He pulled her to the kitchen and dropped her arm as he walked over to the cups. In a stupor, she watched as he made them both drinks. He glanced over his shoulder and winked, not a playful gesture, but laced with seduction. He handed her a plastic cup and lifted his.
“To a long-lasting relationship,” he said and tapped his plastic cup into hers. He took a long drink as she sipped, watching him with caution. He grabbed her hand in his and pulled her toward the back door.
A fire burned in the pit in the center of the empty backyard. The sun had set, turning the fall air uncomfortably cool without a jacket. Two picnic table benches flanked the pit and he walked over to one, sitting down and pulling her with him. She never considered protesting. His beauty mesmerized her, which was odd, considering a man beautiful. He turned to her and laughed. Emma finally broke her gaze. “How did you know my name?”
He leaned over and whispered in her ear, soft and sensual. “I know lots of things about you.” Chills tingled down her arm and he laughed again. He took her cup and put it down on the ground.
Another couple came out, boisterous and drunk.
He stiffened with irritation. “Leave us,” he growled. His voice held an authority that surprised her almost as much as the fact they spun around and left. When the door closed, his shoulders relaxed.
“Who are you?” she asked, feeling a flicker of fear for the first time. The scent of dried leaves, musk, and smoke filled her nose.
He stared into the flames, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “Fire is fascinating, isn’t it?”
She had a sudden urge to pull away.
He sensed her apprehension and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, his eyes still on the fire. “I won’t hurt you, Emmanuella.”
Her stomach knotted and her mouth went dry, not believing him. She gave a tentative tug, but his grip was too strong. The music was too loud for anyone to hear if she screamed.
“How do you know me?” she whispered.
He turned toward her. The flames were reflected in his eyes before they narrowed. “I’ve waited for you for a long time. I just didn’t know where to find you.”
“I don’t understand…”
He lifted his free hand. His warm fingers trailed along her jaw line. “No, you wouldn’t, but that’s okay. You don’t need to understand.” He leaned down and gently touched his lips to hers.
He was gorgeous and under different circumstances, Emma might have enjoyed kissing him, but he frightened her.
He sensed her resistance. “Emmanuella, you can fight me if you want, but in the end, destiny is always fulfilled.” His voice was warm and full of promise. He wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her to close, his lips on hers again, more insistent. She put her hands on his chest and pushed, but his hold tightened.
Her heart jumped to her throat. “Stop, please. I don’t want to do this.”
He studied her, his face glowing in the firelight. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, but his eyes glittered with evil.
“Emmanuella,” he cooed. “We all have our parts to play. Yours is quite simple.” He lowered his head to her neck and lightly bit her. She whimpered in pain and surprise. He chuckled. “Most women beg me for it. Are you telling me you won’t?”
Her eyes welled with tears as she realized what he planned to do. His hand reached under her sweater, groping for her breast as his mouth trailed down her neck. “I wish we had more time, but unfortunately, we don’t.”
She jerked on his arm. He pushed her back on the bench and her head thudded on the wood. Pushing up her sweater, he tugged on her bra, his mouth replacing his hand. She prayed someone would show up to save her, yet feared someone finding her this way.
She shoved his shoulder and he fell to the ground next to the bench. Rolling off the seat, she tried to scramble away, but he grabbed her ankle and jerked. She fell on her chest, knocking the wind out of her. Still holding her leg, he dragged her back. The rock-strewn earth scraped her exposed stomach and her hands as she grasped for something to hold onto.
“No!” she gasped, trying to regain her breath
He flipped her over on her back, fury on his face. “I’m not so sure you are the one. If you were, you'd have the sense to want me.”
“You’re right,” she cried, trying to crawl backward. ”I’m not who you think I am.”
He pinned her shoulders and paused, considering her words. “Maybe not, but there’s only one way to know.” He lost all pretense of concern and held her down, pulling down her jeans. They hung up on her shoes and he jerked them off and tossed them to the side, her jeans right behind.
“Please…” she whimpered.
His body crushed her as he pulled his pants down and straddled her. He laughed in her ear. “Now you beg me for it, Your Highness. Too late.”
She wanted to close her eyes, but they refused to obey. The firelight cast an eerie glow and the smoke of the fire filled her nose making it difficult to breathe, or maybe because his body pinned hers to the ground, she wasn’t sure which. She focused on the sharp points of the gravel that embedded in her back and the searing pain in her right shoulder blade. Ignoring the grunts in her ear, she looked into the starry sky and found Orion, her favorite constellation as a child. Finally his weight no longer smashed her and he stood up, pulling his pants on as he held out his arm to examine it. He dropped it in disgust.
“I was wrong.” He sneered. “You’re not her.” Then he walked away, leaving her in the dirt and crumpled leaves.
