9. Luna

Chapter 9

Luna

I press my palms to the window and stare out at the brightening sky.

How is it sunrise already? Were we talking for that long?

The glass is cool against my slightly clammy palms, and the sensation calms me a little. Until I look down.

The room he's keeping me in is, of course, on the top floor.

Outside, there is a huge expanse of lawn and a long, sprawling driveway. At the end of it, tall black wrought-iron gates.

Even if I, somehow, made it down the outside of the building, how would I actually get out of the grounds? Surely, a guy like Thornfield will have dogs, or bodyguards or – hell – werewolves waiting to grab me and drag me back inside.

I shake my arms, splaying my fingers at my sides to release some tension. I swallow hard, fear beating a hard heavy rhythm against my ribs.

I look back at the door.

The next time Lucien Thornfield walks through it, he might not just want to talk to me. He might want something else.

Everything else.

As I think about his huge, muscular frame, my treacherous stomach tightens with a quiver of intrigue.

Sex with Steven was… perfunctory at best and awful at worst.

Dark room. Him on top. Eyes closed. Lying still.

Is there a part of me that wants to know what might happen if I choose to stay and let Lucien destroy me?

I'd be lying if I said no.

But the biting? The drinking my blood and draining me dry?

Not so much into that.

I turn back to the window and inhale deeply. Looks like I only have one option.

This time, after flexing my fingers, I try the latch on the window. Of course, it doesn't move. But the glass doesn't look thick. There is air coming in from tiny gaps in the frame.

I raise my arm, thinking about smashing the glass with my elbow. Then think again; that's going to hurt .

Instead, I go for the candlestick on the sideboard.

See, if he'd gone minimalist, this wouldn't be happening. It would be all reinforced glass and no huge, heavy objects to pierce it with.

The candlestick really is heavy. I weigh it up and down in my hand. I stare at the glass. I've done this before. Not with a candlestick. With my foot.

I slam my eyes closed and memories that usually only haunt me at night barrel into my mind. Being upside down, being trapped. The sound of the radio still blaring. The scent of the blood. The spiderweb crack on the windscreen. Pushing it with my foot. My shoe gone. Why was it gone?

Kicking, and kicking, and screaming until it shattered.

A cold sweat has broken out on my forehead, and in the small of my back. Nausea swells in my throat. I grip the candlestick tighter. My knuckles whiten with the pressure. I know what sound it's going to make when it makes contact with the glass. I just don't know what will happen inside my head when I hear it.

I don't know if it will bounce off, repelled by adrenaline and the need to get the fuck out of here. Or if it will bury deep inside my skull and find the places where it can hurt me the most, and leave me sobbing on the floor.

Whatever is about to happen, I have no choice.

I have to confront it or I will be stuck here forever.

With him.

Forever… or until he ends me.

I lift the candlestick with one shaking arm. It is so heavy my muscles burn. I pull my arm back, take a deep breath, then hurl it at the window.

The glass is stronger than I thought.

It splinters. A shard falls free, then another, but some remain attached. Clinging to the edges of the frame like jagged teeth. Jaws waiting to swallow me.

No.

Spit me out.

I am leaving this place.

Pulling my cardigan down over my hand, I brush the stubborn remaining shards from the window. Some fall in, some fall out.

I look down, trying to follow the path of the ones that have fallen to the ground. But I'm too high up; I cannot see or hear them land.

Gripping the top of the frame, I haul myself up so I'm standing on the sill. I hold on tightly, digging my fingernails into the flaky wood.

My legs feel weak and shaky. I know shouldn't look down, but I do. And I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff. Below, the tall uncut grass sways in the breeze. An ocean of green waiting to swallow me up if I fall.

Except, it will not swallow me. I will meet it, and I will break.

I close my eyes. The rising sun is warm on my face. I can't jump. I have to climb, but I have no idea how to do that.

Still holding onto the frame, I look left and right, examining the sides of the building. From the sill, there is a small rim of protruding brick that runs along the outside of the building. Maybe four feet from where I'm standing, there is a drainpipe.

I am not the sort of person who can climb down a building clinging onto a drainpipe. I'm too heavy, for starters.

I have visions of the drainpipe creaking and groaning and breaking away from the building, sending me falling into the large oak tree opposite.

