by J. L. Myers
“Because my shithole loft is too shitty for you? You didn’t seem to mind last night when you were getting your rocks off.”
I was back on the defensive, building those walls back up with the threat I felt incoming. But this time it wasn’t the monster crawling out of mirrors or trying to swallow me as I leaped through a glass door. No. This time it was my heart. Pounding with confusion and uncertainty, it had the power to crush me, to rip me apart like wood to a wood chipper.
“Don’t do that, Calli. I’m trying to help you. I want you as much as I did last night. I don’t want to lose you. Come with me, Calli. Come home with me.”
“Wh—what?” I jerked back and would have tipped off the bed if Adamaris hadn’t caught hold of my flailing arm. Gathering the sheet up to cover my chest—not that he was looking, his eyes were set unwaveringly on mine—I forced myself to calm down and be rational. “Come with you to your home.” I tensed in preparation of what I had to ask. “Where is your home?”
Adamaris cracked a smile, his tight grip on my arm softening when he could see I had my stability back. “In The Deep. The ocean. The kingdom is…”
He kept talking, but a ringing had started up in my ears, muffling out his words. In the freaking ocean? “Hold on there, cowboy.” I didn’t know which part of his spiel I was interrupting, and right now I didn’t care. “How can I go with you? I’ll drown in less than four minutes flat. And the ocean?” I started hyperventilating, a morbid fear creeping in that he would drag me down there just to keep me as a dead and rotting corpse. “How can anyone live in the ocean? What about sharks and those freaking deep-sea fish that are all dark and have long sharp teeth and spooky flashing lights?”
“Shhh. Just breathe.” Adamaris’s fingers curled around my neck and he pulled me forward. His lips pressed to my forehead. “I would never endanger you. I want to protect you. That’s why we must leave. And you won’t drown. Water is a part of you too.”
A part of me? So what if I could only stomach seafood and bland things? We were nothing alike, especially now with my new enhanced traits and pointed ears. The suspicion that filled my head was impossible. But still, I had to ask. “What am I? Am I like you?”
Lips leaving my warm head, Adamaris smiled at me. He brushed my hair back from my face, thumb tracing over my pointed ear in a way that shot tingles down my body. “No. Not like me. You are so much more.” He leaned in close, brushing his warm lips over mine, tickling the seam of my mouth with his tempting tongue. With a seductively deep voice, he added, “You will be mine. By my side and safe…as my queen. My first wife.”
I jerked back despite how muddled my thoughts were from the heat of his impending kiss. The queen part would have knocked my socks off if I’d had any on. Guess I understood the princess references, not that I’d ever thought much of it. But what came after… “Your first wife?” I had to have heard him wrong. Polygamy couldn’t be a Mer thing. He couldn’t intend for me to be at his beckoned call while he satisfied a harem of Mer women. But the look of confusion at my sudden retreat told me the truth before he even spoke.
“It’s the way of the Mer. Especially royalty. It’s my job to continue the royal legacy with strong heirs.”
And now I was a freaking incubator?
Face burning red, I slid backward off the bed and away from his possessive hands. He had all but proposed to me, rather told me I would be his wife—one of many—and then dropped the bomb that I would pop out his Mer children. “You arrogant asshole. Get out!”
I pointed to the door, and he looked at it, puzzled. He slid off the bed, dropping the sheet to stand stark naked. “Calli, listen to—”
“Get the hell out!” I screamed as he walked toward me. I suddenly felt dirty all over and ripped off. And it was all my fault. I slept with my effing stalker—yeah, great move there—and then I’d fallen for him. Thank God I was on the pill. I could just imagine how relentless he’d be if he knocked me up. Asshole!
“Calli, just calm down.” Adamaris reached for me, and I shoved at his naked chest.
