Hero (8 page)

She accompanies me out but vanishes once we reach the base of the steps. I don’t need her anyway; I could find my way around the mansion, at least the parts I’m allowed in, with my eyes closed.

But no amount of time exploring this place could’ve prepared me for what I see next.

As I round the doorway into the dining hall, everything I know, all my myriad theories, anything I believed to be true shatters to pieces. Beautiful olive-green eyes framed by black rims bring my world to a halt. Where Guy Fowler should be sits Calvin Parish.

My hand spreads over my stomach and clutches my dress. I try to inhale, but air comes in short, impossible wisps. “Mr. Parish?”

“Have a seat,” Calvin says, his voice dripping with heart-stabbing indifference.

I take a step backward and make jolting contact with the doorjamb. “Where’s Guy?” I ask, my head shaking out of my control. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my home.”

“How?” I whisper.

“I’m not sure I understand your question. Have a seat, Cataline.” He removes his glasses with a heavy sigh. “I’m certain you’ve been warned about my patience?”

With tentative steps, I inch my way to sit at the opposite end of the table. As I do, his eyes drop from my face.

“Norman?” he calls, and instantly Norman appears. “What is this? She looks ridiculous.”

“It’s customary for dinner guests to dress as such in your presence, Master.”

“No need for formalities that will only confuse the girl. We’re not playing house here.” His attention returns to me. “Going forward, come to dinner as you are. And on that note, don’t call me Mr. Parish. Calvin will do.”

I swallow, running my hands over my silk-sheathed thighs. It wasn’t long ago that my mouth stretched from his throbbing dick. I shake my head quickly. “This can’t be real,” I say softly to the table. “This whole time—these last two months, I thought . . .” My head overflows with questions faster than I can keep up. I look up again. “Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?”

For rarely having ever made eye contact, his gaze is unnervingly fixed on me. It’s almost more shocking to have him stare at me so directly than what I’ve just learned.

“Norman,” he says without looking away, “excuse yourself.”

And again we are alone. He leans forward with agonizing slowness to set his elbows on the table. “I won’t answer those questions.”

“Why not?” I pause, awaiting a response. “Are you working with Guy Fowler? Is this because of what happened at the restaurant?”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. “No.”

“No what?” I cry. “No, you’re not working with him, or no, it’s not my fault?”

“Please, don’t get hysterical. Remember your place.”

“My place?” I repeat. “I don’t know my place.”

“The fewer questions you ask, the better. They’ll only lead to disappointment, as anyone you come in contact with has been instructed not to answer them.”

“For how long?”

He shakes his head, an admonishment.

My nails dig painfully into my palms, but I can’t seem to unfurl them. “You’re going to jail for this, and then to hell.” I falter delivering the words, but my need for information is quickly eating away at any fear. “Who do you think you are?”

“That’s a question I will answer. You know me as the founder of the company where you work, your boss . . . but I’m more than that to you now. I hold your fate. As such, you should do as I say if I care enough to say at all.”

“How long have you been planning this?” I ask quietly.

His eyebrows rise lazily.

“You’re psychotic,” I say. “How many other girls have you done this to? And what does this have to do with Parish Media?”

He sighs. “Nothing, I can assure you.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re still in New Rhone.”

Something in my chest breaks loose and relief manifests with a jagged sigh. I am triumphant, clutching to this nugget of reassurance. I lean forward in my chair and open my mouth.

“You’re a glutton for disappointment it seems,” Calvin says. “Go on, ask it.” Slowly he rises from his chair and stalks toward me. My eyelids beat rapidly, and my head tilts further and further until I’m looking up at him. He inclines over the arm of the chair so he’s hovering above me. His nearness is something I’ve furtively wished for in the past, and now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it. “Why you?” he asks. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

I nod breathlessly.

His head slants to the side. “I often ask myself the same thing. Why you?”

Time slows. My lips split apart to breathe him in. I’m swimming in green, unfamiliar green, fighting a war I’ll never win. I reach up and feel his jaw, put my finger in his mouth. My arms are too heavy to move, though, and I’m drowning. My hands remain lifeless in my lap, where they always were. We are a mirage, but separately, he and I are real.

I’ve been silent too long. “Were you the one who came to my room?”

His Adam’s apple springs up as he swallows, but his gaze never wavers.

“Am I here for . . . for—”

“Sex?” he finishes. He reaches out but pauses midair when I flinch. “You aren’t afraid, are you?”

My heart is thudding against my ribcage, eager to escape and leave me to the dogs. I break our stare and shift my eyes to his extended hand.

“You’re blushing,” he murmurs as his fingertips graze my cheekbone. “You’ve gotten away with this behavior because of the circumstances, but after tonight, I’ll have no more questions. I’ll only tell you one more thing. All right?”

I agree with a fractional nod.

“This is in your best interest.”

“My best interest?” I say. “I don’t believe you.”

“So be it.”

“When you came to my room—
that
was in my best interest?”

I’m frozen while he fingers a piece of my hair and moves it behind my ear. “No. That was for me.” He backs away, returns to his end of the table, and sits. “We’re ready to eat,” he says levelly. He slides his glasses back into place, but he continues to watch me. Norman appears within moments, dishes in hand.

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

“I don’t care. You’ll eat.”

“I’ll eat if you answer my questions.”