She lay still for several moments, staring at the stars, pretending it hadn’t happened. The cool air hit her bare legs and she shivered. The rocks still pierced into her back. She was too shocked to cry and unsure what to do. Ignoring the pain between her legs, she finally sat up. She found her panties and jeans and pulled them on with shaking hands. Unable to find her shoes, she crawled around on her hands and knees, searching in the dark. She found one, but not the other, and she finally broke, clutching the shoe to her chest. Releasing a sob, she chucked the shoe into the trees. Stupid shoes. She hated those shoes anyway.
Her feet froze as she made her way back into the house looking for her friend, who refused to leave early. Emma sat on the front porch for the next two hours, shivering from cold and fright. The fire pit would be warmer, but she refused to go back.
Once home hours later, she took a long shower, washing off the scent of his expensive cologne that intermingled with smoke. The hot water ran out but the filth still clung, like an oppressive cloud. She turned the water off and leaned into the shower wall, suppressing her tears. Tears wouldn’t help her now. She wiped the fog-coated mirror with a towel and turned to see the damage the rocks had done to her back. Her heart stopped when she saw it. A tattoo. Two inches tall and an inch wide, permanently etched in her skin was the brand of fire. She barely made it to the toilet before she vomited in disgust and fear.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Will sat in stunned silence, his arm tensed around her back. Finally, he kissed her temple. “I’m sorry.” But inside, his anger simmered as he plotted how to find the son of a bitch and castrate him.
She relaxed and he hadn’t realized how tense she'd been. Of all the unpardonable sins Will had committed, rape wasn’t one of them. Even he had standards, and thank God, otherwise there was no way he could comfort her now.
“That was the night Jake was conceived?” He couldn’t imagine how she could look at Jake every day and not see the man who raped her.
“Yes.”
“And the mark appeared that night? It was flames?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever add to it? Try to cover it up?”
She leaned back and stared up at him, knitting her eyebrows together. “What do you mean ‘add to it?’”
Will stood up, and pulled Emma by the hand to the bathroom. He turned her back to the small mirror and pulled her t-shirt opening down, exposing the marks on her shoulder. “Look at this.”
Emma twisted her head to see the mirror.
“Oh my God…” She looked up at Will with wide eyes. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”
She leaned backward on the sink, examining the mark in the mirror. “Are those waves? Like ocean waves?” She turned to Will for confirmation.
He nodded. “That’s what it looks like to me.”
“But what’s in the middle?” She leaned even closer, tittering on the sink edge.
“I think I can help with that one.” Will held out his left arm, showing her his mark.
She grabbed his forearm and leaned over. “That looks like...” She trailed off as her eyes widened.
“Yes.”
“But how did you get it? When?”
He paused. “Two nights ago, at the motel in the mountains. Jake gave it to me by the fire after you went to bed.”
“Jake? How could Jake do this?”
“He had new powers. Could he read your mind and talk to you in your head?”
“Yes…”
“Me too, after he gave me this mark.”
“But how could he do that?”
“With his hand, and it burned like hell.”
Emma looked at her shoulder again and remembered the rest stop. “He must have done that to me, too. In the rest stop bathroom. We were hiding in the stall. Jake touched my shoulder and it burned. I didn’t think anything about it since I was preoccupied at the time. But after he touched me… I could hear him in my head.” Her voice trailed off as she leaned closer to the mirror. Emma slowly turned to face Will, her eyes widened and her face blanched. She slid off the edge of the sink. “Oh, my God.”
“The fire tattoo showed up when you conceived Jake? So maybe fire represents Jake, which makes sense since he got his power from fire.”
“What do you mean his power came from fire?” Her voice raised and she grabbed his arm, digging her nails into his flesh.
“He made flames from the fire shoot ten feet into the sky and he put the fire out with just the wave of his hand. He told me he got his power from fire.”
“No. No!” She released his arm and shook her head slowly in horror. Her eyes squeezed shut, tears sliding out the corners. “No, not fire. God, please not fire.”
Will placed his hand on her upper arm. “Oh God, Emma. I’m sorry.”
Emma’s eyes flew open, full of a fury that caught him off guard. “Stop telling me you’re sorry! Sorry doesn’t make any of this better.” She pushed away from him and walked out of the room.
“I have to go get him. I have to save him.” She moved a kitchen chair, searching under the table then moved to the cabinets, opening and slamming the doors closed.
Will stood next to the bathroom door watching her. “What are you looking for?”
“My clothes…”
“Emma, they’re still wet. I washed them and they’re outside drying. Besides we can’t go anywhere tonight. It’s almost dark. We’re deep in a forest and don’t have a car. Why don’t you eat something and we’ll talk about what to do.”
Emma stopped to consider this, gazing out the window over the kitchen sink. She bit her lower lip and her eyes welled with tears. He saw the battle she waged, pitting logic versus the mother’s protective instinct. “I have to save him, Will.” The anger was gone, replaced with anguish.