“Calm down?” He barely stumbled, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. Swooping up his damp clothes and soggy shoes, I shoved them into his arms to keep him from grabbing at me. “Freaking calm down? You have some nerve. And I don’t give a shit who you are or what you want from me. You can’t have it. Not me. Not my song.” Whatever the hell that meant. “Nothing. And to think I thought you cared. Guess I’m the idiot.” I shoved him toward the door. “Well thank you but no thanks. I don’t want you and I don’t need you. I’d rather take my chances with the monster and call it a day. At least I’d die being true to myself and not becoming some random sex thing you can’t recall the name of because you are so screwed up all you can think about is getting your jollies.”
Sexonlegs—that’s all he would ever be and all he ever had been—spun around, mouth open to protest. “Calli—”
My scream of anger cut off his rebuttal, my glare slicing into him as if I were shooting daggers right into his cold, dead heart. I lunged and tore the bat out from under my bed, winding it back in readiness to strike. I would have gone for my Taser, but after the mind-numbing stupid sex I’d had with him last night I had no idea where it was. “If I ever see you again, my Taser and this bat won’t be your only worry. I’m not playing your games anymore. Leave. Me. Alone. Or don’t, but I swear to you you’ll be sorry. I’m done with your bullshit and I’m done with you. Come near me again and I’ll make you wish you had never shown up in that lecture room. I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
Sexonlegs made me leap back as he strode forward and swooped something up from under my bed. His dagger. My blood ran cold, my palms around the bat sweating profusely. His glare intensified, but he didn’t advance. Instead, he strode out the door before spinning back around. “Cal—”
I slammed the door in his face and slumped into it, holding my rushing breath as I tried to hear over the pounding of my heart in my ears. The bat remained secure in both my hands.
“I’m sorry, Calli.” Adamaris’s voice was deadpan, devoid of any of the emotion he’d revealed while naked and pressed against me. “I’ll never be that guy. It’s not up to me, and even if it were…I won’t repeat my mother’s mistakes. Obligation comes first. Love is only a curse, one that makes me glad you hate me.”
There was a creak as he walked over the landing and stomped down the metal stairs, leaving me alone—just as I’d demanded.
Hot tears burst from my eyes, flooding down my face. In one night I had fallen in love and had my heart broken just as fast. It didn’t seem possible, the speed, the intensity, but the severity of the pain that crushed my chest was real. I’d won and lost the only thing I’d dared to want since my mother died. But I knew this was just the beginning as a voice whispered in my ears…
I can make him yours, only yours…if you dare to wish.
Chapter Eighteen
I glanced over my shoulder for the millionth time. Not there. I sighed and looked back down to the front of the lecture hall at my professor, not really seeing what he was scribbling on the whiteboard. Sunday had passed without even a hint of conflict, and now Monday was here. A sigh I didn’t realize I was holding blew through my lips.
You miss him. But you don’t have to.
I clenched my teeth and grated my molars at the raspy voice. I did not miss the arrogant, chauvinistic pig that had been my stalker. Had been… The words hit me like the bus he’d saved me from being splattered all over the front of. I had said everything I could think of to make him leave and never come back, and now my wish—I cringed at the word—had come true.
I can get him back for you. I can make him yours alone.
And now I was going insane. With him, the voices had quieted for the most part. Now they were back on full force, promising me the one thing I kept telling myself I didn’t want. Didn’t need. But they knew the truth and so did I. My broken heart told a story that made me loath how weak I’d let myself become.
I’d never relied on anyone, never counted on or trusted anyone…until he came along. Now I was alone and losing the plot. I didn’t know what was real anymore and what was a delusion. Fear that none of it was really in my head was almost worse than believing it was.
“Keep your promises,” I whispered under my breath. “I’ll never give in.”
I got up, flinging my backpack over my shoulder. My laptop hadn’t even made it out at the beginning of class, and I wasn’t sticking around. What was the point? My mind was circling the drain like a broken record heading for a swirling sinkhole. Hook, line, and sinker…but unlike him, in my case it was real. I was hooked.
