those few actions, Lamb had managed a factory reset. His expression was calm and neutral, mirroring the same face I had seen when I had first entered the bathroom. Before he had ambushed me with his mouth. Before he had set fire to my soul and shattered my resolve in a single, spirit-stealing kiss.

Was it a hallucination?

My tongue tingled with his taste, my lips swollen, and a sore ache throbbed in my jaw. It had been no hallucination.

I did not know what expression I wore as I took the towel from him, feeling incredulous as I watched him turn his back in a rare show of privacy. I could not take my eyes off him as I pulled myself to my feet, my body weak and shivering as the warmth of the water receded. I tugged the plush towel around my shoulders, tucking it tight under my chin, my eyes staking steel daggers into the wide back presented as something else crawled its way up. Through the shock and newfound bitterness at his retreat, a new emotion was lurking. Something hotter. Something … angrier .

“Why are you doing this?”

Lamb did not turn. Instead, he cocked his head, turning just enough for his ear to angle towards me. And that was all. He said nothing to my question, and nothing to the tone it carried.

“There is no point in being kind to me.” I tasted the bitter venom on my tongue, spitting the words as frustration fought for dominance. “Do not look after me. Do not try to help me. Do not kiss me.”

My long, wet hair whipped around me, snapping and coiling around my slick skin. I stared at it, the dark length reaching farther down than I last recalled. There was so much of it all at once, everywhere, touching everything. It was unfamiliar, and the anger that had slowly been rising vanished. Like a train jolted from its tracks, the emotions surged, the power and control rushed forwards and, with no path to go, something else opened its arms instead.

I was numb, and overwhelmed, and stupid, rising to my knees in his heated bath, the air cold and biting against my wet skin, the soft towel suffocating around my shoulders, my smooth hair like a net tangling my limbs. I shoved with my arms, water sloshing over the edge of the bath and splashing onto the floor as I began to push and scratch at the dark web glued to me. The more I pulled away, the more that seemed to appear, tightening and wrapping around me. I could not escape it. It was everywhere. I could not get free. I could not breathe.

“I should not be like this … I should not be—” I fought to speak; my throat tied into knots. My lungs burned, and my chest ached as I pushed my ribs to open, to fill. Sharp noises rang like a shrill bell in my head, pounded like a gong over, and over, and over again. I was speaking, but I could not hear myself anymore. I did not know if I was making sense. I knew my mouth was moving, but my tongue was dry, and each word felt like sandpaper scratching my voice box.

My eyes burned, and the world spun as too many thoughts raced through my mind, memories and visions coming to the front, each demanding attention, screaming at me to look. To see. To listen!. LISTEN TO THEM! DO NOT HIDE. YOU CAN NOT HIDE ANYMORE, ALEXANDRA. YOU CAN NO—

“Like what?” Lamb snapped, his voice sharp and loud as it tore through the screaming voices. “ Ash , listen to me. Answer me.” Warmth pressed against my cheeks, long fingers curling around my hair and the nape of my neck. His thumb pressed under my jaw, my heartbeat struggling beneath his touch. “You shouldn’t be like what?”

“I am not mean to be fixed,” I whispered, desperation taking hold of me. I was cold. I was tired. “I am not meant to—” Feeling dizzy and lightheaded, my weight tilted forwards. “I am not …”

MONSTER … MURDERER.

I closed my eyes, pressing my hands against my ears. “No,” I begged. “No. GO AWAY.”

I could hear it. The gagging sounds. The struggling breath in my ears. The blood matted in my hair.

I was there.

My eyes burned like a kettle boiled and poured over my face. Never stopping. Never letting up. I fought to brush it away, felt my hands clawing at my face, the scalding burns, the stinging tears and searing pain tearing into my eyes.

“It hurts,” I cried, shaking my head, trying desperately to rip the rag free from my face. But no matter how much I grasped, and pulled, and tugged, darkness was everywhere. “Please,” I begged. “Make it stop! Please!”

“ASH!” a familiar voice bellowed. I knew this voice.

I jerked forwards, my hands lunging, a firm body beneath my palms. Relief spun through my desperation as I dug my claws into the skin, dragging the person closer.

“Please,” I begged, the darkness withholding, the pain generous. I needed it to stop. The dark. The pain. All of it. “Help me. I can’t see. Please, I—”

Strong hands tugged me closer. A thick arm pressed against the base of my back, another snaking around the nape of my neck, pulling my head against something warm and solid. An earthy, woodsy scent filled my nose, a soft shirt pressed into my face as I fought to suck the air into my lungs. The material smothered my mouth and nose, and I wanted to push away, to escape for breath, but I could not. I had no strength.

“I cannot—” I gasped, stars swimming around the edges of my vision as they screamed and seared. “ I cannot breathe .”

My legs turned to lead and collapsed beneath me, but no hard surface struck my side. Instead, I fell gently. In the intangible darkness, I kneeled on something cold, hard, and wet.

“Look at me,” the voice ordered, sounding far away.

Cool air rushed over my face as the soft fabric smothering me retreated. Wide, long-fingered hands pressed against my wet cheeks, thumb tucked under my chin, fingers splayed over my throat, a finger on my pulse. My blood rushed with the single, overpowering thought as the material over my eyes felt as if it were fusing over my skin, as if removing it would take my face along with it.

“Look at me, Ash,” it called again, and if I squinted, in the dark, I could see something blurred moving within it. “You can see. You’re safe.”

“Take it off,” I pleaded, clinging to him. “ Please !” I was sure I dug deep enough to draw blood, but I couldn’t care.

It hurt too much.

“Ash,” the voice whispered close to my ear, and my hands tightened on his body, anchoring him to me. “I’ll make it go away. For now.”

I opened my mouth, wanting to respond, to beg or cry, or something; but no words came. I felt pressure on the nape of my neck, and I gaped, trying to take a breath, but I could not function.

One sole word repeated over in my mind until nothingness emptied my mind and I succumbed to the void.

Monster.