The building itself was innocuous enough. Coated in white paint with yellow trim that had faded from years of bipolar weather, it was reminiscent of an English cottage. Completing the image were yellow roses, growing on either side of the stone steps leading up to the boutique-style doors. The frosted windows were covered with whorled designs that prevented her from catching a glimpse of the interior, but she suspected it was no less opulent inside.
Val looked up at the curtained windows on the second floor, both open and closed, and couldn't help wondering which one was his.
How strange, to go from doubt to such rigid certainty. But it certainly looked like the type of place he would choose. The roses alone could seal the deal. She remembered Gavin telling her, in what here and now seemed to have occurred in an entirely different lifetime, that yellow roses signified infidelity and dying love.
A ripple of terror melted her spine and turned her legs to rubber. For a moment it seemed as if she might throw up on the granite steps, or perhaps her whole body would putrefy into a quivering mess of terror.
Suddenly, his words, all of his words, took on a new and sinister context.
Those women—no, some of them had been girls —had not died quickly.
Some of them had been raped, first. Still others had been dismembered.
(People will find me.)
He might kill her.
(I doubt that.)
He might do worse.
If she did not go, he would cut Jade…and carve up his face as if he were a piece of fruit.
Or so he says.
No. That she believed. Look at what he had done to Lisa—to Blake—to Jason—to all those innocent girls whose only crime had been being born with a rare phenotype.
I could get back on the bus. No one would know.
Val half-turned towards the street only to see the bus pulling away from the timed stop and back into traffic, merging onto the turn that went to Poinsettia Boulevard. She watched it disappear from sight and knew without checking the schedule that the next bus would not be coming for another hour.
The rain continued to fall.
She imagined that she saw one of the curtains on the second floor shift.
As if somebody from above were watching her down below on the sidewalk.
Making sure she didn't run.
Val gulped and leaped up the steps, avoiding the fallen rose petals. She opened the doors and the smell of incense nearly knocked her over—heady and dark, and savagely male: the sweet, musky scent was so cloying that Val could scarcely breathe.
Dragon's blood. It was thick and viscous when burned, but in crushed form it had a distinct crimsonbrown color that looked eerily similar to dried blood. Val remembered reading somewhere that dragon's blood had a history of being confused with cinnabar, the lethal crystals of mercury that formed sometimes near volcanic hot springs. She wondered why that thought was coming to mind now.
Sitting behind an enormous desk that looked like polished rosewood but probably wasn't was an old receptionist of Indian descent. He glanced up, spectacles flashing, as the bell over the door signaled her arrival.
“Can I help you?” he inquired, looking her up and down. His clipped tone bore no trace of an accent.
Val wondered how she looked to him—a very pale girl with choppy black hair pulled back for a ponytail, dressed for the autumn chill in jeans and a pea coat. Did she look like a guest? Like she needed help? She was far beyond any hope of the latter.
“I…no.” She headed for the direction of the stairs. “Are you one of our guests?” The helpfulness had
disappeared from his voice; now it was laced with suspicion. “If not, I am afraid I must ask you to leave.”
“W-what?”
She was afraid she hadn't heard correctly—and even more afraid that she had.
She hadn't expected a reprieve. Certainly, she hadn't expected one just to be handed to her as though on a silver platter.
But the man continued. “There is no loitering in the lobby, although you are welcome to return if you decide to make a reservation.” His voice let it be known how remote he thought this possibility.
Hope swelled inside her, so abundant that it seemed to make her chest expand. She felt buoyant with it. She could have kissed the cantankerous turtlelike man. “Okay,” she said, breathy with relief. “I'll leave. I'm sorry.”
“See that you do.”
He looked as relieved as she felt when he turned back to his paperwork. Like a man who believed he had escaped what might be a very unsavory situation.
The phone rang then, splicing the silence with its shrill ring, and the receptionist gave her a final searching look before answering. His voice was a bland mumble, muted, anxious and subservient. Val did not hear the words being exchanged. She had eyes only for freedom.
She had barely reached the marble columns when she heard the sound of footsteps pattering against the green speckled tiles, and the cry of “Wait!”
She turned, surprised to see the receptionist hurrying after her, slightly out of breath, and felt the first pangs of alarm. She wanted to run. Fast, leaving the receptionist to chase fruitlessly after her.
But he wouldn't be the only one chasing me.
“Excuse me, miss,” the receptionist said, all politeness once more. “I am terribly sorry, but is your name Valerian Kimble?”
Her heartbeat became irregular as she heard the name she had not answered to in months spoken aloud from the lips of a stranger. She swallowed and croaked, “It's Val.”
This, apparently, was good enough.
“I do apologize. Please, go right upstairs. You're expected.”
Expected.
The word, and its implications, sent needles of fear pricking at her skin.
“I didn't know you were a visitor,” the receptionist was saying, and something about the way he said visitor, and the way he looked at her when he said it, made her wonder what the voice on the other end of the line had whispered. “If you could just sign the guest book….”
Val wrote her name—her old name—without its usual flourish and felt, ironically, as if she had just signed a death warrant.
