A Sinister Game (24 page)

Victoria gazed up into that cold green gaze and was lost in the overwhelming power of him. Her mind swam. Her heart beat rapid-fire. Her breath hitched and caught and released in shallow, ragged streams.

How had this happened? How had she suddenly wound up alone with her enemy, his strong body pressed so desperately against hers? And why in the world wasn’t she doing something about it?

Set him on fire…

Black shook his head. “Tsk, tsk. Such vi
cious thoughts, Victoria. They’
re unbecoming
on
you.”

Victoria’s heart hammered against her rib cage.

“I…
.
”

He smiled, his gaze smoldering, and waited for her to continue.

“I could scream,” she t
old him. She tried to swallow, failed,
and tried again. “And they would come running.”

Victor didn’t say anything to that.

She bit her lip, and h
i
s glittering gaze slipped from her
eyes to her mouth
.
He was pressed hard against her, so she
felt
it when
every
muscle in his tall, tone body went
taut with
what she knew in her heart was
need.

Need
…
.
She
felt the word and
k
new
the sensation.
She shared it. She was damned and falling into some kind of an abyss – but she shared it.

“Give in to me, Victoria
.
”
H
e let his gaze settle once more into hers
and she experienced its cold, furious burn. It seared
her
like dry ice
. She was sure he could see into her soul.

“Would it be so bad?”
h
e asked. His eyes flicked to her lips again and then back. There was something in his expression that she hadn’t seen there before. There was lust
- t
hat, she had learned to recognize in his jade green eyes. But there
was also a kind of anguish, new
and raw.

Does it hurt
? she wondered.
The thought wafted through her mind.

And she realized that she didn’t
want
Victor
Black
to hurt. And she didn’t know why.

He w
as wreaking havoc on her mind, o
n her body.
She had to get away from him
before he drove her mad.

He laughed again, as soft and harsh as he had before, and Victoria closed her eyes, trying not to whimper. She was almost sorry that she had, for Victor’s next words were spoken ever
so slightly against her mouth,
his lips brushing across hers.

“What happens now, love
?”

She had no answer to
that. She could do so many things right now. She could telekine
tically crash
something into his head
, set him on fire
, pick him up and throw him across the room
….
So many things.

She had recourse to flee from the Gray leader, and hence, she was the king on the chessboard, corner
ed, but not quite checkmated
. She was not defeated
and their Game would not be over
u
ntil she no
longer possessed a
channel of escape.

However,
at that very moment, her powers would not quite answer her. And they would not quite answer her because she couldn’t quite summon the will to call them to her.

She was shaking.

But so was he.

S
he felt the slight tremor there
beneath the
ripcord
tightness of the
strong
body that imprisoned hers. A part of her wante
d to make that tremor go away. To s
oothe him.

It was insane.

He
was insane. She
must
remind herself of that.
He wants to overthrow Game Control
,
s
he
told
herself.

Black’s look darkened. His grip on her wrists tightened to the point of pain.

But even that didn’t truly hurt. Victoria was stunned to find that it
was a different
kind
of pain. It was the pain of being captured, of being ensnared –
of losing control
–
to someone you trusted.

Trust?
No
, she thought.
No! How can I think that
? How could I trust Victor Black?
The world that
had at one time
made sense
to Victoria
was spinning
ever farther away
.

“
Answer
me, Victoria
,
” Black demanded, the brush of his lips against hers like tiny electric shocks that hardened her nipples and sent rivulets of confusing sensation through her abdomen. “What
…
happens
…
now?”

“Let me g
o,” she pleaded, barely able to whisper the words. It was a plea that came from nowhere and meant nothing. She could barely breathe.

“
Never
.” The word was a
promise, spoken between clenched teeth.

“
Please,
”
she said. “Victor –”

She never finished her sentence. Victor’s lips claimed hers in a kiss that blasted the thought from her brain in a whiplash of hard, uncoiling need. A pleasure
-
like pain ripped through her stomach, melting her
from the inside out
.
Heat coiled at her core, wet and deep and agonizing. She grew weak, her limbs going numb, her body arching.

She wanted –
something.
He pressed into her
like promises, like danger and night and the thrill of some kind of hunt. There was
a yawning, awakening craziness
coming to life inside of her body, rampaging her mind.
She was going mad. He was making her mad!

