With One Look (37 page)

Carl straightened the room and swept up the glass while Murray examined Victor's cut. As the door shut again behind the two, Jade began to regain consciousness. He quickly slipped the key in his pocket and waited, not knowing what to expect now. He sat back in the chair to watch.

A trembling hand quickly wiped a tear from her cheek, and she used all her strength to push back fear. She was desperate. She could not fight him. She had always been acutely conscious of the power and strength in his masculine form but she had never experienced it like this. He had never seemed so strong, or herself so helpless. She had only a last desperate ploy. He could not love and hurt her at the same time.

She got up on her hands and knees on the bed, listening for him. "Victor? Are you still

here?"

"I'm right here," he replied, trying to repress his normal response to the sight of her like

that: her slender figure barely concealed in his shirt, posed so seductively, her long loosened hair falling about her, making her look wild.

"What's going through your head?" he asked slowly.

"I'm thinking," she said, coming off the bed, "that if you loved me you wouldn't, couldn't, do this to me." She stepped toward him and every part of her body, every movement, radiated her intent. "Can I make you love me?"

Victor stood up and moved in front of her. She lifted her face, showing dark green eyes filled with tumultuous emotions. He remained motionless, permitting her hands to gently caress his chest, his shoulders and arms, still motionless when her hand moved to his breeches.

She could not be so foolish ... but then, he had never shown her how a man takes a woman and remains emotionally unaffected by it. She had no such option. He'd exhaust her physically and emotionally; he'd steal her small strength—

"Will you love me?" she asked, sliding off his breeches, taking his hard flesh in both hands, hearing his breath catch and a shudder pass through his tall frame. "Will you?"

Victor took her hands, forced them behind her back, and pulled her against him. He forced her head back, her lips open to him, and in that moment, she knew this would not be pleasant.

Trapped tightly in his arms, she felt his kiss hungrily devour her, purposely giving as much pleasure as pain, and she became limp, weak-kneed and senseless. A savage passion radiated from him.

His mouth left hers suddenly, and she drew a gasping breath. As he released her arms to remove her shirt, she darted back quickly in a surge of defiance, out of his reach.

Fear threw her off balance, and she stumbled to her hands and knees. He lifted her from the ground, turned her backside against him and stopped her flinging arms. She squirmed. "No, don't do this to me—

"Fight me all you want, Jade Terese."

He lifted her hair from the sweep of her neck and pressed moist lips there. Chills raced along her spine, and then, with his lips on her neck, his hand ripped open the buttons of the shirt. Helpless tears spilled down her cheeks as his one arm kept her powerless and his other hand gently, methodically began massaging her breasts to swollen peaks, forcing a fire to spread through her loins. His hand circled her belly, moving lower and lower until she cried out in joyless anticipation.

The force of his body, the threat she squirmed against, his very passion permitted no struggle. His leg forced hers apart and his hand slipped between her thighs with a touch like fire, causing her to cry, tremble, moisten.

He lifted her to the bed and allowed her no choice of position, though she tried desperately to twist around to face him. He held her hips firmly and she closed her eyes, biting her lip till she tasted blood, as his hand parted her again, lifting her higher. She felt the length of him slowly caress her sex, opening her for a hard thrust.

Tension built and built and while each movement carried her ever closer and closer, she was hurt by it, praying for the end that finally came. She stiffened as the tension exploded inside her, washing her in waves of intense pleasure, waves that left neither feeling nor strength in their path. His hands tightened around her, holding her to him for his last hard thrust. She collapsed, feeling nothing but a debilitating, numbing exhaustion.

He had closed his heart to her struggle and would not open it now, though he lay down on the bed and pulled her unresisting body against him. His emotions would remain sealed until the moment she opened her eyes and saw him.

He held her for nearly half an hour. She cried softly, trembling slightly despite the intensity of the warmth between them. He listened to her heartbeat spiral slowly downward, seeking a peace that came with sleep, a peace he'd not permit her. Just as her breathing spoke of a final collapse, he brushed his lips over her flushed face and his hands began a slow caressing.

