Insatiable Desire (23 page)
Cursing, he threw up his hands, but his anger sparked the power in his hands, and he sent a side wall caving in. Realizing he might make things worse, he forced his hands by his sides and inhaled a deep breath.
“Clarissa, make some sound. Let me know you’re back there. That you’re alive.”
He closed his eyes, focused on each sound in the dark mineshaft, but the scattering of more rock and dirt colliding filled the deadly silence. Somewhere in the distance he zeroed in on a dog’s pain-filled whimper and knew it was Wulf.
At least the dog had survived. Maybe Wulf would find Clarissa and protect her until Vincent could shovel his way through the mound to reach her.
He unpocketed his cell phone to call the sheriff for a rescue crew, but his phone showed no service.
He didn’t have time to hike back to call—Clarissa might be injured or run out of air.
Knowing that the mineshaft was still unsteady, he assessed the sides and roof before he started to yank away rock and wood.
Carefully he moved stones and splintered wooden boards, leaving enough space so they could crawl back through in case there wasn’t an opening on the other side.
If not, he’d have to make one himself. Because he would get Clarissa out. He had to.
A whistling sound floated through the mine, then the sound of a sinister laugh echoing from the hills. Vincent froze, recognizing the voice in the recesses of his brain.
His father’s laughter. His voice assuring Vincent that one day he would win. That destiny was calling.
An image of his mother’s face flashed against the darkness, her screams mingling with his father’s vile laughter, and he flung his hands out, tearing away rock and boards with such a fury that his body vibrated from the force.
Sweat soaked his shirt and body as he dug with his bare hands. He coughed again, spitting out dirt as he dropped onto his belly and slithered through the narrow opening. Dirt caved around him, dust and the stench of blood filled his nostrils, and rocks scraped his hands as he dug away more debris.
His lungs ached from trying to conserve air as he lev-ered himself between some wedged stone and dropped to the clearing beyond. It was so dark that even with his heightened senses, he saw nothing but shadows.
He felt for the flashlight he’d tucked into his belt, but he’d lost it in the mess.
“Clarissa!”
No response.
“Clarissa, dammit, answer me! Where are you?”
A low moan emerged from his right, and he slithered forward, clawing his way along the stone until he found her. She lay slumped in a bed of rocks and dirt, limp and barely breathing.
Heart hammering, he reached out to check her for injuries and felt blood trickling down her forehead.
Clarissa moaned, covering her ears with her hands to drown out the sorrowful cries reverberating off the walls. The dead who lay trapped beneath the rubble from years before stared up through the ground with horror-stricken eyes as flesh fell from their bones and their skin disintegrated into dust.
She saw and heard it all as if it was happening that moment. The terrified, shocked screams and panic as the mine collapsed. The bloody hands clawing through dirt and rock for freedom before the suffocating darkness and dirt sucked the last breath from their lungs.
Crippled by the dead who held her prisoner to their tortured souls, she barely realized that Vincent had found her.
He patted her cheek gently, and slowly she responded, battling her way back from the dead to the living.
“Clarissa, I feel blood. Are you hurt?” He ran his hands over her arms and legs, over her torso, checking for injuries, his fingers gentle, his voice gruff with concern.
She pressed her hand over his. “I’m okay . . . it’s the voices . . . the dead crying out to me.” She gulped for a breath. “There are so many here.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’m going to find a way out.”
She nodded, although she wasn’t sure he could see her in the dark.
“Just rest while I explore the cave.”
She clutched his hand, suddenly not wanting him to leave her alone. “Some of these mines go on for miles and miles underground. The tunnels connect to underground caves.”
“I know. I’ll be back. I promise.” He squeezed her hand again, and she released him, but a chill invaded her as he scrambled away.
Somewhere in the distance, water trickled over a rock, and Wulf whined. The scent of decay assaulted her, the sound of a small animal skittering along the ground. She shivered, a sob catching in her throat as the spirits returned to haunt her, begging her to save them from where they lay trapped for all time.
