Dark Secrets (99 page)

But I wasn’t about to
let him have me, either.

I kicked my heels into
the ground, rocking my whole body from side to side.

“
Stop struggling.”
Jason jammed the full force of his elbow onto my shoulder. I cried
out, my upper body locked into submission. “Shut up or they will
hear you.”

“
I don’t care,” I
cried. “I don’t want you to do this to me.”

“
I know.” His palm
forced me into silence; only a weak sign of terror survived in the
back of my throat. “But I promise, if you lie still, I will only
hurt you enough to make you cry. After all—” He pushed his knees
into my thighs, forcing my legs up and open, “You are a virgin.
There are bound to be a few…rips.”

My soul drew away
inside me;
Oh, please, no. Please
don't
. I closed my eyes—tried to escape to
someplace else in my mind.

“
I’m going to enjoy
this.” He repositioned himself, then froze, looking up as a yellow
beam of torchlight flashed across my face for a single second.
“Shit.”

“
Look over here,”
called a stranger. “I thought I saw something.”

“
Ara?” Mike
called.

My heart skipped. I
looked up just as Jason looked down at me.
Please don’t kill him, Jason. Please don’t.
Oh God. I wished he’d just taken me far away. I
couldn’t die knowing Mike would too.

“
If he finds us, he
has to die. All of them do.” Jason released me.

“
Please. Please, don’t kill them! Do what you want with me,
but,
please
just
let them live?” I begged, staring into his softening
eyes.

His brow pulled
tightly together. He gently took my wrist, tugging it to roll my
shoulders off the ground and cradled my face close to his chest.
“Shh. Okay, just hold tight.”

Before I had a chance
to react, he flung like a rocket into the trees outlining the
field. My stomach dropped into my hips; I wrapped my fingers firmly
around his jacket, letting go once we landed on the long, scratchy
limb of the tallest tree—what seemed like miles off the
ground.

“
Thank you,” I said,
breathless.

“
You just remember
this when I come to lie between your legs again.”

I shivered all over,
everything south of my hips going tight. The air up here was
cooler, thinner, making the cloud in my head fizzle away a little.
My heart was so confused by the combination of terrors that, if I
was afraid of being this high up—of looking out across the city and
the steep valley of trees beyond the gardens, feeling as though I
could land on the ground miles from this spot if I fell—I didn’t
notice it, even though my only beams of safety right now were the
splintery shelf of branch, only as wide as my hips, and the secure
grip of the predator’s fingers around my arm.

Jason watched the men
scour the scene below, then looked back at me. “You know, I’m in
the mood for a little game.”

“
What? Flesh-bombing
hunters?”

He turned and smiled
at me. “You’re funny when you’re frightened.”

“
It’s a common
emotional reaction,” I said, kind of embarrassed by it.

Jason just laughed
through his nose, his eyes filling with fondness before he looked
back down at Mike, standing a few hundred feet away—talking on his
phone. “If I were a human attacker, he’d have found you by
now.”

“
I know.”

“
Let’s have some fun
with him, shall we?” he said in an unsettlingly smooth tone, then
reached behind my back. “And since you won’t be needing
this.”

My hands shot up to
cover my chest as my bra came loose, leaving a cool feeling around
my ribs.

“
Just think of the
things he’ll imagine when he finds it.” Jason laughed, and we both
watched as, like a ribbon on the breeze, blue lace floated to the
earth below—a part of me finally to touch the hands of the man I
loved once more.

“
I’m sorry, Mike,” I
whispered.

Jason smiled down at
my crossed arms—the kind of smile David would use. “Are you
cold?”

I hadn’t felt it
before, but while the hope of rescue faded, a chill had seeped in.
I nodded softly.

“
Here.” He lifted me
into his lap and wrapped my body around him; my legs on either side
of his hips; my chest against the silky fabric of his suit. Perfect
position to scratch his eyes out. “Be nice, Ara, and you shall live
longer.”

“
Stop trying to kill
me and I’ll be nice,” I said.

“
Right now,” he
whispered into my cheek, making my skin crawl with the gentle
caress of his fingers down my spine, “I am not trying to kill
you.”

“
No, but you
shouldn’t hold me this way. I don’t belong to you.”

“
But you want to
belong to me.” His words came out with a smile.

“
You’re just
confusing my mind. It’s not real.”

“
It’s as real as you
want it to be.”

I went to speak, but
the truth swallowed my retort. I did want him. I wanted him to
touch me. I wanted him to move his lips from their gentle caress
over my shoulder, to the purlieu of my mouth, and kiss me. I had no
control over my hand; I felt myself slowly move it, as if by
instinct, and cup the side of his neck, my breath falling heavily
against his jaw with soft little kisses. And even when I felt him
grow between my legs, not one part of me wanted to move away. I saw
what my brain craved, saw myself reaching down to unzip him—slip
him inside me, and dared not move in case I obeyed that
desire.

“
Mmm,” he hummed,
running his hands down my thighs. “You’re getting hotter. This will
make a nice memory to show my brother—the way you hold me as if I
were him.”

“
In my mind, it is
him,” I whispered.

“
And yet—” he grabbed my wrists and yanked me away from his
chest, “—when you scream for mercy, it will be
my
name on your
lips.”

I pulled my elbows in
to cover myself. “And in that, you will become everything you
despise about him.”

“
I
am
nothing
like
him.”

“
An eye for an eye
says otherwise.”

Like a flash going off
in my face, my mind blanked for a second, waking to a branch
against my spine, my fingers clutching it tightly to stop from
falling to depths of the empty space behind me. And as the shock of
his slap wore down to the pain, I wanted so badly to cry out to the
hunters below—to David. To yell out and beg him to save me. I
couldn’t understand why he never came. Surely, my dad called
him—told him what happened.

