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  “What about Vanessa?” My voice hardens. “Don’t you dare ask me to give her a ride home!”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Geez, what kind of friend do you think I am?”

  “The kind of friend who’d party with the girl who helped my boyfriend cheat on me, while like an idiot I…” I draw in a breath and squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Uh…I thought you were okay with this?”

  My head’s killing me. I pull the hair tie from my ponytail and shake out my curls. “Sorry, I’m fine. I mean, I thought I was fine, but obviously I’m not.”

  “Look, Vanessa and Charles—I bet they divorce—six months tops. Plus, Vanessa downed six shots of tequila, with beer chasers. She’s at the front of the bar puking her guts out. If I post the video on YouTube, it’ll get a gazillion hits. She’ll be Internet famous. Come on, please.” Her voice takes on a familiar cadence, “Help me, Dena…you’re my only hope.”

  “Stop quoting Star Wars at me.” I sigh. “I’m coming.”

  As I angle inside the alley, I catch a glimpse of my shadow, outlined against the brick wall. It sprouts a second head and, in imitation of the Hindu goddess Kali, stretches multiple arms toward me. My mind rapidly sorts through the jumbled images, piecing together what I’m seeing: arms, legs, bearded face…. The picture forms, not goddess but man. It’s him.

  I throw the bags toward the guy who threatened to kill me this afternoon. He swats them from the air and rushes at me. My scream echoes against the walls, bouncing back as if mocking me. The meaty fist aimed at my face misses, but the wind of its passage lifts the hair curling around my head. I throw my arms in the air and the phone slips from my hand. Gabriella yells for me through the tiny speakers, and I scream to her for help.

  CHAPTER 2

  Buffy Gets Staked

  The man thrusts forward, grabbing a handful of my hair and yanking my head down onto his upraised knee. Pain flares across my cheek, settling in the eye socket. My knees buckle, and I hit the ground. Jagged pieces of broken glass tear through the knees of my jeans, slicing into skin. With my eyes closed tight, I try to think through the screaming. The screaming that’s only in my head because I’m too afraid to utter a sound.

  My kidnapper got off on my screams. He kept me locked in a windowless room and beat me whenever I tried to fight. It charged him up. What if this guy’s the same as that sick bastard?

  “Get up!” He uses my hair like a puppeteer uses strings. My scalp burns as some of the strands tear out by the roots. With no choice but to follow his lead, my body slides up the front of his. He presses even closer, trapping me against the wall. I squint, straining to see him through my swelling eye.

  “You ain’t gonna fight?” He makes it sound like I have a choice. “I’ll hurt you more if you do.”

  I shake my head. My face is pressed against his dirt-crusted shirt. He smells of stale cigarette smoke and body odor. I grit my teeth.

  I can’t believe this is happening to me again. This is what happens when you tempt fate—you get bitch-slapped.

  “Say it out loud. Say it like you mean it.” He jerks my hair again.

  I clutch at my head. “I won’t fight!”

  He moves his left hand around my shoulders, holding me tighter against his body. The other hand brings the strands of hair over my shoulder, up to his nose. He inhales deeply, rubbing a curl across his cheek, then across his tongue. “Never seen hair like yours—all red and fluffy like a fox tail. When I saw you inside, I knew I’d keep some of your hair to remember you by. Whenever you look in the mirror, you’ll remember Ol’ Jeb’s the one who saved your soul.”

  I concentrate on calming my mind—pushing past the fear. Despite all his talk of “looking in the mirror,” I don’t trust that he’ll let me go after he exorcises whatever demon he thinks inhabits me.

  He’s crazy. Dangerously so.

  “What do you want from me?” I whisper. Unable to meet his eyes, I focus on the thick beard sprouting from his face like a dandelion. A louse crawls across his lower lip, and he releases my hair to scratch his infested chin.

  I don’t plan it. My knee rises, aiming for his balls like Dad taught me. At the same time, I shove him in the chest. He falls back with a yell, slipping in the mud. His hands wave in the air, but he remains on his feet. I spin, half-sliding along the edge of the wall, hoping to reach the door. Adam is still in the kitchen. If I can get inside, I’ll be safe.