She closed her eyes and prayed for the souls, begged God to help them find peace, then whispered for the lost souls to look for the light.
“You have to move on, cross into the light. God is with you,” she said softly.
A sliver of light warmed her, yet another bevy of screams bombarded her, and she rolled into a ball and rocked herself back and forth, continuing the prayer as she waited for Vincent’s return.
But panic set in like a slow-eating virus. What if they died in here tonight? What if they couldn’t escape and she was buried here among the lost souls, forced to listen to their tortured cries through eternity?
Her breathing turned shallow as she faded into a semiconscious state, her head pounding from the torment.
Footsteps and skittering rock tore her from her panicked state, and Vincent’s voice came as blessed relief, soothing in the darkness.
“Clarissa, there’s a clearing about a half mile up where the mine connects to a series of tunnels and caves. There’s an underground spring there. Wulf is resting by the pool.”
“That’s one of the sacred places,” Clarissa whispered. “I’ve heard about them. He’s safe from demons there.”
“Let’s go, then. We can rest, and I can check your head injury. Then I’ll find a way to get help.”
She nodded and tried to stand, but her legs wobbled, and she was so weak she clutched at him. He slid an arm beneath her waist and they crouched low, shuffling their way through the mine. Vincent led her as if instincts were his guide, and a streak of light illuminated the clearing, light that seeped from above ground and shot a ray of moonlight across the pool. Cool air offered a reprieve from the heat, and the soft gurgle of the water lapping against the stone walls brought a sense of peace.
The voices of the dead momentarily quieted.
Maybe the ones who’d made it this far had crossed over.
Wulf lay by the edge of the pool, looking weary, but he was alive. “Oh, baby.” She knelt and hugged him, checking him for injuries. His paw looked bruised but the pool water had washed away the blood and he seemed okay. She petted him. Had Wulf instinctively come here because he’d known the water would heal him?
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered as Vincent helped her sit down by the pool edge and Wulf nuzzled up beside her. She’d never seen water so clear and beautiful. Her reflection caught in the shimmering softness, and so did Vincent’s.
He looked like a giant primitive Roman god, his expression etched in granite as chiseled as the naturally rough, statuesque walls of the cave.
His expression softened, and he removed a handkerchief from his pocket, knelt and dipped it in the water, then gently pressed it to her cheek. The water felt blessedly cool, soothing, as did his touch. Her breath hitched as he wiped her scratches; then he pressed the cloth against her forehead. The throbbing in her head eased slightly.
“Vincent—”
“Shh, I want to check your injury.”
He circled to her back, parting her hair, and examined the wound where the board had slammed into her scalp.
“It’s really okay,” she said. “Just a bruise.”
“It doesn’t look like it needs stitches,” he replied. “Do you feel dizzy? Light-headed?”
Yes, but not from the head wound. From having him touch her here in this private cavern. The mineshaft had echoed of the dead and pain, but this place felt like a sanctuary. The faint light spilling through the darkness created shards of colors like a rainbow across the gray walls.
But the fear she’d felt earlier, the panic, rose to taunt her, and she pressed her hand to his cheek, need spiraling through her. If—
when
—they left, they had to face the world again, fight the demon.
His throat worked as he swallowed. “Try to relax. I’ll go ahead and hunt for a way out.”
“Not yet,” she whispered. “It’s safe here, free from the demons.”
She parted her lips on a sigh, then pressed a kiss to his lips. He was so handsome and virile, so protective and strong, that her body ached for him.
“Clarissa, don’t,” he growled. “I told you my rules.”
“We might not make it out of here alive,” she said softly. “And if or when we do, we might not survive this demon.” She wet her lips, traced a hand down his chest, and began to unbutton his shirt. “I don’t want to die without having you one more time.”
He caught her hand, jerked away, and turned to face the stone wall. But tension laced his big hard body, and he seemed to be struggling for control. “I said stop it. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know that I can’t help myself, that I want your hands on me, Vincent. I want you to make me feel alive again. I need you to fill the emptiness inside me.”
