The Knight Of The Rose (39 page)

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Authors: A. M. Hudson

BOOK: The Knight Of The Rose
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“It will make an interesting discovery for your replacement.”

We both watched as, like ribbon on the breeze, my delicates floated to the earth below—a

part of me finally to touch the hands of the man I love once more.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” I whispered.

Jason looked down at my cros sed arms, and smiled softly—the kind of smile David would

use. “Are you cold?”

I hadn’t felt it before, but while the hope of rescue faded, the cold had seeped in. I nodded

softly.

“Here.” Jason lifted me into his arms and wrapped my body ar ound him; my legs on either

side of his hips; my chest against the silky fabric of his suit. Perfect position to scratch his eyes out.

“Be nice, young Ara, and you shall live longer.”

“Stop trying to kill me, and I’ll be nice,” I said.

He ignored me, making my skin crawl with the gentle caress of his fingers down my spine.

“Right now, I am not trying to kill you.”

“No, but you shouldn’t hold me this way—I don’t belong to you.”

“But you want to belong to me.” His words came out with a smile.

“You’re just confusing my mind—it’s not real.”

“It’s as real as you want it to be.”

I went to speak, but stopped because the truth frightened me. I do want him. I want him to

touch me. I want him to move his lips from their gentle caress over my shoulder, to the purlieu of

my mouth, and kiss me. I rolled my neck to the side and closed my eyes, letting the gentle tickle of

his lips make my body shiver—a good shiver.

“Mmm,” he hummed. “You have the sweetest scent. I shall enjoy tasting your blood.” But,

his softness stopped suddenly. He gripped the flesh above my thighs tightly—too tight—then drew

a deep breath against the curve of my neck. “This will make a nice memory to show my brother.

The way you hold me—like you love me; the way your arms embrace me as if I were him.”

“In my mind—it is him,” I whispered.

“I’ll not have it.” He abruptly pulled my chest away from his. “I’ve waited too long for this.

When you scream for mercy, it will be
my
name on your lips! You will die by
my
hand.”

“Good, because if you do kill me, then my imagining you to be him will become a reality!” I

tried to scoop my own words back in as I saw the anger they created in his eyes.

“I am
nothing
like him.”

“An eye for an eye says otherwise.”

Like a flash going off in my face, my mind blanked for a second—my hand falling to catch

me on the branch when Jason whipped the back of his wrist across my cheek.

The shock of his slap was worse than the pain, but I wanted so badly to cr y out—to call to

the hunters below—to David. To yell out and beg him to save me. “Why hasn’t he come?” I said to

no one in particular, then dropped my hand from my face as the burn of the slap turne d to a tight

tingle. Surely Dad called him, told him I was taken? Why hasn’t he come to save me?

“I’m sorry.” Jason touched my shoulder. “It i s horrible that he made you beli eve you meant

something to him.”

I looked up, livid with spite and said, “I meant everything to him.”

“But, yet, you r efer to yourself in the past tense. So, you understand then, that vampires

move on?”

“I—“ I wiped my cheek on my shoulder, trying t o blot away the last of his slap, “—I don’t

know.” Below, the voices of the hunters became louder, and dogs barked savagely, leading them in

the direction of the tree we were perched in.

“Oh, look.” Jason pointed down. “Your replacement has unearthed a clue.”

Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen

I turned my head right at the moment that Mike, just below the tree, dr opped to his knees. In

open palms, he held t

he lacy fabric, his shoulders shaki

ng as he whimpered, almost

incomprehensibly, “Oh, baby. What has he done to you?”

“Mike!” Emily ran up behind him, barely able to speak through her panting. “What di d you

fi—” but her words stopped shor t as her steps slowed. “What...what is that?” As realisation set in,

she hesitantly placed an awkward hand to Mike’s shoulder and squatted beside him.

I looked away; my li mbs ran hot with shame—to know what Mike would be thi nking—and

my heart picked up with longing—for how close they were to me, how, if my captor were human, I

could scream—I could be saved right now.