He chuckles. “It doesn’t work that way. You’re not in charge here.” He takes a bite of food, his head down as he chews.

When I blink, there’s wetness on my lashes. After weeks of waiting for this conversation, I’m left with no real answers and many more questions. It’s a minute or so before I speak again, and I hardly recognize my voice through the grit. “Hero will come for me.”

His head snaps up as suddenly as his eyebrows draw together. The stare he pins me with is so piercing that I sink into my seat. I always knew I’d find something grave in his depths. But my imagination never scratched the surface of how it feels to have him actually look back. It’s as if he’s trying to see harder, to dive inside me through my pupils.

“Hero will come, and when he does,” I pause to deliver my next words with a snarl, “you’ll regret your existence. I hope he shows you no mercy.”

There’s a marked passivity in his face that knots a hard and guttural pit in my stomach. Just when I’m sure he’ll fly into a rage, he bursts into loud, bellowing laughter. There’s nothing joyful about it, though; it’s taunting, echoing through the massive dining hall. He shakes his head and gives me a look a parent might give an amusing child. He forks a bite of his steak and points it at me, a drop of blood leaking from the meat. “You’re funny.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he says, shoving the food in his mouth.

It’s the kind of stillness that only exists in the unshakable hours before dawn. I sit up in my oversized bed, rubbing my eyes for a while until they adjust. It used to be that almost nothing would wake me once I’d finally fallen asleep. The comforter is fluffed, inviting me to bury deeper, but I push it away and slide off the bed.

I ease open my bedroom door and slip down the hallway. My eyes and my imagination are on the fourth floor. The cold air assaults my thin nightie, but that’s not the reason for my shudder. Whatever’s luring me to the forbidden darkness is impossible to ignore. The only real answer I got at dinner was that I’m not getting any answers at all. I’ve been so fearful of learning my fate that getting nothing hadn’t ever crossed my mind.

Each barefoot step is careful, and my fingers trail the railing as I climb. I never take my eyes off the shadows, expecting someone to appear and send me back to my room. At the top, I hold my breath. A squeal rips through the quiet, and rakes over my jittery bones. My heart pounds, my body a statue, until I’m sure nobody’s coming. I’m drawn closer to the squeaks and feminine yelps coming from behind a sturdy pair of double doors.

His jaw at dinner was set sternly, even as he chewed. His brown hair obedient except when it fell over his forehead. Those stormy eyes. Calvin Parish fits the role of captor too well, and my mind has already reconciled my mistake. A bass growl jerks me back to reality. My front is molded to the wood doors and my ear to the sliver where they meet.

Warmth behind my ears prickles its way up my scalp. My teeth dig into my lower lip. Calvin’s grunts are virile venom injected into my bloodstream and surging between my legs. There’s a sharp slap. My hand curls around the doorknob. It turns. Adrenaline courses through me faster than disbelief or sense. I push it open.

The woman on her knees has her cheek on the mattress. Calvin’s muscles are tight, and his ass flexes as he thrusts into her. He smacks her backside, and she jerks, but he holds her to the bed with a hand around her neck.

My dry throat turns my cry for help into a stunned whisper. Calvin whips around anyway, jarring me from my trance. “Help,” I screech suddenly as he jumps from the bed. “Please h-help, I’ve been kidnapped, my name is Cat—”

In a split second, my back is pulled against his front. His hand clamps over my mouth. My screams don’t relent as the woman looks over her shoulder. She’s blindfolded with fabric that almost covers her entire face. I’m fighting Calvin’s strength, trying to ignore the hardness digging into my back while he drags me from the room. He throws his shoulder into the next door we come across, and it pops open. He kicks it shut with his foot before throwing me further into the room.

Before I can even right myself, he picks me up and tosses me. I land with a bounce on a mattress. He’s on me in a second, his long body covering mine, his hand back over my mouth. “What the fuck are you doing?”

The harder I wriggle, the heavier his torso gets, but even when my breath runs out, my screams don’t stop. His fingers seem to go through my cheeks to my molars.

“Shut
up
,” he snaps, pinning my arms to my body with his elbows.

My hips rear to shove him off. My screaming dies instantly because he moans, a pained but lustful sound. It’s then that I notice his length has slid up my inner thigh, under my nightgown. His mouth drops to the curve of my neck, and his hand muffles my gasp. He bites my shoulder, pulling skin between his teeth like he’s about to dig into a meal.

My protests are pathetic gurgling under his gag. I yank at his wrist, trying desperately to free my mouth.

He lowers his hand to trace the line of my underwear. “If you don’t stop squirming, I’m going to fuck you.”

He shifts my panties aside. I shake my head hard, pleading with eyes swallowed by pupils. He fixes my thigh against the mattress with a firm hand. He’s everywhere at once, making me his doll. There’s pressure at my entrance, and it’s burning hot. My legs fight to close. His fingers squeeze into my thigh. My pussy grasps for his crown, but my teeth try vainly for the skin of his hand.

His hips roll in waves. “Come on,” he says, his jaw so tense it could snap. When he’s worked his head in, I’m groaning from my chest, my face flushed. “You like that,” he says.

I want to hit him, slap him, push him away. More than that, there’s this visceral need unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s so thick I’m choking on it.

He lowers his mouth to my ear and waits there. His breath seems like it could blister my skin. “Tell me you like it.”