Jade opened her eyes in panic and her body stiffened as he forced her on her back and said what she dreaded most, "Once is never enough with you. Again, Jade Terese. I will have you again."

"No!" she cried, and pounded her fists into his chest as he moved over her. He pinned her arms to the bed and his leg parted hers, his body subduing her assault. "No. Please! I—"

He stopped her protest with his lips, a kiss almost gentle, a kiss able to bring life back into her body. He would not let her passively participate in an exercise of his desire. He forced her desire to meet him, and moved slowly, with purpose, awakening every strained fiber of her being to pleasure again. His lovemaking always stretched endlessly after his first release, and this time he kept her carefully at the peak of exquisite agony, forcing her to relinquish everything to him. He held back his pleasure until he was certain he couldn't push her over the thin line that separated her from ecstasy a single time more.

The room was dark when he finally relinquished his claim on her and signaled the start of her nightmare again. For a long moment she didn't move, overwhelmed by the horror and helplessness brought by this nightmare. A dark nightmare of terror.

It was only a matter of minutes, just minutes, and she never knew if she fell asleep for a moment or if it was a vision, but suddenly she was transported away. She stood in a dark world and at first there was nothing, no shape or even light in this dark space. Then suddenly she saw it.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever beheld. A huge ball made of transparent rainbow hues. Rays of color shot out from it. Glittering transparent color, a visual manifestation of her deepest part.

As she stood there in utter awe and wonderment at this miracle of light and color, Victor emerged. He appeared as a shadow. He held a stick. She screamed as he raised the stick in the air and swung hard at this magical ball of light.

She cried out as it shattered.

She awoke from this vision to feel the warmth of his body leave her. "No, no!" She reached for him, placing her arms around his neck. He closed his eyes but for a moment, and she clung to him desperately, sobbing. Gently, he forced her arms from him and left the bed. She collapsed into a pillow, shaking in tears.

It was gone, alive no more.

Victor lit a fire and the lamps before putting on a robe, grabbing hers from the closet and returning to her. He lifted her limp body from the bed, covered her with the robe. He said nothing, pulled her hair out from the dark green silk, and even tied the sash around her waist for her.

Jade dropped to her knees, lifting her tear-streaked face to him. "Please, Victor, please..." She could not see the emotion on his face, but she felt his merciless strong hands lift her upright, then lead her to the chair and put her on his lap. After making her drink a glass of water, he began.

"Would you like to know how this all started?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice. Jade shook her head and covered her ears, and he noticed the change as he forced her arms to her side. She had almost no strength left. "I'll tell you how it started. It started with Maydrian."

"What? Maydrian?"

"Remember when you ran into your house looking for Hamlet?"

She nodded, wearily aware that he was playing a trick on her. "You didn't find your dog.

No, you found Maydrian hanging from a rope with her throat slit. You must have bumped into Maydrian's body. We suspect it reminded you of something—"

It was too late. She heard him, the words forced a memory of boots, small boots swinging into her face. Maydrian hanging... a door opening to see—

Jade's body suddenly convulsed with effort to draw breath, and she gasped for air.... He held tight as she screamed, her small body jolting with the pain. She collapsed.

Victor stared at her, stunned. The change was immediately apparent; her pain was less than before—he felt certain of it! Her body could no longer generate as much pain to hurt her.

He woke her in less than five minutes and instantly asked, "Do you remember?" Dazed and confused, she managed to say, "I ... Victor, I—"

"Do you remember?"

"Yes ... yes, but it ... it doesn't make sense. I—"

"Finding Maydrian's body reminded you of what's in the bedroom. Was it your mother, Jade? Did you find her dead—"

She went very still but her mind had already begun the progression she could not stop. Her body braced as she saw the door, her hand on the knob. It swung open and for one brief instant she forced herself to look at the burst of white light, but immediately she was hit with pain, and then, mercifully, darkness.