“
I’m sorry.” Jason
gently laid my arm across my bare chest. “It is horrible that he
made you believe you meant something to him.”

I looked up, livid
with spite. “I meant
everything
to him.”

“
And, yet, you refer
to yourself in the past tense. So, you understand then, that
vampires move on?”

“
I—” I wiped my cheek
on my shoulder, trying to blot away the last of his slap. “I don’t
know.”

Jason smiled
sympathetically. “Yes, you do.”

Below, the voices of
the hunters became louder over the savage barking of dogs, headed
quickly in our direction.

“
Oh, look.” Jason
pointed down. “Your replacement has unearthed a clue.”

Chapter
Thirty-Four

I turned my head to
see a shadowed figure drop to its knees at the base of the tree,
his anguished, incomprehensible sobs rising up audibly, like I was
standing beside him. In his open palms, the lacy fabric laid,
spilling the taunting tale—a truth I knew he’d feared this whole
time. “Oh, baby. What has he done to you?”

“
Mike!” Emily ran up
behind him, barely able to catch her breath. “What did you fi—” but
her words stopped short as her steps slowed, and a crowd gathered
around them, dogs tugging at their master’s leads, eager to catch
the scent in Mike’s hands.

“
I’ll take that,
Mike,” a man said, scooping up the lacy delicate, passing it to a
man in uniform.

I looked away, my
limbs running hot with shame. All I could control in my world were
my own tears, so I held them back—holding my breath as if that
might keep them at bay. “You’re a monster, Jason.”

“
Let’s see if you
can’t come up with a new name for me once I finish with you.
Now...” He pressed a flat palm to my chest and slowly pushed me
backward. “Shall we continue?”

The scratch of bark on
each bone in my spine meant nothing to me. I held onto the branch
with both hands, letting tears trickle down my temples and over my
ears as I watched my Zorro walk away—stumbling through his own,
deep agony. Emily wrapped her arm around him, and as each person
finally melted into the shadows, the emptiness their silence left
behind took the last promise of survival. I closed my eyes,
whispering goodbye.

“
Are you done feeling
sorry for yourself now?” Jason asked, looking down at me with a
smug grin.

“
Should I
be?”

“
Perhaps not.” He
pried my hand away from the branch and held it up, leaning closer.
“Do me a favour. Don’t scream.”

Would there be any
point?

“
No.” He moved in
with his mouth open then stopped. “Do you always answer a question
with a question?”

“
Only when I’m being
murdered and have no other means of defence.”

The vampire smiled
warmly. “Don’t worry. This isn’t the
murder
part yet.”

“
Oh, good. I can
relax then.” I pulled tightly against him as he drew my wrist
toward his mouth, the point of his fangs showing in his smile,
reminding me of the story David told about the effects of venom on
the human condition.

The scar David left on
my other hand tingled, and as the cold touch of Jason’s lips mopped
my flesh, I shut my eyes tight, digging my nails into the branch,
waiting for the sear of his razor teeth. They popped through the
surface, like the first cut in the flesh of a peach, and the scream
I promised not to release etched its way up my throat. I jammed my
tongue against the roof of my mouth, twisting my lips, fighting
against all human urges. I felt his bite ease, felt him draw the
blood up past his teeth like string up a straw, felt the spicy
venom rush along my veins, pulsing and twisting them like worms
under sand.

All sound blotted out
around me, leaving only him and I in a world standing
excruciatingly still. But the subdued cry in the back of my throat
turned to a high shriek when Jason’s fangs tore from my flesh
without loosening their hold. The skin came away with a long,
peeling sensation, each nerve disconnecting with one last
shudder.

I couldn’t scream,
couldn’t make my voice find my lips; they quivered, sitting parted,
fighting to feel the air come past them. But there was none—no air,
no hope. The muscles in my wrist had detached from the bone, I was
sure, leaving the edges of my skin floating on a wild, hot
wind—freezing, then burning as the venom raced back through in the
opposite direction.
Please stop!
Please.

“
I’ll stop when
you’re dead.”

I tried to roll my
body—to send myself to the ground—but he held me fiercely, slowly
smearing his tongue across the wound. I kicked both legs, hooking
my heels into the bark to push my hips out from under his, but
couldn’t get free. And all the lies David told me—

“
The venom numbs the
flesh…”

“
You know I’d never
let you fall.”

“
I will always
protect you.”

—
thrashed about on
the trails of my agony, rising in waves of hatred for all; all man,
all vampires, for everything that ever was or ever would be. I
wanted it to stop. Life to stop. The world to stop. I wanted to
scream, to cry with all my heart and beg him to tell me why. Why?
Why aren’t you here? Why did you leave me to die like
this?

This pain didn’t
belong to me. I shouldn’t be here.

I cried, letting the
sound be whatever the agony in my soul needed it to be, and as I
imagined my Mike finding me, cradling me in arms of safety,
saying,
Baby, I’m here. I’m here, you’re
safe now
, the cry came from a place so
much deeper than I’d ever cried before. He’d make it all okay. He’d
make it stop.

David?
I turned my head to look at the empty expanse of
space beside me.
David. Please come for
me. Please don’t leave me here to die.

Jason drew his lips
away, moved them up my arm, over my shoulder, stopping just below
the softer skin on my chest. His silky hair smelled like apple, and
the softness, where it brushed against me, made me relax a
little.

My legs gently fell on
either side of the branch, my feet dangling into oblivion. “Is that
it?” I asked softly, keeping my eyes closed. “Will I die
now?”