“I believe your gentleman is in two-one-seven. That's on the second floor.”
Why are you calling him that? There's nothing gentle about him.
Then she realized what those words meant. He knew she was here.
He was watching her.
The urge to run was stronger than ever. With effort, she suppressed it. Gavin had made it clear that the consequences of fleeing would be worse than whatever it was that he had planned for this afternoon.
She froze again in the hallway, like a frightened rabbit, torn between stairs and elevator. Her legs felt rubbery and she wasn't sure she would be able to manage the climb. On the other hand, the elevator would be faster and she was in no hurry to get to her destination.
She ended up taking the elevator. When it ground to a halt she stumbled and fell in an ungraceful sprawl on the wine-red carpet of a corridor plastered with aged fleur-de-lis wallpaper.
A passing maid looked at her curiously, clucked her tongue, and continued pushing her cart of cleaning supplies. Val barely noticed this admonishment. As she pushed herself up her brain had room for only one thought and it shrilled like a klaxon, drowning out everything else:
Don't go don't go don't go don't go.
217 was no more sinister than the other identical doors lining the hall. There was no lamb's blood dripping from the frame, no eerie lights, no howls of pain. Really, it was nothing more than it appeared to be on the surface: a perfectly ordinary door. And that, to Val, made her situation all the more terrifying because when it came right down to it, it meant nobody would ever suspect anything was amiss— nobody but her, that is.
Just the way he wants.
Val took a deep breath, swayed slightly, and knocked on the door.
It swung open with a creak to reveal a room decorated in various shades of rose with cherry oak accents
. She started, like a cat, at the rusty hinges, but when no human answered she nudged the door open wider. Timidly at first, and then more boldly.
The unmade bed was the only sign of occupancy. There were no clothes casually tossed over chairs or tables, no shoes by the door, no suitcases, no food.
No personal effects of any kind.
But then behind the sofa—for she had gradually wandered past the threshold and into the actual room —her eyes landed on a chess set, carefully set up and ready for play on top of the nightstand. When she opened the single drawer, there was bible and a phone book inside.
With a hand that was now shaking, she closed the drawer and stared at the chess set. If she had any doubts before, the chess set had erased them.
This is his room. I am standing in his room.
One of the chess pieces was missing, though. She checked under the nightstand, wondering if she had gotten too close and accidentally knocked it off herself but the pale gray carpet would have revealed one of the glossy wooden pieces easily.
Val turned, glancing longingly at the open door, and regarded the rest of the room. The closet was open. A few clothes hung on the steel bar. Buttondown shirts in black, white and burgundy. There were two suits and a handful of belts and ties. The dresser contained a similar color scheme though when she realized one contained underwear, she flushed and terminated the search, trying to clear her head of the images that came, unbidden, to her mind.
The fact that she was still capable of thinking about him in that way shocked and disgusted her almost as much as his threats had—except this time, all that loathing and repugnance was directed inward.
She found no books or newspapers, though there was a small leather-bound journal that logged various numbers and letters. She remembered this, yes. She had seen one just like it five years ago. Chess notation. She turned the pages, marveling at the sheer number of games. He had to be playing at least twenty a day.
Maybe fifty.
But that would require a complete set, so where is the black queen? Suddenly, it seemed imperative that Val find her, that missing piece. Why, she couldn't say.
The trashcan was mostly empty. There was an apple core, a plastic container that had once held cologne and was labeled in French, a couple of tissues, and a few pieces of crumpled up paper that proved to be receipts.
Val looked around the room again. Each one of her footsteps sounded too loud and in the buzzing silence she could clearly hear the sound of her own heart like a large timpani drum.
Every instinct in her body was now telling her— no, screaming at her—to leave. Now. While she still could. Oh, and she desperately wanted to, but she had to wait, because if she didn't at least try to play by the rules he wouldn't hesitate to punish her and the people she cared most about.
Any clue she found might help. For whatever reason, Gavin did not appear to be around. Maybe, after all these years, she would finally get the evidence she needed to destroy him once and for all. Just as he had destroyed her.
The only place she hadn't snooped was the bathroom, which would take the least time to scan. And then, after that, she would consider this whole agreement—or whatever it was—null and void.
Gavin couldn't accuse her of defying him. The receptionist would back her up.
Right, her brain mocked. Since when has he ever played by his own rules?
He twisted them around whenever it suited him. And hadn't Gavin called to deliver his instructions? That had to mean that he knew she was here. That, or somebody else was in on this, which she doubted.
But then where is he?
And where is the black queen?
The bathroom door was closed— was it closed before?—and when Val pulled it open the first thing she noticed was the steam. It was so hot and humid she could feel her hair frizzing. Beneath the dye, she still had red hair the same color and consistency of copper wire.
Val shrugged off her pea coat and looked around, fanning herself. The bathroom was decorated similarly to the bedroom—rose towels and bathmat, ivory soap, and a jewel-tone collection of shampoos and lotions provided by the inn. Everything was spotless save for the mirror. In the steamed-up glass somebody had written the word checkmate. And there, yes, there, in the soap dish, was the missing black queen.