Victor forced four more seizures, his excitement growing after each one. There was no question: the pain lessened each time, as did her period of unconsciousness.

The end was coming.

Jade was unaware of it. She became more afraid each time she woke. It was like watching a guillotine fall to your head in slow motion, the terror of death connected with a quick extirpation.

She screamed, struggled, cried with each and every breath, but he was merciless. Her growing fear fueled his power; he became stronger as she became weaker.

Then it happened. As she opened the door, bracing herself for the burst of light and the pain. It happened in a split second; the light burst in her head, but just as the pain jolted her, she caught a glimpse of dark shapes forming from the light.

She cried with an unknown terror, the first scream not caused by pain. The jolt had been but a brief shudder, and for the first time she remained conscious.

"Jade!"

She couldn't understand what had happened. Fear defined her being and it was all she knew. A trembling voice told him, "I'm so s-scared. I'm ... so scared...."

"I know you are, sweetheart, I know," he whispered, enclosing her protectively in his embrace. "I'm right here. I'm right here."

Those words sparked a sudden insight, and intuitively he knew how to bring her through the last time. Just as in his dream, he could be there when she opened the door for the last time. It would work, he knew it would work.

"Jade, listen carefully. We're going to do it one last time, but this time I'm going to be there with you. I'm holding your hand as you open the door-—"

Jade bit her lip, closed her eyes and shook her head, a last futile effort to stop the image from taking hold in her head. She was looking at the door. This time was different. She really stood there, reliving the fateful day so long ago.

He was not there with her.

No one was with her. She stood at the heavy wood door for a long moment, her last. A small pale hand reached to the brass latch, pulling it down. The door swung open. There was no blinding white light to save her. There was no pain to save her.

She did not scream; she felt no terror and indeed she had not even moved. She never knew how long that one moment lasted, a minute or an hour, it could have been either or anything in between. She had no awareness.

It was a blink of her eyes. At some point, she simply blinked, and as her lids closed over her eyes, she discovered the scene ceased to exist. It was gone. So, when she opened her eyes, there came a flash of blinding white light, an unbearable pain jolted every fiber of her body and threw her back into the hall.

There was no such miracle this time. "Look at it! Look at it!"

Her father lay on the floor. She looked up at her, blood covering her hands.

She could not see her father for all the blood. Blood everywhere. Over the bed. Stains on the wall. A bright pool under her. A red chemise. A thick rope tied to the ceiling beam. Tied to her mother's feet.

Her mother's hair dripping with blood.

No one ever forgot Jade's last scream. It would sound in their nightmares for the rest of their lives: the scream of a thirteen-year-old girl confronting a scene of unearthly terror. ...

*****

A vague memory pervaded Jade's sleep. People whispering. Concerned. Exciting. A tender hand gently stroking hers. "We'll see in the morning.... We'll see in the morning.... We'll see in the morning...."

The words echoed in her mind, over and over again, until she slipped into a deep dreamless

sleep.

An uncomfortable sensation stirred her awake. She turned over, hoping it would disappear.

What was it?

Light.... Light filtered beneath her closed lids.

Her heart started pounding. She shut her eyes tightly, holding her breath, but colors—blood reds, velvet blues and purples—burst like fireworks in her mind.

There was no escape. She opened her eyes. There was no period of adjustment. No blurriness to ease this stunning transition.

The world came into sudden sharp focus.

She stared up at the whitewashed beams of the ceiling, the tops of two shiny black bedposts, then patches of the green-and-blue satin of a comforter.

She sat up. Victor lay sound asleep beside her on his back, and as had happened every night of his life, at some point during his sleep he had became too warm and had tossed off the covers. A single sheet barely covered one leg.

She felt an odd dispassionate interest in this first look at the man who was her husband. He seemed at once familiar and so very unfamiliar. Once, after the theater, Mercedes had expanded her description of Victor: "There is just something so ... so magnetic about him, and to say simply he is attractive doesn't really do justice."