“Miss Rivers, my class is not finished.”
I waved over my shoulder, unable to look back at Mr. Callaghan as I marched up the stairs. I didn’t need to look to know everyone in the lecture room was staring after me. It had started the moment I got on the bus this morning to drop off new art for my dealer—using the backdoor, just to be safe. Even Philippe had looked at me strangely when I’d accidentally brushed my hair back over my ears. I shuddered, remembering how Sexonlegs had touched one of my pointed ears, sending an inundation of tingles down through my body. So much more. I was so much more. He had said the words, and the memory of his lips brushing over mine as he lay beside me threatened to make me hyperventilate. I caged the mental reenactment and refused to let myself dwell on what his words meant, on what I was becoming…what I had maybe been all along.
I was human. I had always been human, and I wasn’t accepting anything other than that. And I sure as shit wasn’t becoming anyone’s ‘first’ wife.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Callaghan. I gotta go.” I pushed through the doors, escaping out through the empty hallway while shying away from the windows that peered out onto school grounds. And that’s when I stopped dead, unable to ignore a sudden reflection that flashed up onto the glass. But this time it wasn’t the monster. “Dr. Sollomon?”
“Calli, if you can hear me, don’t come. Don’t listen.” His eyes were frantic, his head swinging left to right as if he expected to be pounced upon at any moment.
“Greg? Greg, what’s wrong?” But he couldn’t hear or see me, that much was clear in the way his eyes refused to focus.
“I’m so sorry. I should have believed you. I should have listened.” His eyes glazed with tears. “But the voices. My wife. I just wanted to see her one last time.”
And then he was gone, vanishing as a guttural scream punched at my eardrums from nowhere and no one.
Greg was in danger—and I knew exactly what was coming to get him.
My mobility rushed back and I raced out to the bus stop. Soon enough I was in motion, making a trip that diverted before heading in the direction of my loft. The red-brick building came up faster than I had expected, and I vaulted off the bus. Everything was so crazy the last time I came to see Greg, and being thrown in the looney bin was the last thing I wanted if I was in fact delusional. But now I was here, and I could only hope I wasn’t too late.
Don’t go inside. You won’t like what you find.
Take my offer. Wish for the stars and you will never need to wish again.
The fact that the voices were deterring me meant that maybe I wasn’t too late. Greg was as close to family as I had ever had, and he was all I had left. His last stunt replayed in my mind, along with his sketchy demeanor. The mirror trick had been cruel. And if I believed my eyes—it was getting harder and harder not to—he had opened me up to danger. The monster could find me anywhere and it had only gotten stronger. Now it had used him—to get to me. I had to do something. I had to fight, and I had to win.
Take my offer…or you’ll be sorry.
That dark face came into view, appearing in the glass of the door. I ground my teeth and snarled. “I killed you once and I’ll do it again. You don’t scare me.” I smiled, feeling the truth of my words. I was scared, but at this moment I wasn’t afraid of the monster I could see. Looking almost like it was behind the glass of the door, its nails tapped on the transparent barrier as if trapped. They didn’t reach through like they had in the alley to take hold and drag me inside. And even more than that, there was a hint of something other than malice that shone in its oversized black eyes. This thing needed something from me, and I’d be damned if I was going to hand it over without a fight. “Not on your nelly. Your desperation reeks like yesterday’s trash. Its written all over your ugly face.”
Huffing a deep breath as the monster bared its teeth and squealed, I pushed the glass door in and ran up the stained carpeted stairs. Reaching the small waiting area on the second level, there was not a soul in sight. I didn’t wait and knock, barging right in—
I stopped dead. Bad choice of words, seriously bad choice! Because there was my shrink, lying on the floor and still as death, his body flat on its back and glazed eyes staring at the ceiling.
Greg was dead. Cold, stiff, and lifeless.
