by Amira Rain
Without another word or a goodbye, Mark began striding out of the kitchen, and my first thought was relief. However, having a sudden thought, I called out to him, whirling around in my chair. "You lied. Maybe to your own self, most of all."
Nearly out of the kitchen, Mark whirled around himself, pausing by a doorway that led to a different hallway than the one that led to the living room. "Excuse me?"
"You lied when you said that you don't trust me."
"And how do you figure that?"
"Because if you really thought there was any chance that I'm a murderous, bloodthirsty Angel fighter with a 'dark heart' like the rest of them, you wouldn't leave me alone with your animals."
Drawing his dark brows together, Mark opened his mouth to speak, but then immediately closed it. And just then, his phone, which had stopped ringing, began going off again.
This time, he pulled it from his pocket, glanced at it, and answered it with a terse hello. After listening for maybe only ten seconds, he told the caller he'd be right there, then ended the call and jammed the phone back in the right pocket of his battered jeans, gaze on me. "I really need to go. Dylan and a few of his men have been spotted just two miles north. We're going to try to block all paths of retreat, ambush them, and kill them."
"No! I won't let you kill Dylan!"
I'd already been flying out of my chair while I'd been shouting, and I now threw a palm up, sending a crackling current of electricity zipping in Mark's direction. However, moving faster than I ever dreamed a shifter could in human form, he dodged the zap.
Right away, I tried again, throwing my other palm up, but again, he dodged the silvery current. Even while I'd been shooting it, I'd already begun running in the direction of the hallway that I guessed led to the front door. Mark was now blocking the way, though, blocking my way toward possible escape, and when I reached him, I pushed at his chest with all my might, trying to shove him aside.
"Just move! Get out of my way!"
Despite my mighty push against his chest, he didn't move or stumble to the side, as I'd hoped. He didn't even sway. Unbelievably, his black-booted feet didn't even move an inch. This, despite the fact that I'd used so much force in doing my full-strength shove that I'd actually caused brief, sharp pains in each of my wrists. His chest may as well have been a brick wall, for what it felt like.
Undeterred, I immediately tried again, shoving him with every ounce of my strength. "Move, dammit!"
Again, he didn't move an inch, but within a blink, I was moved. I'd just started to lift a palm to zap Mark at close range when in one lightning-fast, continuous motion, he spun me around, reached around to my front, and grabbed my wrists, firmly pulling them so that my arms crossed over my chest, restraining me in a straightjacket of sorts made from my own body. Above my outraged gasps, I heard his voice, deep and low, near my ear.
"I warned you, Paulina...and you gave me your word that you wouldn't try to zap me. Now you can suffer the indignity of being forcibly restrained for a while, since obviously you can't control yourself right now."
Hating myself for proving his point, I thrashed against his hold on my wrists. "Let me go! Let me go, or I swear I'll kill you! I won't let you hurt Dylan!"
Without responding, he just continued restraining me with a firm grip on my wrists while I thrashed, struggled, and twisted, becoming thoroughly winded in the process. It was only when I paused, panting with exertion, that I realized there was one thing I hadn't tried yet.
After a few breaths, I kicked a leg back, driving my heel forward at the same time, trying to get him right where it would hurt most. However, kind of embarrassingly, my foot met only air, and Mark spoke near my ear again with his voice infuriatingly calm and steady.
"That won't work. I'm too tall, and your little legs are too short for your foot to meet its mark."
Being that I was already in the grip of some kind of a frenzy, something about my legs being described as little tipped me over the edge into something even beyond frenzy. Using my legs, which, though fairly trim and toned, were on the short side, which had always made me feel self-conscious about them.
I back-kicked futilely; I twisted and writhed; I even let my little legs go limp momentarily, hoping the drop of my weight would force Mark to let me go. But, seeming to have been prepared for this, he just held my wrists to my sides with additional firmness, somehow holding me up with his own strength in the process.
I'd never thrown a tantrum on this scale before, even as a child. Not even close. And, though I hated to admit it, I knew that I was throwing a tantrum. One of epic proportions. I knew I was acting like the brattiest seven-year-old that had ever lived. But somehow, I just couldn't stop.
After going limp-legged again with no success, I yelled, trying to stomp on one of Mark's feet but missing. "Let me go! You're hurting my shoulders!"
"I think your own struggling is hurting your shoulders. But, here...is this better?"
Just as deftly and quickly as he'd restrained me in the first place, he now spun me to face him, encircling my waist with his strong arms, pinning my own arms to my sides.
Being suddenly face-to-face with Mark, with the length of my body pressed against his, no less, immediately ground my wild tantrum to a halt.