The tree…

Its branches are large and thick and bare; it is too early in the year for it to have grown lush and green. But some of them protrude out toward the building. Are they close enough to grab hold of? If I jump?

I think back to the days when I used to take gymnastics lessons. Before the accident. Before I stopped wearing heels and being able to use my body the way I wanted to use it.

Back then, I could probably have made it. Just.

Now?

I am tapping my foot nervously on the sill, hanging on, looking from the drainpipe to the tree when I hear the one thing that could terrify me even more than the thought of falling to my death; the door.

The bedroom door.

Opening.

I spin around, wavering, grabbing the side of the frame instead of the top. My palm meets with a stray splinter of glass, piercing it, hard. I cry out, wobble again, and feel as if I'm teetering backward.

In the dark doorway, Lucien stares at me with inky black eyes. His sleeves are rolled up. He's still wearing his shirt and braces. He fills the doorframe, but he doesn't move.

Extending all the way up to the toes of his polished, black shoes is a beam of light. Wide, and bright. He rolls his tongue around his mouth, moistening his fangs behind his lips.

He tilts his head. "Where are you going, Luna?"

"Away from here." I try to sound stronger than I feel.

A small smile snags at the corner of his mouth, and I find it instantly infuriating.

"You don't think I mean it?" I turn back around, looking away from him toward the tree instead. Because somehow, looking at him is making it harder to want to go.

"Oh, I believe you mean it." He moves. I can feel it. I glance back and watch him stepping around the large shaft of light. Will he turn to ash if it touches him? "I'm just not sure you're capable of such a large jump."

Again, indignation flares in my gut.

"Fuck you," I mutter.

Then, without thinking, without even pausing for breath, I jump.

My arms flail in front of me, my fingers stretch, my legs peddle hilariously as if I'm trying to walk on thin air. My fingertips brush the nearest branch, but it's small and weak, like me, and it won't hold me. I know it won't.

Everything moves fast and slow at the same time.

I cry out. I'm falling.

And then I'm not.

He has hold of me. His arms are around my waist. He is holding me with one hand and the thickest upper branch of the tree with his other. And he is smoking.

Not a cigar.

His body is smoking. The skin on his exposed forearm starts to blister and crack. He growls loudly, then in one swift motion hauls us both up onto the branch. He scoops me into his arms, tossing me onto his shoulder like he did in the bookshop, balancing on the branch as if he's some kind of fucking acrobat.

In one leap, we are back inside, tumbling onto the floor.

As he drops me, he scrambles away from the light like a wounded animal. He is behind the bed, hiding in shadow. He stands, smoke still simmering on the surface of his skin.

His arms and face and neck are blistered and red. He pushes past me into the light again, grabs the painting, and slams it back onto its fixings so hard the wall behind it gains a hairline fracture.

I am standing in the corner of the room, pressed up against the wall, barely able to breathe.

When he turns around, the room now dark again and only lit by candles, he is glaring at me with a look that makes me want to run for my life.

He paces toward me. A tiger approaching its prey.

Then he grabs me. He jerks my arm up between us and with his gaze fixed on mine, he says, "Luna?"

"Yes," My reply comes out as barely more than a whisper.

"You're bleeding."

"I cut my hand on the glass."

His eyes travel from my face to my hand, and I swear little flecks of red appear in them when he stares at the crimson droplets running down my arm.

"I told you it is not safe out there," he murmurs.

When his eyes meet mine again, I shake my head and try to pull away from him. But he doesn't let me go. "Stop pretending you're trying to protect me. I've seen the way you look at me."

He smiles, and a flutter of warmth settles in my belly. "You are bleeding onto my shirt, what do you expect?"

"I don't mean now." I tilt my chin up, try to look like I'm perfectly confident standing up to someone who could end my life at any second. "I mean always. When you appeared in the bookshop. When you brought me here." I inhale sharply, my breath swelling in my chest. "When you look at me it's like…"

"Like what, Luna?"

"Like you're trying to decide whether you want to drink from me or fuck me."

Did I just say that? Why the hell did I just say that?

Lucien tweaks his index finger beneath my chin, then closes the gap between us. One hand is on my waist. The other is holding my wrist, my blood slowly pooling in my palm and dripping down onto his fingers. He lets me go and raises his fingers to his mouth.

Still staring at me, wiping my blood onto his lips, he says, "What if I want to do both?"