He
must
have been. He must have been using his
d
ark leader power.

Because she kissed him back.

Victor
groaned against her mouth, his grip on her wrists letting up just a touch as his tongue made it past her teeth
. He opened her up,
demanding
to explore the depths of her. She let him, welcomed him in,
and
allowed him to claim her through that kiss.

It was t
oo much. It actually
hurt
,
this new pleasure
– and she, the healer, had no idea how to make that hurt go away.

I can
make it go away
.
S
he heard his voice in her head.
One night, sweet Victoria
.
Give me one night and I’ll show you.

Oh,
g
ods!
she thought
frantically, witlessly.
The heat was spreading like wildfire, threatening to burn her up. It terrified her, this corner that they’d turned. She
tried to
pull away,
but he held her fast
and offered
no reprieve.

His kiss only deepened
.

Bliss.

Had that been his word or hers? She no longer knew.

You have to get away, Victoria.

It was a voice of reason – her own this time – echoing from some place deep inside. The last fragment of her sanity, glittering in some place dark, reflecting what light there was left.
You have to get away.

Victor’s
gloved hands finally released her wrists to slowly trail down her arms to the sides of her breasts.
If he
and his dark leader telepathy heard her thoughts, he gave no indication.

Or perhaps he was just that confident in himself.

With that thought, a hard realization came thudding into her consciousness, dropping over her mind and body like a heavy black shroud.

Her eyes flew open
. She
broke the kiss, pulling away with force. Her body shook uncontrollably now.
“Let me go,” she repeated, this time meaning it.

He clearly
sensed the sudden and very real change within her, because his hands were instantly gripping her wrists once more, tightening around them with exacting strength.
Nonetheless
, she jerked in his hold, trying to break free.

Black’s gaze hardened into
deadly
shards of
green ice.

She felt it at once. She sensed it the very moment he began releasing his weakening power into her. She gritted her teeth against its intrusive iniquity and, as they stared each other down, she
released her own
bit of power
– melting the wall behind her into an insubstantial plane of nothingness so that she could drop through it
and away from Victor. At the same time, she released fire into her wrists that singed his hands, forcing him to reflexively release her.

“No!”
A split second later, Victor tried to reach out and grab her once more, but by then, the wall before him had
already
re-solidif
ied
.

Victoria slipped soundlessly
through the rippling planks of wood and realized, too late, that there was no room beyond her own.
She was in the corner room on the second floor. On the other side of her outer walls, there was nothing but open air
a
nd a
two-story drop onto a hard-
packed street below.

She was going to hit the ground
and she was going to land on her back
.
It might knock her out, and it
might
even
kill her. If
she was lucky and
it didn’t
do either of those
,
then
it would hur
t. It would hurt
really
badly
.

And while she was either unconscious or in pain,
Black would have time to get to her.
He would win – and this had been for nothing.

All of this
, Victoria realized
as the wind whipped past her on her short journey to the packed soil below. She closed her eyes, wishing again that she could fly.
But she was
beginning to wonder whether the light leader flying capability
was just a rumor spread by Game Control.

She also wished
that telekinesis could stop a person’s fall. But it couldn’t. It had never worked that way
, in reverse –
stopping instead of starting
.

And then
, quite without adequate warning,
the air r
ushed from her lungs in a hard and sudden
whoosh
,
and she heard something snap. She
was numb, so she
couldn’t tell exactly
what
it was.
Instantaneous
unfeeling
had engulfed her on impact
.

She
lay
on the ground, her vision blurred to an unrecognizable extent, and waited for the pain to come.

It came.

It was a single throb, followed by another that lasted longer, followed by a constant screaming pain that zeroed in on her injury with cruel efficiency.

My leg
!
She couldn’t move it.
With shaking arms, she
pushed herself up
against other, smaller pains,
onto her hands
,
and
then she gingerly
turned
where she was
on the ground.
Oh
gods
!
The pain rushed over her ten-fold, the way pain
does when it wants to be felt, noticed, and
paid attention to.

Nausea roiled in her belly. Her head swamp. Tiny stars sparkled at the edges of her vision.