My wide gaze finds a door in the corner. A closed one—and I suspect I know what is behind it. A bathroom. A reprieve from Cliff.
“I need the loo,” I mutter words I have spoken to him so many times. Words that taste less sincere each time I speak them. With me and bathrooms, I’m coming to learn, there’s always an ulterior motive.
His weight shifts off me and, with a growling sound deep in his throat, he rolls onto his side.
Given his toxic mood, I scoot off the bed fast—grab the lantern on the bedside—and scurry for the door, his eyes burning holes into my back as I go. As I suspected, it opens to an ensuite, though it is an unimpressive one.
Leaning back against the door, I let it click shut and I wander my gaze around the cubed room. I would guess we’re in an apartment, somewhere near the coast since the taste of salt water still lingers in the air.
And if we’re near the coast, that means I’ve slept for longer than I can afford, and we’re getting far too close to his army.
I don’t have much time to waste.
Pushing away from the door, I march over to the sink tucked beneath an in-built mirror whose reflection wobbles and stretches with cheapness. Still, I see enough of myself in it to recognise the strap slung over my chest. My shoulder bag.
My saving grace.
My final way out.
Setting the lantern on the counter edge, I lump the bag onto the side of the sink and whip it open. Don’t bother rummaging, I just overturn it and let its contents roll into the sink.
My stuff fills the modest basin quickly. A pile of assortments; pads, tampons, three packets of cigarettes, two lighters, a pack of wet wipes, an old withered copy of Beauty and the Beast, some chewing gum, a toothbrush (no paste to match), a near-empty bottle of painkillers, a small keychain torch—and a bottle of pills.
Trying my luck, I flick the switch on the keychain. No light comes. Flat battery, or it’s just been so battered around since I last used it that it’s all messed up inside. I’ll just have to make do with the lantern.
And so I do.
I pluck the pill bottle from the basin and aim the label at the orange glow of light. Diazepam, 20mg tablets, 100 of them.
Mother Earth is watching over me.
Uncorking the lid, I try the tap above the sink. A horrible, wall-shuddering groan comes up the pipes before ... a single drop of water falls onto my top packet of cigarettes.
So no water, then. Guess a bath is out of the question.
That’s fine. I’ve swallowed enough pills in my days to know the tricks. First, I salivate my mouth as best as I can. And since I gather quite an amount, I suspect Cliff has been feeding me water while I slept.
Opening up my throat, I gently tip the bottle to my lips and let the pills slowly rain into my mouth. I swallow, and swallow and swallow, again and again until I’m halfway through the bottle and I have to stop for a break.
I try again. Then one more time, until all the pills are choked down my throat, and the bottle is empty. With this many piled into my system, the effects should start to hit me in an hour or so, but I don’t expect to slip away into a coma for at least a day.
The effects, from my experience, should start with lethargy. Maybe I can pass that off as the black powder gone wrong in my body. That could buy me some time and ease some of the suspicion Cliff might have.
I re-fasten the lid, then pop the bottle into a bin beside the toilet. The toilet. Now that I’ve looked at it, I’m suddenly aware of how much I need to go. As I do, I realise that I’ve been out cold long enough for my period to stop.
Using a wet wipe, I freshen myself up and discard the old pad.
Thankfully, the toilet flushes, but since there is no more water in the pipes to refill its supply, I doubt it will again.
I repack my shoulder bag, then sit on the toilet (lid-down) to smoke a cigarette alone. Don’t want to go back out there. I’ll avoid it as long as I can. But I know, he won’t let me hide out in here forever.
I just need some time. He can’t know what I’ve done, swallowing all of those pills. He’ll just make me sick them up and then what? I’ll really be done for.
Cliff has too much control over my life.
I am selfish, he told me. And selfish he is for keeping me in a bleak world that I simply want to escape.
His motivations must run deeper than mere lust and—perhaps slight—affection. Why else would he waste the last of his healing powder on me when there could come a moment he needs it himself before we find his army? He fights so hard to keep me here with him, but only back at the cottage he was shoving me out the door.
Sex can’t mean all that much to a dark fae warrior. There has to be more, something I’m missing.
I can rule out budding love and care. If he had any of that for me, he would let me go into the next life. He wouldn’t drag me alongside him, only to deliver me to his troop and have me banished from him and into the group of kuris. Cliff would want to protect me, do anything within his power to keep me safe if he had even the slightest sliver of care for me.
Is the dark fae need for kuris so great that he’ll go to such lengths to keep me alive and with him? Surely not, since he so callously killed that kuri in the corner shop and practically butchered Spike, too.
Can’t wrap my head around it. All these thoughts are tangling in my mind, like loose threads stuffed into the forgotten drawer.
I have little other choice than to sweep the threads away—Cliff won’t let me hide out in here forever, mulling over all the details of my existence since I first saw him on that skeletal steed.
I push up from the toilet seat. Dropping the cigarette onto the floor, I stamp it out with the toe of my plimsoll and run my fingers through my hair.
I repack my shoulder bag with the pile in the sink. Before I head back into the bedroom, I light another cigarette with trembling fingers. The diazepam hasn’t kicked in yet—and it won’t for at least an hour—but already, the dread has sunken into my chilly bones.
There’s always that survival instinct, that part of me that doesn’t want to die. But what other choice do I have? Be carted to a dark fae army, dragged into a foreign world, and kept as a slave for the rest of my life?
No, thanks. I’ll unsubscribe from that.
Cigarette pinched between my fingers, lantern hanging at my side in my loose grip, I fumble my way out of the ensuite. The instant I’m through the door, my eyes latch onto the dark angel spread out on the bed.
His ink-black gaze glistens as it lands on me.
Muscles bulge as he curves his arm under his head like a pillow and slowly hikes up a knee, his thighs spread. He looks every bit the warrior paused for a rest. Still as deadly as he is on the battlefield, sword-in-hand.
Beside the door, I stop at the chest of drawers pushed against the wall and lean on it. My head tilts to the side as I blatantly run my gaze over him, head to boots.
In silence, he watches me back.
Leather trousers wrap tightly around his solid legs, the waistline hanging low enough for me to trace a V-shape up to the first bulges of muscle. Obscured only by black straps, his chest is contoured by shadows, the lantern light definitely a favourable one on him.
He is as handsome as the tarry depths of his eyes, the slight curl of his deep-chocolate brown hair, the peachy tint to his full mouth. Like so many other dark fae, he is the epitome of masculine beauty—powerful, and utterly heart-breaking.