Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (4 page)

EIGHT

Before she had long
enough to think about what it could mean, the elevator doors slid back open. Sabrina stepped out without even looking and collided with a very broad, very solid chest.

“Sorry,” she said, looking up to excuse herself. And she caught sight of Liam standing over her.
When it rains …

“What are you doing here?” she said, wincing a bit at her brusque tone, but Liam just smiled, the light of it reaching his deep brown eyes.

“I called your cell a half dozen times before I moved on to calling your house. Your roommate said you were working late so … ” He zeroed in on the note card in her hand. “What’s that? A love letter?” The smile held. “Do I have competition?”

You have no idea.
She looked down at the note card and opened her mouth, not sure what was about to come tumbling out but the elevator doors began to slide closed, giving her time to think. Liam stuck a hand out to stop it and she squeezed past him into the lobby. Somewhere in the catacombs beyond the lobby, she could hear a desk phone ringing and the grumble that answered it—
Central station, how can I help you?

Turning back toward the elevator, she found Liam standing there, hands shoved awkwardly into the pockets of his jeans. He was already regretting the question.

She smiled at him. “This?” She held up the card. “It’s nothing, I get about a thousand of them a day—one of the perks of being famous,” she said, tucking it back in its sleeve and sticking it in her pocket. “What are you doing here?” she said again, starting to walk toward the parking lot, forcing him to follow.

“I haven’t heard from you in a few days,” Liam said, running a hand over his dark blond hair, still damp from the shower he must’ve taken. He wore it a bit long. She liked the way it curled over the collar of his cable-knit sweater. It was about as
un-Michael
as you could get. “I was able to slide out of the hospital early, so I thought maybe if you aren’t busy, we could grab a bite.” He gave her a sidelong glance as they walked side by side, the corner of his mouth lifted in a wicked grin she assumed he’d perfected on med-school coeds. “I know ambush dinner dates aren’t your thing, but I’m hoping I get points for spontaneity and overall cuteness.”

They reached the set of heavy glass doors that led to the station lot and he pulled one open, held it for her so she could go first. Something else she appreciated about him: he was a gentleman. A real one—not someone who opened doors and ordered wine because he thought it would get him laid. It made her feel like a woman. A
real
woman. The kind who carried lipstick in her purse and didn’t flinch when her date placed his hand on the small of her back. He made her feel like a different version of herself. Someone she could’ve been before Wade …

She smiled at him, forcing the warmth of it into her eyes. “Oh, you get points for both,” she said. “But I can’t. I promised Jason I’d help him with a science experiment.”

“It’s the middle of June,” he said, trying to sound good-natured but not quite managing to pull it off. He stopped at the hood of her car, and she continued on toward the drivers’ side door on her own.

She rolled her eyes as she fit her key into the lock. “I know, but the kid is an overachiever. He’s bucking for some scholarship … maybe you’ve heard of it—The Henry-Pryce Foundation Fellowship.”

The mention of the foundation created by his father, Congressman James Henry, and the handful of full-ride scholarships to state schools it offered stained Liam’s cheeks red, turning that grin from wicked to sheepish. He took the few steps that separated them and opened her car door for her. “I really need to talk to my dad about banning summer course work.”

She laughed because she knew she was supposed to and leaned over to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. He smelled like Betadine and expensive aftershave. “Some other time.”

He watched her slide behind the wheel. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he said, shutting the door for her and taking a step back to watch her drive away.

“You’re late,” Val called out the second Sabrina slammed the front door closed. It was Thursday. Thursday meant Italian. The tang of tomatoes and garlic reached out to greet her, and Dean Martin’s croon filled her ears. Tension and doubt leeched from her bones and she took her first easy breath since she’d strapped on her gun that morning.

She was home.

“You do understand that the security alarm only works if you actually turn it on, right?” she said, flipping the panel open to punch in the code to arm it. “It isn’t a sentient being. It can’t set itself.”

“No? Damn it, and I had today circled on my calendar as the Rise of the Machines,” Val snarked back, and Sabrina sighed.

“Sorry,” she said, hanging up her jacket and bag before unclipping her holster, placing her SIG P220 in the wooden box on the foyer table. “Mathews was feeling especially dickish today.” Picking up a stack of mail, she riffled through it. Nothing in the pile stuck out at her as odd. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she let it out in a rush. The word and infinity symbol on the note card had been all she thought about on the way home—a puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted to solve.