  Hands wrap around my hips, and I groan as I’m lifted in the air and yanked away from the door. I rear back, trying to slam my head into his face, but he tilts his head to the side. One arm pins mine against my chest. He slaps the other hand over my mouth. It smells disgusting, like he wiped his ass with it. I bite down on the fleshy web between his thumb and forefinger as if I’ve turned into a rabid pit bull. I even growl in response to the adrenaline pumping through my body. He lets out a piercing shriek and tries to jerk his hand away. No way in hell am I letting him go. I finally have the upper hand, so to speak, and I aim to survive.

  Fear melts away.

  He must’ve thought my customer service smile at his earlier taunts meant I was a helpless, pathetic weakling who’d be too frightened of the Big Bad Wolf to fight back. But that’s where he messed up. Since I returned from the dead, my rage has grown stronger. At night I dream about being helpless while captured by Red. I fought him. The whole time. I couldn’t stop that asshole from hurting my family, beating me, shooting me…Now this asshole wants to do the same thing. He’s fucked with the wrong woman.

  For the first time since I died, I feel alive.

  I stop thinking about the danger or what he’ll do in retaliation. I grind my teeth deep into his skin until blood fills my mouth. When my teeth click together, I give a sharp twist of my head and end up with a large chunk of his flesh stuffed in my cheek. The guy screams, cursing me. Saliva splatters the back of my neck.

  His uninjured hand shoves me away. My feet slip on something slimy growing on the trash lining the alley floor. Unable to get my hands up in time, my head takes the full impact of my fall. Bright lights flash across my eyes and coherent thought ceases. It takes four heartbeats to return. The spots clear in time to see the glint of metal slicing downward. My arm rises to protect my face, and the sharp bite of his knife slices deep into my skin, scraping bone.

  I scream, kicking out. My foot connects with his chest, and I hear the loud crack of his rib breaking, followed by a bellow of pain. The impact sends my body sliding in the slime, and I turn the slide into a blind roll. I come to rest against the wall with my head only inches from a metal trash bin.

  He grabs my left ankle with a bloody hand and drags me from the corner, waving the knife. If he thinks I’ll cower in fear, he’s mistaken. He should have learned by now that he has no idea who he fucked with.

  My hand scrambles across the concrete, coming to rest on an old board lying on the mud beside me. Once it’s in my grasp, I go Buffy the Vamp Slayer on his ass and shove the pointy end right at his face.

  He swings his left arm, blocking the stake. It grazes his cheek instead of taking out his eye like I intended. He falls forward. The hand holding the knife drops, and I gasp, staring at the hilt sticking out of my chest. My body goes numb. I can’t release the air trapped in my lungs. My eyes dart up to meet the startled gaze of my attacker. Damn. He seems as surprised about stabbing me as I feel about being stabbed. He stares at his hand then jerks on the knife. It grates on bone and I hiss. If he removes it, I’ll bleed out.

  He releases the knife and rocks back on his heels. He rubs at his eyes, transferring my blood to his face. “You’re gonna die, ain’t you?”

  “Go to hell,” I whisper, trying to lift arms that dangle like wooden sticks attached to my shoulders. Unable to hold myself upright, I slide down the wall. The adrenaline rush I tapped during the fight has fizzled out. I sit slumped over like a floppy rag doll.

  The crusty old man drags me toward him. He’s oddly gentle as he lifts my body, carefu
l not to jostle me. My uniform shirt tore where the knife entered my upper chest, right below my collar bone. My chest burns when I draw in a shallow breath. Fluid fills my lungs. The coppery taste of blood enters my mouth. The knife must’ve punctured my lung. Lethargy makes it difficult to focus. Things at a distance fade, and the man’s face blurs into a featureless blob.

  A whisper slides up my spine, as if my soul seeps from my body with each slow exhale. My eyelids flutter, and I struggle to focus on the ribbon flowing before my eyes. It’s so damn beautiful…a rainbow of interweaving colors dancing to the haunting song that death brings.

  The guy doesn’t notice the massive vortex opening at the mouth of the alley. It swirls, each revolution hypnotic. Tentacles of smoke whip forth, stretching toward us. My heart stutters in my chest as a spike of fear shoots through my body. It hits me. I don’t want to die!