Panting, I just looked at him for a few moments before I found my voice. "I won't let you kill Dylan."
Looking somehow satisfied by what I'd just said, as if it had confirmed something he'd been thinking, Mark looked into my eyes briefly, then spoke in the same low, calm voice he'd been using all along. "Are you in love with Dylan? Is that it? Because I think only love could fuel the kind of desperation I've been witnessing."
In response, I actually laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You don't even know how right you are...yet so completely wrong at the same time."
Mark frowned, and, finding that I still had just a bit of tantrum left in me, I took advantage of his seeming distraction by trying to knee him in the groin. However, either in a feat of complete mind-reading, or at least extraordinarily fast reflexes, he swept my leg to the side with one of his own, turning my body to the side in the process.
Then, damn him, he spoke near my ear in a voice that betrayed a hint of amusement. "From what I've heard, you've never even fought this fiercely on the battlefield, Paulina."
With my anger flaring again, I began twisting toward him, wanting a second shot at a knee to the groin; but to my shock, he abruptly scooped me up and began carrying me toward the table, holding me in a way that my right arm was pinned against his body, and my left was pinned against my own body by his hand.
Still, I struggled until he sat down in his chair, positioning me right on his lap. Panting, I stopped only then because I had become completely breathless.
Fixing me with a wary look that made my blood simmer anew, Mark waited a few seconds before speaking. "Are you done now?"
Still catching my breath, I didn't respond, and he continued.
"I need to leave now. I'm going to release you, but I'm not going to leave my own house dodging and weaving. If you try to zap me again, I'm going to tie you to a chair, where you'll sit for several minutes until some of the guards come to untie you. If you have any thoughts about zapping them, know that I'll have given them instructions to restrain you in the chair again, and I hope you understand that this is for your own safety as well as theirs.
“I also want to let you know that before I leave, I'm going to double the guards around the house. Also, I'm going to have one of them take Rocky out this evening. I don't think you can be trusted even to go out in the yard anymore."
"I'm not a victim, Mark. You said that you think I'm a victim in some way, and I need you to know that I'm not. I'm not a victim."
I didn't want to be, anyway. I really wasn't even sure why I'd suddenly felt the need to say what I had.
Still holding me firmly, Mark looked at me for a long moment, expression unreadable. "All right. I accept that you're not a victim."
&nbs
p; We just looked into each other's eyes for another long moment until Mark spoke again.
"When you're ready, you can tell me your story...but in the meantime, as leader and chief protector of my people, I need to get to know you a little better before I can completely trust you. So, also in the meantime, I'm going to keep you contained right here, in my house, where I can best keep an eye on you. Is that clear? And have I made myself absolutely clear about everything I've said since sitting down?"
Stunning myself, I dipped my head in a slight nod, finding that all my spunk and fight had completely left me.
Seemingly satisfied, Mark stood, releasing me and setting me on my feet. "Have a good evening, Paulina."
Still a little breathless, I didn't respond, and he turned, left the kitchen, and began heading down the hallway, heavy black boots thudding on the hardwood. Soon, I heard the front door open and close. Stunning myself for the second time in less than a minute, I sat back down in his chair, brought part of his heavy flannel work shirt to my nose, and breathed in deep, reveling in the faint trace of his scent that had transferred onto the cloth during our struggle.
*
After a few moments spent inhaling the trace of Mark's scent from his shirt I was wearing, I dropped that bit of cloth, wondering just what in the hell I was doing. "Crazy. Really crazy, Paulina.
What was doubly crazy was that I hardly ever talked to myself out loud. Hadn't in years. But then again, I'd never had a childish tantrum like the one I'd just had, either. Mark seemed to have a special way of making me act in ways I normally wouldn't. And I had no idea what, exactly, I thought about that at this point.
I had a strong feeling I should be trying to not think of him at all. I had a strong feeling I should be trying to focus only on Dylan, and how I was going to get back to him. How I was going to eventually make it so that he'd resurrect my family, as agreed. I knew that first, I needed to take time to think. But at present, one thought was comforting me.
As horribly as I'd just acted, and as embarrassed as I still felt about it even now that Mark was gone, my tantrum might have just bought Dylan enough time to escape Mark and his men. Maybe indirectly, I'd remained Dylan's defender. All I could do was hope.
Lost in thought, I remained sitting in Mark's chair while the sun sank low in the horizon beyond the kitchen windows, turning the sky from pale pink to fiery orange. I jumped when, a few minutes after Mark had left, a small, golden creature slowly trembled his way into the kitchen, whining. Rocky.
I gasped, rising from my chair, impossibly ashamed. "Oh, you poor thing...you poor baby."