She dropped the mail back on the table and headed for the kitchen. “Hey, do you know what the word
mox
means?”

“
Mox
? No … did you Google it?”

The suggestion made Sabrina smile. As far as Val was concerned, Google was the answer to every question faced by humankind. “No. To tell the truth, I hadn’t even—”

Her smile dried up, cracked, and split into a million pieces before it blew away, leaving her face feeling tight and hot. Val stood with her back to the doorway, stirring whatever she had going in the big pot on the stove. But that wasn’t what seized her with the sudden urge to kill.

It was the fact that Jaxon Croft was sitting at her kitchen table.

NINE

After the kind of
day she’d had, finding Jaxon Croft in her kitchen made perfect sense.

What didn’t make sense was that Val seemed to be the one who let him in. The fact of it was evidenced by the dessert plate and coffee cup on the table in front of him.

“What’s he doing here?” Sabrina stood in the doorway, leaning a shoulder against the frame, not trusting herself to venture any farther into the room.

Val stood at the stove, her back still turned to the two of them. She threw a casual look over her shoulder, giving Croft the up-down before flicking her gaze in Sabrina’s direction. “He’s eating cake.”

Sabrina closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before she spoke. “Knock it off, Val.
What is he doing here
?”

Val turned back to the stove. “He’s been parked outside the house all afternoon—as usual,” she said to the pot she was stirring. “When I got home from the store, I decided to put him to use and asked him to carry a couple of bags.”

“You asked him to help you in with the groceries?” she said, her eyes nailed to the back of her friend’s head. “Have you been huffing paint?”

Val sighed. “I just thought—”

“You thought what? That today would be a good day to hamstring me?” Her voice climbed with each word until she was practically shouting.

Val dropped the spoon and finally turned. “It’s been eight
months, Sabrina. This isn’t going away—
he
isn’t going away.”

“Why would he go away? You’re feeding him cake off my dead grandmother’s china,” she said. The anger in her gut wadded itself up into a tight little ball, poisoning her like lead. They glared at each other over Croft’s head. Dean Martin gave way to Sinatra.

“You guys can see me, right? I’m sitting right here,” Croft said into the silence, pulling Sabrina’s gaze to his face.

“
He’s
lucky I disarmed myself before coming into this room or
he
wouldn’t need to interview me to get a first-person account of what it’s like to be shot in the leg,” she said to him, that wad of anger growing bigger, chewing into her belly.

“I was a freelance war correspondent in Afghanistan for three years. I’ve already been shot. Twice,” he said, seemingly unimpressed with her threat.

She pulled her shoulder off the doorframe, her spine stiffening so fast the pop of it sounded like knuckles cracking in her ears. “Oh, well—maybe third time will be the charm. Be right back.” She turned on her heel, but Val’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Don’t,” she said. Sabrina could feel her friend’s eyes drilling into the back of her head. Probably trying to gauge just how serious she was about shooting a reporter in their kitchen.

“You’d better go, Mr. Croft. She isn’t kidding,” Val said. Sabrina heard the push and scrape of a chair and turned just in time to see Croft raise himself from her table. He picked up the plate and cup and walked both to the sink where Val took them, setting them on the counter.

“Thank you for trying, Ms. Hernandez,” he said with a small smile. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a set of keys before turning toward the door. He dropped a hand on the knob but turned back before he opened it. “Last count, Wade Bauer killed nineteen people, and they’re still pulling bodies out of those woods. The families of his victims have a right to hear your story,” he said.

He wanted to make her feel guilty. What he didn’t understand was that guilt was something she lived with every day. “My grandmother. My mother. My father … Wade killed them all. I
am
the family of his victims.”

“You aren’t the only one Bauer hurt,” he said quietly, his dark-colored eyes locked on her face.

“Bauer? Don’t you mean The Bible Belt Butcher? That
is
the nifty little serial killer name you gave him in your newspaper, isn’t it?”

Croft had the sense to look contrite. “A ploy to sell papers. Not mine, but I allowed it. A bad choice on my part.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “This whole thing is a ploy to sell papers. You don’t care about any of his victims past what you can fit above the front-page fold of your column. I know that, so please stop pretending otherwise.”