Somebody had pounded a nail through the spot where its heart would have been had it been human. The symbolism of that was not lost on Val, and she was treated to the additional bonus of seeing her reaction in the mirror, eyes wide, lips parted in mute terror.
She gasped aloud, clutching onto the doorknob as if for dear life as the floor beneath her reeled.
He left it there. He left it there for me to find. He really does want to kill me. He wasn't bluffing. Oh God, I have to get out of here.
Behind her the door slammed.
Val stumbled out of the bathroom, slipping and skidding on the still-damp floors, and came face to face with him—Gavin—the grandmaster—the man who had stalked her in her nightmares for nearly five years and who was now here, in the flesh, leaning against the closed door with his arms folded.
He was wearing the black leather jacket from before over a white shirt, one of the white buttondowns from the closet, with half the buttons left undone. His black jeans looked freshly pressed, with creases so sharp they looked lethal.
“Val.”
The silver chain glinted at his bare throat, making a soft clinking sound as he tilted his head in a way that reminded her of a raptor.
“I didn't think you'd come.”
His words flew through the hush like a fleet of arrows. Val jerked visibly at the sound of his voice. He looked her up and down and his lips parted into a smile that wasn't at all friendly.
“You see, I still wasn't quite sure what I might do if I saw you again.” He took a series of quick steps, his eyes never once leaving her face as he approached. “But now? Yes, now I know, because you helped me decide.”
Val was finding it hard to breathe. He was mere feet away now. If she had so desired, she could have reached out and brushed him. But she did not desire. Time had done nothing to temper his fury. She could see the fiery intensity of it burning in his pale eyes as clearly as if they were windows into his twisted soul.
Something had changed.
And then she knew. What she knew, exactly, she did not know. But whatever it was, it caused her fear for her own well-being to eclipse that of Jade's.
Her scream took flight from her lips like a startled moth, ending as abruptly as it started. And then her legs remembered how to work and Val did the first sensible thing she had done since she had chosen to come to this horrible place—she ran. She ran without looking back because the sound of his footsteps told her everything she needed to know.
He was fast.
She was faster, but only just so. She had learned that the hard way in Harper Hall. A fold in the carpet, a single misstep, and he would catch her.
She circled and jumped over furniture, nearly stumbling in her haste, and managed to reach the door. She gave the knob a sharp jerk. It wouldn't open. He'd fastened the deadbolt.
She spun around just as his hands hit the wall on either side of her with a slam that made her body twitch. “I wasn't finished,” he said, and the volume of his voice was almost conversational, but the tone—the tone was several shades below civil.
He cupped her chin, tilting it closer for inspection. She felt his breath, quick and light from running, stirring the damp hairs around her face. He turned her face this way and that. “Look how you've grown.”
“Please don't hurt me.”
He leaned in so close she could make out the scent of him—wild and musky, with a floral edge that conjured up images of thorns rather than petals—and when his lips fleetingly grazed hers, too briefly to be a kiss, she felt her insides squirm. These were not the actions of a man who would listen reason.
“Don't like to be touched, Val?”
He dusted his hand across her breasts, onc
e, mockingly, before wrapping them around her throat and pulling her in for a deep kiss that knocked her head back against the wall.
He had cast off his mantle of fleece and wool. That was what had changed.
He was all wolf, no longer concerned with keeping up appearances.
She swallowed and his gaze dropped to her throat and then the grip on her neck was gone, replaced by his mouth.
“A pity, that.” He flicked his tongue into her ear, just to see her shiver. “I've always wondered…how you would taste.”
Her eyes leaped to his.
He arched an eyebrow and, like a basilisk, it seemed his eyes could both and kill. “Yes, I've always wondered—that, among other things.” He tugged at her earlobe before moving down to the soft hollow where jaw and throat and ear conjoined. “Things you can't even imagine.” He smiled that chilling, mirthless smile. “But I think I'll show you. Yes, how about it, Val? Are you up for one—last—game?”
She socked him in the face.
It was hard to say who looked more stunned.
She couldn't believe what she had done. Her fist had seemingly acted of its own accord and she stared at the appendage with as much shock as if it had suddenly sprouted tentacles.
Even more shockingly, her punch had drawn blood. Gavin's blood. A bead of it clung to his lower lip, which had been torn by his teeth upon contact. She had never thought him capable of bleeding.
Apparently he could.
Rage whipped unbridled across his face like lighting, chased by another emotion Val couldn't read. A kind of knowing, as ominous as the thunder that preceded a storm, though what he thought he knew about her she couldn't even begin to guess.
She struck him again, trying to lunge past him. He grabbed her wrists, nearly yanking her arms out of their sockets as he pinned them over her head.
Val had never thought it possible to drown on air, but she was a believer now. Oh, yes.
With the hand that wasn't holding onto her, he touched two fingers to his lip. The pad of his fingers was smeared red, staining the whorls of the skin. He stared at the blood for a moment, then looked at her through narrow eyes. She recoiled when she saw his arm flex, thinking he was going to hit her, and when she gasped he smeared his fingers all over her lips.
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