A numbing feeling of defeat swept over me. All I could control in my world were my own

tears, so I held them back—holding my breath as if that might keep them at bay. “You’re a monster,

Jason.”

“Let’s see if you can’t come up with a new name fo r me once I finish with you. Now...” He

gripped my throat firmly again and slowly rolled me backwar d onto the log-arm. “Shall we

continue?”

The scratch of bark on each bone in my spine meant nothing to me. I held onto the branch

with both hands, letting tears trickle down my temples and over my ears as I watched my Zorro walk

away—stumbling through his own, deep agony. Emily wrapped her arm around him, and his cries of

anguish faded as he melted into the shadows.

The rest of the hunters ran wildly across the clearing, shouting something about a blue dress

on the other side of the valley. As they disappeared, the emptiness their silence left behind took the

last promise of survival; I closed my eyes and said goodbye.

“Are you done feeling sorr y for yourself, now?” Jason asked, looking down at me wit h a

smug grin. “Can we finish what we started?”

I nodded and unclenched my finge rs from the branch t o wipe my cheek, but Jason grabbed

my wrist before I could remove the itch of salt.

“Ara?” He leaned really close. “Don’t scream.”

Would there be any point?

The vampire smiled warmly, placing his stiff, icy hand over my mouth. “That’s a good girl.”

It was only once he brought my wrist to his lips that I realised what he was going to do. The

scar on my other hand tingled—the one David left when he drank my blood—and as the moist touch

of Jason’s lips spread across my fl esh, my heart composed a muffl ed whimper of devastation; I shut

my eyes tight and held onto the branch, digging my nails in.

Like the first cut in the flesh of a peach, four razor pins pierced my skin with the same dull

pop my earring made earlier. The scream I promised not to release etched its way up my throat as the

spicy venom rushed al ong my veins, pulsing and t wisting them like worms under sand. My fingers

curled and my teeth bit together in my mouth, cutting into my tongue as my legs shot out straight and

thrashed about violently—trying to fight off the feeling of lava ants carrying my flesh away to their

queen. All sound blotted out around me—leaving only the sordid sucking of Jason enjoying his kill.

And as the blood pulsed to the place where his lips rested, the drawing sensation made a flash image

of a string being drawn up a straw come to mind. It felt unnatural.

My muffled cry wore out t he back of my throat then turned to a high-pitched shriek when he

released his hand from my mouth and tore his fangs away from my flesh without loosening his bite.

The skin came away with a long, peeling sensation, and my arm twitched violently as each nerve

separated from the flesh.

The white shock of pain locked my body into stillness. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t make my

voice find my lips; they quivered, sitting parted, fighting to feel the air brush past them. But there

was no air—no air, no hope. Nothing but pinching fingers at the base of my throat, locking me down

in an air-tight coffin.

When the pain of his venom rus hed back through my arm in the opposite direction, a

weathered gasp lurked in the pit of my voice. “Make it stop!” I cried. The muscles in my wrist had

come loose, I was s ure, leaving the edges of my skin floating on a wild, ho t wind—freezing, then

burning. “Please stop! Please.”

“I’ll stop when you’re dead.” He gripped my arm tighter, forcing the tremble into my

shoulder as he smeared his t ongue across the wound. I tried to roll my body out from under his—to

send myself to the ground—but he held me fiercely, I couldn’t get free.

And all the lies David told me—that he’d always catch me when I fell; how he’d al ways be

there to protect me; how venom numbs the flesh when a human is bitten—thrashed about on the

trails of my agony, rising in waves of hatred for all—for all man, all vampires, for everything that

ever was or ever would be. I wanted it to stop. Life to stop. The world to stop. I wanted to scream, to

cry with all my heart and beg him to tell me why. Why? Why aren’t you here. Why did you leave me

to die like this?

This pain doesn’t belong to me. This isn’t me. I shouldn’t be here.

The corners of my mouth gaped as I sobbed aloud, imaging my Mike finding me and cradling

me in arms of safety, saying,
Baby, I’m here. I’m here, you’re safe now
. And he would. He’d make it

all okay. He’d make it stop.