  A burst of adrenaline sets my faltering heart racing. If the smoke tentacle touches me, I’m gone. Sucked in, lost forever. “No,” I whimper.

  The guy runs a hand over the top of my hair, like he’s soothing an injured animal. “It’ll be over soon. Let go.”

  No. I try to move my head away, but I can’t.

  The smoke-like tentacle weaves across the wet cement. When it reaches the guy, it expands, pulsing as if driven by a beating heart. The black column rises until it dwarfs us then hovers behind him as if deciding on its next course of action.

  “Help me,” I beg. Why I say it, I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know who I’m speaking to, the man or the shadow. But my plea’s heard.

  The guy pauses at the sound of my voice. He glances over his shoulder in time to see the cloud of doom strike. It shoots a black spear through his heart. He cries out, back arching. The cloud drapes his skin, blanketing his body. He staggers toward the mouth of the alley. Like he thinks he can escape. As if the shadow isn’t clinging to him. His skin smokes, and he yelps. At first, the way he dances around, shrieking and slapping himself, fills me with a sick sense of vindication. He brought this upon himself. Guess he can dish out the pain but can’t take it. Except…even this lump of shit doesn’t deserve to be tortured.

  Not like this.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s too late. The image is burned into my mind. His skin has blackened—oozing on the inside—like a burnt marshmallow. The yelps become screams, drawn-out, rasping sobs pulled from deep within his chest, leaving him gasping for air. The charcoal-like stench of his cooking flesh chokes me. If I could raise my hands, I’d cover my ears. His wails rip through my body like the knife had, cutting deep to my core. As much as I want to avoid what’s happening, I can’t keep my eyes closed. Instinct tells me not to look away from a predator. Especially when the vortex continues to spin, searching for a soul to slurp down like a raw oyster.

  My soul remains intact and safely lodged in my battered body, but for how long? Maybe only for as long as my attacker still screams.

  My frazzled brain sputters and dies. My consciousness escapes into the dark, only to awaken sometime later with the scent of burned flesh clogging my nostrils. As much as I’d like to convince myself that my shaky memories are a hallucination, I know, once the moon peeks from behind the clouds again, I’ll see an extra-crispy corpse lying at my feet.

  This is real, and I’m screwed. My injuries are too severe. I won’t survive until help arrives. I’m dying. It’s the only answer. Otherwise, why would I be wondering if the tongue licking my cheek belongs to an animal or a human?

  It feels like an animal tongue. But upon opening my eyes, I see a man—one who hasn’t noticed I’m conscious. He runs his tongue across my face in lazy laps that trail down my neck. Then he lifts my arm to lick the oozing gash running down its length.

  This whole situation has the surreal feel of a lucid dream, but I can’t wake myself up. I’m straddling the line between conscious thought and unconscious delusions. And I’m not sure if I want to come back to reality. Being licked doesn’t hurt. If anything, it’s the opposite of pain. A sort of non-pain, not quite like numbness since I still feel his raspy, cat-like tongue sliding over the cut, which tingles as if slathered in Novocain. My head doesn’t throb anymore, and while my arm aches, it’s nothing compared to the mindless agony I was in earlier. He licks the cut one last time and continues downward, his tongue dipping into the bowl formed by the crease of my elbow.

  Unexpected pleasure burns in the center of my chest, radiating downward with each rough slurp. It’s like he has an aphrodisiac in his saliva. I grow hotter when his mouth moves to my hand. His tongue flicks across the pads of my fingers, slowly drawing each one into his mouth, like he’s sucking off chocolate instead of blood.

  A gasp escapes me.

  I hold my breath—horrified. The guy’s head jerks up. Moonlight barely penetrates the alley, but I have the impression of dark hair falling over his shadowed face. The tip of his tongue slips from between sharp teeth to lick the blood staining his lower lip. The weight of his gaze—thick with the force of his hunger—changes. He sees me, not just a tasty dish of blood for him to savor, but me, Dena Acker, lying beneath him, breathless.

  Part of me—the strong part that fought my attacker—questions why I’m lying beneath this guy like a slab of beef. Might as well stick some carrots around me and roast me ’cause I’m cooked. I should be afraid. But I’m not. Why?