He didn’t deny it, just shook his head. “
Mox
. It’s Latin. It means soon,” Croft said. “And Ms. Hernandez is right. None of this is going away, and neither am I. I want to know what happened in those woods.” With that, he pulled the door open and walked out the door, leaving her and Val alone.

Soon.
The word dropped, hard and heavy, on the tight knot of anger in her belly, flattening it out with its weight. Crushing it. Stamping out its heat, leaving her cold and hollow.

“I think you should talk to him,” Val said, leaning her hip against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest. “It’s the only way you’re going to be able to move past whatever it is that happened. You
need
to talk about it.”

Sabrina ignored her, waited for the sound of Croft’s car driving away. Once she was sure he was gone, she walked into the kitchen, toward the counter.

Soon.

“I mean, you won’t talk to
me
about it. Strickland tries, but you just shut him out. Devon too,” she said. Hearing Nickels’s first name was always strange, but the way Val said it sounded almost intimate. Like he was a completely different person than the man Sabrina knew. When she’d asked him earlier if he’d been wrangled into babysitting duty she’d been kidding, but Val’s sudden mention of him told her that’s exactly what’d happened.

“You ignore Riley and Jason.” Val kept at it, refusing to let it go. “They walk on eggshells around you—we all do.”

Sabrina reached past her friend, picking up the cup and plate. She moved toward the sink and turned on the water, letting it run as hot as she could stand. Beside her, Val’s pot bubbled on the stove, little pops of red splattered on the counter and stove top, like blood. She soaped the sponge and ran it around the lip of the cup, thinking of Riley and Jason—her brother and sister.

They’d be seventeen in a matter of weeks. The same age she had been when Wade had dragged her into the dark. Eighty-three days. That’s how long he kept her, and she couldn’t look at Riley’s achingly familiar face without remembering every single one of them.

Soon.

“We don’t know what to do anymore, Sabrina,” Val said, her voice catching on her words. “
I
don’t know what to do.”

Sabrina concentrated on washing the dishes. Nothing else mattered. Steam filled the sink, the heat of the water scalding her hands, turning them a bright, shiny red. She kept at it, her eyes locked on the delicate ring of rosebuds that danced along the rim of the cup and plate. She’d always loved these dishes—they’d been a wedding gift to her grandparents. Lucy had let her use them for tea parties when she was a girl. The memory dug itself into her chest, sharp claws locked around her rib cage, pulling her—

Val reached across the sink and shut the water off, leaving her hand on the faucet. “I thought that killing Wade would fix it, but you’re worse than before. You won’t eat. You don’t sleep. Your leg—” She swallowed hard, her voice scraping against what sounded like a rock in her throat. “I love you, I do … but I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.” She was crying now. Sabrina ignored that too.

Soon.

For some reason her memory flashed back to the night Ben had come to her in the hospital, watching the small circle of blood grow wider and wider against the white gauze wrapped around her thigh. This time, there was no feeling of being grounded. No centered calm. All she felt was the pain of a freshly healed wound being ripped open.

She dried the cup and plate, put both back where they belonged, and finally looked at her friend. “Your sauce is burning,” she said before she turned and left.

TEN

Clio was still sleeping.

Moving around the marble slab that served as his altar, he lit the candles one by one, dozens of them, until their soft glow filled the chamber, joining that of the small fire he kept burning low in the hearth. Their combined heat lifted the chill from the cool, damp air. Finished, he stood next to her watching the soft light play across her smooth, tanned skin. Admiring the contrast of her pale golden hair against the black satin he’d draped across the altar.

He took off his clothes. Each slip of the button made him feel powerful. Each subtle movement brought him closer to his true form. His destiny.

Watching her, his sex began to throb between his legs, heavy and thick. He began to imagine it was Clio who pulled his clothes from his body—that his hands were hers as they touched and grazed his skin.

Her mouth twitched, as if feeling the weight of his gaze, and he looked away, ashamed of the thoughts that came to him. It disturbed him that she could affect him so greatly. That he could be so easily led astray. He folded his clothes carefully and stacked them on the wooden stool in the corner, using the time to remind himself that he was a vessel of the Fates, fulfilling his divine destiny. She was a muse—a goddess. He would not desecrate her.