“I know.” Even though Will doubted Jake was alive, he refused to take her hope away. It seemed dishonest, but he would rather she have false hope than live with the devastating grief. “Let’s eat and talk more about this. If we’re walking out of here, you need your strength.”
She didn’t argue so he led her back to the chair and served the rice.
“I never considered it,” Emma whispered. “Well, I guess I did. Magical tattoo appears. My son can see the future. But I refused to put them together. Refused to believe that monster had anything to do with my son. Jake is good and sweet and everything …” Her voice broke, “he was not.”
“Emma, don’t go there. It doesn’t do any good.”
“Don’t go there?” she shouted. “How can I not go there? You just told me that my son has power from fire.” She shook her head and sneered. “And how is it that you, who’ve only known him a few days, knows this when I don’t?”
“He told me he had to be sure.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Be sure of what?”
“He said he had to make sure I was the one.” Will felt ridiculous saying it aloud.
“What are you talking about, Will? What do you mean the one?”
“That night by the fire.” He hated to tell her after her revelation. “You went to bed and Jake and I stayed by the fire,” he hesitated, unsure how to proceed. No matter what he said, it would hurt her and he was weary of hurting her.
“Go on.” Her voice was harsh, not that he blamed her.
“Jake said he didn’t have much time and he had to be sure I was...” He winced, not wanting to say it again. “He said he had to be sure for you. Then he asked if he could touch me and read me, or something like that. Has he ever done that before?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
Will told her the rest of the story. “It was like he saw my thoughts and memories, and he went through everything in my head. I couldn’t breathe and he said I was— the one.” He lifted his forearm. “And then I had this mark.”
Emma reached out her hand and brushed it with her fingertips. She traced the outline of the points, studying it.
“What does it mean?” she asked, her voice etched with pain.
He stared into her eyes and lost himself, like he did the night in the cornfield. “I think it means I’m yours,” he said the words without thinking, but instantly knew they were true. He belonged to her and not the other way around. The truth of it was simultaneously frightening and exhilarating.
She looked startled, but the sureness of it washed through him. He rose on his knees and kissed her with a tenderness that surprised him. Emma did that. She brought out a soft side of him he had lost long ago.
“What the hell was that? Can’t you ever be serious?” Her voice filled with rage.
He cringed at her rejection then recovered before she noticed. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself,” he winked, cockiness in his voice. Will slipped into it as easily as putting on a comfortable pair of jeans.
“Can we focus on Jake here, please?”
“Don’t we always?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He sighed. He wanted her to direct her anger on the situation and away from him. “I’m sorry, Emma. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t even know why I said it. I’m tired and this is all a little overwhelming.”
She watched him for a moment, still wary, but she seemed to buy his answer.
“So you’re sure you didn’t see anything else?” Will asked. “You never had a hint he got power from fire?”
“I never saw anything like that. He could only see things in the future and not everything. The first time something different showed up was when he spoke to me in my head.”
“No,” Will said, “things started sooner than that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I showed up in the motel parking lot that first night, Jake came out of his trance. He wasn’t scared anymore. He told me things changed because of me. He never got terrified again. I never saw him freaked out. I only took your word for it that he was. And his warning radar began to fail. He didn’t know they were coming until they were there.”
“Yes...”
“But you did.”
They looked at each other, remembering she felt sick when the men showed up.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see all of this.” She rested her elbow on the arm of the chair, slightly rubbing her forehead
“It’s been a crazy few days.”
“Is there anything else?”
Will didn’t think he wanted t
o share the prophecy with her. It seemed too weird and he wasn’t sure he could even say the words aloud. It all seemed so Lord of the Rings. But he also hated keeping anything from her.
“He said we would be enemies one day.”
Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Who?”
“Jake and I. One day we will be enemies.”
“See, he is alive.”
Will remained silent.
“You said he needed to know you were the one for me. Why?”
He gazed into her eyes. “He said I was to protect you.”
“Against what?”
“He didn’t say. I think it’s safe to assume the men who...uh took Jake.” He could have added the group who hired him, but no way in hell was he going there.
“So you protected me. Your job is done, then.”
He knew his job was far from done, especially now that the unmentioned threat would soon join the hunt. “You think they’re going to chase you for three years and give up now? They ran after us in the woods after they took Jake and something tells me they didn’t want to have a tea party.”
“What? So I’m chained to you like Princess Leia to Jabba the Hut?”
He cocked his head and gave her his lopsided grin. “I have to say, I’ve never been compared to Jabba the Hut before. Besides, most women don’t complain.”
“Be serious, Will.”
“I am being serious.”
“Ugh!” She pushed against his chest. “What about your job? If you’re protecting me, how are you going to work? Are we going to run for the rest of our lives, like I have the last three years?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes bore into his. “You’re giving up your life for me. Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“I know this is a fucking mess. I know that we both are in danger and right now we need each other to survive.” He paused and decided to press on. “I know I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
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