  As if sensing my confusion, he rises above me. I gaze into his shadowed face. Tension vibrates between us. All my senses hum with awareness in a way they never did with my ex-boyfriend. This man’s touch feels familiar. As if some forgotten piece of me recalls the weight of his body in my arms. His touch fills me with warmth and security. Part of me yearns for him, as if I’ve finally recovered the piece of my soul that’s been missing since I woke up in the hospital.

  “I know you, don’t I?” I whisper. Despair wells inside, an echo of the loss, but the memory dances away each time I try to grab it. My body turns traitor and refuses to cooperate. Like it’s in revolt, and wants my mind to shut-the-hell-up. It remembers him, even if I don’t. I realize now that all those times I dreamed of Death didn’t mean I wanted to die again. I wanted to go back to find him. To feel how I feel right now. Cherished.

  Now he’s here in my world. Holy hell, this is real.

  Energy pours off his body. He leans forward and places large hands on my hips. I suck in a breath as his palms slide up my waist. His nose presses into the crease behind my ear, and he inhales so deeply his chest expands against me. He rubs his face against my cheek, like a giant cat scent-marking its territory. The heat of his body, burning so hot it’s like he’s boiling inside, pushes me over the edge.

  I lose myself in savoring the softness of his smooth, silky cheek sliding across my face. I breathe in the heavy musk of his body. I want to taste him. To lick his skin like he licked mine.

  He doesn’t help calm the urgency growing inside me. If anything, he seems determined to explore every inch of my body with a hunger of someone starving. How can I form a coherent thought when he’s licking me again? And nibbling…Oh, God, yes, there’s definitely some nibbling going on.

  He draws my earlobe into his mouth, rolling his tongue. I cry out as heat spreads between my legs. I squeeze my thighs together, glad of the denim barrier between us, and try to ignore the building, throbbing pressure. At the same time, I remind myself to breathe. And even with the knife in my chest, it doesn’t hurt. His hand caresses my breast, squeezing the soft flesh just enough for pleasure to mingle with pain. The other hand circles the hilt of the knife and jerks it from my chest.

  I sit up with a choked scream. “Son of a—”

  Blood bubbles from the jagged wound, a hot trail flowing down my chest. His head dips and his tongue enters the hole until his entire mouth covers the area around the wound. He sucks hard, drawing my blood into his mouth. The numbing sensation I felt earlier spreads from my chest, up to my shoulder, and down my arm in an enervating prickle that sets my nerves jangling.

>   “Oh, oh God—” The euphoria spreads, and I writhe beneath him, unable to remain still. Every nerve tingles and twitches from the sensations flooding my body. I grab his hair, using the hand that refused to respond earlier, and pull. His mouth pops off my chest with a sound like a suction cup being released from a wall.

  He rears back, staring into my face with green eyes that glow with an otherworldly light, before slanting his mouth across mine. His tongue slips between my lips, bringing a coppery tang, and beneath it, a sweet acidity. I drink him in, swallowing the saliva that pours down my throat until I choke for lack of air. I want him. I want to be consumed by him.

  The shock of this thought brings clarity to my frazzled brain. I pull my mouth from his, drawing in smoke-tainted air, unable to clear the fuzziness from my thoughts.

  A car door slams and I jerk, heart racing. I turn my head toward the entrance of the alley. Blue and red lights rotate across the wall. Footsteps…the echo of a radio and the familiar voice of Deputy Eva Winters carries on the wind. I inhale, prepared to call for help, but for some reason I hold back.

  The guy lying on top of me kind of…quivers all over. His grip tightens around my hips, lifting them. He presses his face between my thighs and inhales, as if to imprint my scent in his mind. The heat of his breath brushes across my skin before he pulls away with a frustrated growl. Cold air replaces the warmth of his body, and I’m the one left shivering.

  CHAPTER 3

  Even Ninjas Need Hugs

  I wake in the hospital, doped up on pain meds and hooked to machines. Gabriella hovers over my bed—my red-nosed, Latina, guardian angel. Tears streak her heart-shaped face. She’s a crier, my best bud: hokey greeting cards, heart-wrenching commercials, and homeless puppies get her every time.

  She attempts to smile through her tears as she pats the blanket over my legs. “Hey Ninja, the police filled me in. What the hell were you thinking? Taking on that guy in the alley.”