A scream peeled out of my throat, and I leaped over him to get to his desk. Ripping the receiver up, I dialed nine-one-one and ranted something I can’t even remember to the operator. Smashing the phone down, I was back around the desk and falling to my knees beside him, screaming for him to be okay.
But nothing would ever be okay again.
The sight was more than I could take, and the quiet underneath my panting breaths finally hit me through the shock. Dead? I gagged, bile licking at the back of my throat since I hadn’t been able to eat after kicking Sexonlegs out. Blood sat like a halo around his head and shoulders, creating a puddle that was now a dark shade on the loop pile carpet. His hands were frozen around a picture frame that laid over his chest. I pried it free slowly, hating how rigid his icy fingers were. Rigor mortis had already set in. The face of his beautiful deceased wife smiled up at me from behind a slather of blood.
I dared to look at what I had yet to see and gagged. A slice carved open his chest, revealing an empty blackened cavity. His heart was gone just like the storage manager’s had been. “Murder.”
The shock finally released its hooks from my entire being and I heaved and swallowed the burn back down.
“No, Greg. No! You can’t be dead. You can’t leave me too.” But as I touched the unmarked side of his neck, I knew there was no bringing him back. No pulse. Cold as ice. My sight blurred, the tears that streamed down my face falling so rapidly they couldn’t escape fast enough.
Told you you’d be sorry…
My head twisted sideways so fast my neck pinched. My hand came up to cover the throbbing pain, but then I saw something through the blur. Greg’s book that he wrote in every time I visited him for my sessions. The pages were shredded as if a cat on speed had been let loose in his office. What remained was the inside of the leather-bound cover—and scratch marks that sparkled with gold glitter and spelled out an unnerving message. “You’re not human?”
That cackling voice chuckled loudly. A sudden breeze flittered in through the window, one that now sported a jagged hole the size of someone’s head as if there’d been a fight-for-your-life struggle. Paper fragments lifted with the swirl of air, revealing the shards of a broken mirror.
I leaped up quickly, smashing my shoes down onto the fragments, turning them to tiny pieces of rubble that wouldn’t allow the monster to escape. A siren blared in the distance then, drifting in on the chilly breeze. I ran for the door—
You can run, but who’s the real threat here? Loverboy is close…real close.
I spun back around, fearing the monster would be standing right behind me, but no one was there. Instead, a piece of paper drifted up, caught in the breeze as other pieces fell. I snatched it out of the air and my eyes widened. It was part of an entry from Greg’s notebook in his very own handwriting. An entry mentioning the unexpected visit of a guy who was obsessively interested in me. A guy who had demanded to know everything about me, but who Greg had sent packing. One Adam Harris.
“Adamaris.”
I looked back to what remained of my s
hrink and my last link to anyone. The slice through Greg’s chest could have come from a piece of broken window or mirror.
Or from a wickedly sharp dagger, one voice taunted. But never fear, you can escape the danger of death at your lover’s hands. Just say the words. Say it now.
“No.” I backed up to the door. Adamaris couldn’t have. He wouldn’t…or would he?
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m sorry.”
I whirled around from the booth I was wiping down, my heart suddenly in my throat. Sexonlegs sat by the bar, resting an elbow casually on the bench top and dripping wet puddles all over the floors I’d already mopped. My eyes shot to the door at once where the glow of the neon sign outside flashed blue then red through the picture windows. I was the last one here and the place was locked up tight. The back door only opened from the inside unless you had a key. After arriving well and truly late, my boss had demanded I stay after my shift. The last thing I had wanted was to go home anyway, to be alone where I knew my stalker could find me. I felt dirty and drained and terrified after finding Greg dead. The detective had held me for hours for questioning, hours that I spent internally negating all the facts to convince myself Sexonlegs hadn’t done the unthinkable. I was finally released when a set of boot prints had been found near the desk. Boots like the ones Sexonlegs was wearing right now, with one propped up on the foot bar of the stool and the other on the ground like he was about to stalk me down.