He clenched his hands by his sides, but she massaged the tension from his shoulders, then pressed a kiss to his back and pulled his shirt over his shoulders. The scars on his back made her throat convulse, yet tenderness filled her. He had suffered, possessed a dark side, but concern and tenderness underscored his touch as he’d washed the dirt and blood from her cheek.
He wouldn’t hurt her. Even now, he was trying to protect her from himself.
And she knew what it was like to have him throbbing inside of her.
She kissed one scar, then another and another. His breath hissed between clenched teeth, and he stood rigid, unbending. She slipped around in front of him and trailed more kisses over his chest, each one tender and erotic. His dark gaze met hers, a battle raging in his eyes.
She took his hand and gently coaxed him to the water. His dark gaze flared with the fierceness of a warrior lover as she removed his shoes and socks.
Quivering with longing, she stripped her clothes and stood naked before him. Naked except for the angel amulet he’d given her.
His erection pushed against his jeans, begging for freedom. Whispering her desires, she lowered his zipper and shoved his jeans down his legs. He stood ramrod straight, as if he refused to take part, and she smiled, then pushed his boxers down his legs.
With a shiver of anticipation, she pulled him into the crystal clear water with her.
Pan cursed the saints—Vincent had run into the mine to save Clarissa.
Maybe here the voices of the lost souls would finally drive her over the edge.
Her goodness was screwing with his plan, resurrecting the sliver of good inside Vincent, the good that his father had savagely beaten out of him. If Valtrez continued to have the woman sexually, she could feed his soul to the point of no return.
But Vincent would have to feed daily on her flesh, and no human woman was that unselfish.
Or could totally please an insatiable beast like Valtrez.
Soon he would lose control and the darkness would overcome him. Then he’d take her in the primitive ways, as his father had taught him.
Was Vincent fucking her now?
He homed in to listen to their voices, lifted his hands to feel their aura, tried to smell Valtrez’s scent, yet it evaded him.
Had they discovered one of the sacred places? Was that the reason he’d lost track of them?
He cursed again, needing another kill.
Just as he needed to make certain that Sadie Sue made hers.
He blinked, morphing himself to her, his demonic form floating in the shadows as she stood in her child’s room. The babysitter, the baby . . . it didn’t matter to him who she chose as her first victim.
Only that she kill.
He blew his breath into her ear, whispered for her to feed the evil growing inside her, to squeeze the life out of the child until his last breath faded into silence.
T
he cool water lapped against Vincent’s naked body, washing away the last strains of his resistance. He didn’t want to feel anything for Clarissa, especially this all-consuming hunger that snaked through him like an out-of-control beast every time she whispered his name or touched him.
And seeing that amulet around her neck, glinting against her naked flesh, had nearly brought him to his knees with emotions.
Emotions he didn’t want to feel. The love for his mother. The pain of losing her. The guilt that he hadn’t saved her.
The fear that he might not be able to save Clarissa.
Adrenaline fired his need, and the terror that had nearly paralyzed him when the walls had caved still burned through his veins. While he’d dug his way through the rubble to reach her, all he could think about was that she might be dead.
That he didn’t want her to die. That he couldn’t bear to lose her.
She ducked beneath the pool, then surfaced, bubbles from the natural spring cascading around her naked breasts as they bobbed in the water. Hunger stabbed his groin. She looked so damn tantalizing that he wanted to eat her up.
The walls of the cave created a haven unlike anything he’d ever felt before, a quiet seclusion that erased any rational thoughts and obliterated the reasons he shouldn’t take her.
You never fuck a woman more than once.
But somewhere deep in his soul, he’d known that she would drive him across that line, a line he’d never breached before.
The need was too strong, too all-consuming. He had to have her.
Thoughts fled, as did the reality of the danger awaiting them, and he plunged beneath the water, grabbed her by the waist, and fused his mouth to her nipple.
She cried out his name, and he sucked one breast, then the other, running his hands over her hips like a greedy animal, then between her thighs to play with her clit, then inside her. He needed more. Needed to feed from her. Needed all of her.