He began to undress her. Lifting her shoulders off the table, he worked her slackened arms out of her skimpy tank top. The lace of her bra scraped against his bare chest while he worked the closure open and pulled the straps off her shoulders, exposing her breasts. To avoid staring at them, he concentrated on unbuttoning the front of her shorts, pulling them down her slender waist, along the flare of her provocatively rounded hips.

Nothing covered her now, save for the delicate swatch of lace that sat low across her pelvis, nestled into the junction of her thighs. His hands shook as he peeled them down the length of her smooth, beautifully shaped legs.

It was a test. A trial, set forth to lure him into betrayal of his beloved Calliope. He would not falter in his devotion to her. He would not be tempted. He would not fail.

The Fates redoubled their efforts to entice him, to prove him unworthy, pushing Calliope from his mind until all he could think of, all he could see, was the lovely form in front of him.

Clio.

He wanted to touch her. Taste her. His sex grew hot between the cool skin of his thighs, pushed itself from his hips, stiff with need. He could see himself moving between her thighs; feel the silk of her close around him. The unbearable friction as he worked himself …

He squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of her and the images her naked body ignited. No. He would hold fast against the lust that suddenly gripped him. He would remain faithful. He would prove himself worthy.

Raising his forearm to his mouth, he sank his teeth into the crook of his elbow until the salty-sweet taste of blood hit his tongue. Pain shot up his arm, hitting his inner ear with a low thump that almost set him off balance. Sharp and honeyed, it insulated his brain in a calming fog that dulled the throbbing at his hips. He was worthy of this gift the Fates had bestowed upon him. And he would prove it.

He took deep breaths through his nose, each pull of air settling his teeth a bit deeper into his arm, each release like a saw blade chewing into its meat.

He would have to be properly punished for allowing himself to entertain such base thoughts, but the pain was enough to curb his desires—for now. He retracted his teeth, sucking at the wound for a few moments before pulling away to examine the mark. It was raised; the oval-shaped ring of bruising already beginning to form. Blood broke the surface of the wound and began to leak down his arm, and he turned away from where Clio lay stretched out to tend to it.

At the sink, he flipped the faucet knob with his elbow, passing his arm under the stream until the water ran clear. Pulling a clean white linen from the stack on the work table next to the sink, he wound it around his arm, using his teeth to help tie the strip in place. Spots of blood began to seep through the cloth, but they were small and sluggish, the pressure from the bandage staunching its flow.

A faint rustling sounded behind him, and he turned to see Clio stir. He picked up a syringe off the table and approached the altar where she lay. He gazed down at her, the lust that had run rampant through his veins only minutes before had cooled, replaced with the reverence and devotion that befit a true disciple of the Fates.

She blinked at him, her hazel eyes owlish with confusion. “What … where am I?” she said to him, as if trying to make sense of what she was seeing, how she’d come to be where she was.

“Nihilest, quod timere ego dilectomeo … requiem,”
he said quietly.

“What? What’s happening?” She tried to sit up but was pulled back by the restraints at her wrists and ankles. “Where are my clothes? Is this … sorority rush? Where are the other pledges?” Her voice was slurred from the drugs, but it was as sweet and soft as birdsong to his ears.

He smiled down at her, liking the way her eyes felt on his bare skin. That feeling of powerful superiority doubled. Of all the mortals they could’ve chosen, the Fates had chosen him. And he’d chosen her to be his first. She should know what an honor he’d bestowed on her, how special she was. It would please her beyond measure.

“Clio.” He said her name, his voice barely above a whisper, the sanctity of what he was about to do weighing heavy on his chest.

“Clio? No … my name is … Beth. I’m Beth.” Her voice had gained in strength and clarity. She was still incapacitated—but it was a state that wouldn’t last much longer. He had to act quickly. “Where is everyone?” She tried to push herself up again, this time attempting to swing her legs over the table, but she was stopped again by the restraints. He smoothed a hand over her hair, allowing himself the pleasure of rubbing the silken strands between his fingers.

“Per quem tibi finem primo fatorum sacrificium,”
he said to her, pressing her shoulders back onto the altar.

