Page 9 of Wicked Vile King
"Your accent," I blurt. It's both a question and a statement.
He smiles, and there it is again—that predator's grin.Why am I not waking up?
"Just trying to be hospitable, darlin'," he says, and everything in me freezes solid at once.
It's the perfect southern accent—the bait I swallowed hook, line, and sinker—before he discards it once more and continues in a clipped northeastern tone I can't quite place, "Now, return the favor and be a good girl, pet."
He releases my face to fist my hair and yank it back.Ow, it hurts!Then he flattens his tongue low against my throat andlicksup my neck, over my jaw, and to my cheek.
I'm frozen, held captive by slow, liquid warmth pooling between my thighs.
It's indecent.
It's disgusting,
It makes meburn.
He groans again in my ear, and the heat in my belly corkscrews tighter before his steps eat the inches between us, and he flattens his front to mine and rolls his hips.
I feeleverything, and the illusion that this is a dream snaps like a rubber band drawn too tight.
I slap him. Once, hard, across the cheek. The impact sends him tipping back on his heels, and his eyes pop open. His pupils have eaten his irises, his gaze blown to pitch black.
We stare at each other, frozen, until his jaw tics and he grins broadly, showing all of his too-long teeth. A moment later, he looks down between us and rolls up his sleeves to read an alert on his smartwatch. It's odd, out of place in this old building, and he swipes out of it before his gaze returns to me.
"Urgent matters. Rain check?"
Then he shoves me against the door, captures my throat in one large hand, and shoves his tongue into my mouth.
No!
I nearly choke on the taste of ash as his fingers squeeze tighter, cutting off my ability to breathe. Black speckles my vision, and I try to push him away, to wrench free, but I can't. He's too strong, an immovable mountain in my path. Fear lightning-bolts through me. He could do whatever he wanted to me, and I can't stop him. He squeezes even tighter, and the world crumbles to ash.
I can't breathe.
I can't breathe!
I. CAN'T . . .
He rips away from me, and I gulp air, the world clearing through the static.
My knees give way when he finally releases me and yanks the door open, pushing me aside with it. His parting words make my insides wriggle.
"Oh, pet, I knew you'd be fun."
Then he's gone, disappeared into the shadows like he was never really there at all.
3
WILLOW
Cloves and ash cake my tongue, reminding me of him. My vision teeters as I stand, rooted to the spot. I'm still and quiet, but the world is not. It rings loudly in a solitary bell chime that never dulls. I blink, and the ringing dissolves. It thunders far off in the distance as the large, empty room in which I stand comes into focus.
What just happened?
My attention dips to the delicate morning light trickling in through the open doorway, tossing tiny diamonds made of sunshine across the tips of my shoes. I blink again—once, twice, three times—trying to clear away the fog that's settled in my head. It doesn't help. Exhaustion drills into my bones.
How long has it been since I slept?