The vampire laid his body atop mine, and I pushed against his chest while he drew the blood

from my hand.

David?
I turned my head and looked at the empty expanse of space beside me.
David. Please

come for me? Please don’t leave me here to die.

Jason drew his lips away, moved them up my arm, over my shoulder, and stopped for a

moment, kissing the softer skin on my chest. The same searing pain from my wrist started over my

heart—stopping my tears with a short gasp as I tensed from my ankles to my ribs. I opened my lips

to scream, but Jason reached up—keeping hi s lips to my skin—and gripped th e base of my throat

between two fingers—blocking the sound with my own tongue. I gagg ed, fighting, scraping at his

fingers with my undamaged hand, but each time I tried, the hold became tighter—trapping my own

anguish inside of me.

After a moment, he released his grip; I swallowed with the sudden ability to breathe, rubbing

my swollen tongue over the roof of my mouth. Tiny, rasping breaths of agony lifted my chest in

quick, laboured jolts—it felt like a large piece of bread was stuck in my throat.

“I can’t—” I stammered.
I can’t breathe.

He rubbed his thumb across my throat—almost as if he were rubbing away the lump—and

the tension in my body eased, oozi ng away as my lips became dry and the venom in my limbs

seemed to seep into my muscles. I coul d actually
feel
it assimilate, like dropping food-dye into a

glass of water.

The park had gone completely quiet below—the hunters, moved on. From up here, I could

just see their torchlight in the distance, cove ring the miles in rapid succession. I watched them

disappear into the dark—praying they stayed away until Jason was gone.

The predator wiped his sleeve along his mouth, breathing heavily as if he’d just enjoyed a

swig of cola on a really hot day. “I knew you’d ta ste lovely, Ara-Rose. After all, my brother always

did like them...sweet.”

The violent quiver of my jaw made my teeth clatter in my mouth, and my limbs contorted

into a stiff hold —seemingly detached from my control. I stole a glance at Jason’s ey es; he stared

back at me with a cruel and intent smile under the smear of blood across his lips. “You know, where

I come from—in
America
, we have another name for the autumn.” His soft whisper brushed against

my ear. “We call it—
fall
.”

Nothing but a breath of perfect silence passed me, while a cool breeze lifted my hair from my

face before the ground rushed up to meet me, like a rock on a snail.

My eyes flashed open as I rebounded from the first impact, becoming conscious just in time

to feel the next hit more severely. The resonating sound of dry pasta snapping between teeth echoed

in my mind as I laid dishevelled, unable to mo ve on the ground where my Zorro had been only

moments ago.

Jason landed softly beside me —falling into a crouched pos ition. Though I was weary and

suffocating under pain, I could now see his face per fectly in the darkness. He stared at me with a

wide, indulgent grin, then, he leaned down and shifted my body—curving my twisted, ragdoll limbs

around to the correct position. They were broken, I was sure. I coul d feel them move, but they felt

like the empty sleeve of a coat—lank and hollow.

I should have died from a fall that high, but I’m alive still—just long enough now for him to

torture me to death.

“Death?” Jason snorted. “That would be a blessing, Ara.” He traced a snake-like line over the

base of my ribs. “I will not be finished with you until you are
beyond
dead.”

I closed my eyes tightly; in my agony, while he had ripped at my flesh, my mind had believed

he was David—but with my eyes closed, hearin g only the sound of his voice, I knew f

rom the

deeper, almost timid tones, that it wasn’t him. The words
beyond dead
repeated in my thoughts, and

the feel of his voice in my mind made me want to squirm away; what can you do wors e to a person

than kill them like this?

“Something tells me—” he rested his hand firmly against my inner thigh, “—you’re about to

find out.”

I wanted to break free from the putrid chill of his fingers, but I couldn’t move anything on my

body, except my fingertips and toes.

“Damn it.” Jason looked up suddenly, over his shoulder.

I held perfectly still, fighting inside to rid the creeping, icky feeli ng tingling up my spine—

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