“What? I don’t understand … wait. I know you. I saw you in the quad … you’re not a Sigma Pi.” Her eyes, struggling to adjust to the low light of the chamber, flared wide. “Are you naked? Why are you naked?” She jerked her head away from him, across the dark silk of the altar, pulling the stands free from his fingers. “Oh, God … please,” Clio said, her tone telling him that she read his thoughts. She knew the desires that plagued him and began to cry in earnest, great screaming sobs that drowned out all other sound. It mattered little. No one could hear her.

The perfumed water in the stone basin beside the altar was clean and cool, and he used the snow white linens he’d prepared to cleanse her for her journey. She continued to cry, her words running together, swept away in the torrent of tears, until it sounded like singing to him.

Her body jerked each time he brought the cloth to her, twisting and writhing upon the altar, throwing deep, seductive shadows into the candlelight. The Fates revisited their efforts to tempt him. Lust took hold again; a fine sheen of sweat broke out across his chest and neck.

The Fated Sisters began to whisper to him, urging him again and again to cleanse her firm, round breasts. The flat, supple planes of her belly. The gentle flare of hips, tapering in to the long, lean lines of her thighs … the fragrant flower nestled between them. Touching her so intimately was more than he could bear, he was nearly delirious in his arousal, but he understood and he tried to explain to her, comfort her.

“Fatigo non, Clio. Fata me tentatis sum dignus. Ego contaminare non vos,”
he said into the din of her cries, his words delivered on short pants as he tried to breathe through the throbbing at his hips.

With each pass of the cloth, he pushed his sex into the side of the altar, grinding it between the marble slab and his pubic bone. Pain bit and chewed into his groin until his knees threatened to unhinge, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Each pass of the cloth was a sacrilege. Each a violation, atoned for with the punishment. His lungs moved in sharp gasps, the pain at his groin stealing every breath. He purified her, again and again, the satin-covered stone gnawing into his sex with each buck of his hips. His movements grew desperate—short and fast—his free hand fisting in the dark satin against his sex, the other doing as the Fates commanded.

His seed spilled free, a hot jettison against his own abused
flesh. The need left him and his hands fell free as he sagged against the altar. He allowed a few moments to collect himself, his breathing gradually returning to normal, the biting pain at his groin fading away into a dull hum that was almost pleasant. He’d proved himself. Weathered the storm. He was worthy of all the Fates had planned for him. He was a deity in the making—the Sisters had chosen him as the earthly vessel for the god Apollo.

And they’d chosen well.

His transformation required tribute—the sacrifice of his beloved muses. The Fates were unyielding in this, but not cruel. They allowed for the sparing of one—the muse he chose as his very own. He’d known from the moment he saw her that Sabrina Vaughn was his Calliope. That she was meant for him. Once his tributes were paid, he would have the power necessary to complete his metamorphosis.

“Ego sum Deus Apollo reincarnate—liberabit vos, ab hac mortali fata testam,”
he said to her, his chest swelling with pride.

Clio continued to sob quietly, her mouth moving rapidly, though no real words were spoken.

He administered the shot—a paralytic that would hold her still while he worked. It took effect almost instantly, her sounds and movements shuddering to a stop. She was completely still. Nothing moved, save for the tears that rolled silently down her face to pool in her hair. They glistened like diamonds against the gold silk of it.

He reached toward the fire, pulling free the brand he’d placed there. Its iron curves glowed a bright orange, brighter than the candles that surrounded them. “
Vossuntpraenotati, dilectusmeus, Clio. Dicotepriore.”

He pressed the brand into Clio’s shoulder without hesitation. He had to move quickly now—there was no time to waste. The metal sizzled against the pale stretch of skin beneath it, the smell of burnt flesh rising in the air.

He set the brand aside and plucked the scalpel from the table and showed it to her. He had little time, only minutes before the drugs in her system seized her lungs completely and they filled with fluid. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was calm. Prepared. Ready to claim his destiny … and his mate.

“Immolo vobis, musa, sicut fata imperio. Calliope cor tuum et dabo ei,”
he said to her, pressing the scalpel against her breast, watching as it separated the flesh, bringing forth a deep well of bright red.

I sacrifice y
ou, muse, as the Fates command. I give Calliope my heart and I take yours in return.