Clearly, he'd been fairly close by when I'd had my prolonged little fit, and the resulting ruckus had terrified him. Literally shaking, he looked like he was struggling even to walk.
Struggling myself, though against a tidal wave of tears, I crossed the distance between us and picked him up, then held his quaking form to my chest. "I'm so sorry, sweet boy. I'm so sorry I was loud. I didn't mean to scare you, and I'm so sorry that I did."
It was Rocky licking my face, in an apparent gesture of forgiveness that made my tears finally flow.
With my back to the wall, I sunk to the beige-and-cream linoleum floor, crying into his fur. "I'm so sorry, sweet guy, and I'll never scare you like that again. I know I haven't known you very long, but I...I think I love you already. It's going to be so hard to leave you when I'm finally able to escape and get back to Dylan...and, in fact, I think it's going to break my heart."
I sobbed into Rocky's fur, realizing that this was the very first time I'd outright cried in nearly three years. The last time had been the week my family members had been killed. Since then, I'd been unable to have a good cry even when I'd wanted to, even when I'd thought it might make me feel better somehow. So, maybe me having a good cry had been a long time coming. It had been an exceptionally long, emotional day, that was for sure.
With his trembling lessening, Rocky continued licking my face, and I continued sobbing into his silky, warm fur, crying even harder for some reason when I realized that Mark must be on a schedule brushing him daily or near-daily, with tender loving care, in order for his fur to be so soft.
"I swear, Rocky...it's going to break my heart to leave you. I'll never forget you, though...but I have to at least try to escape."
After a spirited yip, indicating that he was assured and relieved that all the ruckus was over, Rocky gave my cheek another lick. And just then, someone cleared their throat from across the kitchen, startling me.
Stifling a gasp, I lifted my face from Rocky's fur and saw that a sliding glass door on the east side of the kitchen, a door I honestly hadn't even noticed before, had been opened. Covered with long tan curtains, the door had kind of faded into the nondescript rest of the kitchen. Really, I hadn't been looking at much else when Mark had been in the room.
A muscular man of average height stood with a brown-booted foot propped up on the metal track part of the door, and after a slight cough, he spoke in a fairly loud, clear voice. "Is the dog ready to go out now?"
Irritated that he'd interrupted my cry with Rocky, I looked at the man, sure I was glaring. "Does it look like he's ready to go out?"
The man shifted his gaze from me to Rocky, then back to me, before retreating from the sliding glass door somewhat awkwardly, slowly closing it behind him.
Not having heard the door open, I could only guess how long he'd been standing there before I’d noticed him, though that didn't even matter. I hadn't said anything that I hadn't already basically said to Mark.
Turning my gaze back to Rocky, I gently flipped him onto his back to hold him like a baby, cuddling him even closer to my chest. "Mark's got some real dum-dums working for him, doesn't he?"
Rocky yipped as if in agreement, then suddenly righted himself, bounded out of my arms, and headed over to the sliding glass door, whining in way that I just knew what he was trying to express.
With a faint groan, I began getting to my feet. "You're kidding, right? You have to go out now, after I pretty much just told that man to come back later?"
Now at the sliding glass door, Rocky looked at me, whining and wriggling, telling me that he was definitely not kidding. He had to go out. Right then.
Sighing, I walked over to the sliding door, wiping my tear-soaked cheeks as I went. Once at the door, I pulled back the curtains, slid the door open, and looked out onto Mark's vast, wooded backyard, startled to see several large lions milling around, even though I shouldn't have been.
Seeming to notice my presence all at the same time, they looked toward me, and I shouted to them, growing far too tired to even be self-conscious.
"Whichever of you just came up and asked if Rocky is ready to go outside to use the bathroom...well, he's ready now! Whichever of you that was, please feel free to shift back into human form to take him out! I'd just go ahead and do it myself, but Mark said...well, he said...."
Frankly, I supposed I didn't feel like it was any of their business what Mark had said while restraining me on his lap. Not like he probably hadn't told them anyway. He had to have actually told them that he didn't even trust me to take Rocky out into the yard, or else one of the guards wouldn't have come right up to the house and opened the sliding glass door as he he had.
When I failed to finish my thought about what Mark had said, the lions exchanged glances, and then one shifted into human form and began striding toward the house from a copse of tall evergreens where he and the rest of the guards had gathered.
It was the same guard who'd come up to the house in the first place, and I sent Rocky right out to him, not really wanting to talk to him, because I was just slightly embarrassed about sending him away and then calling for his assistance not even half a minute later.
By the time Rocky bounded back into the house after doing his business behind a sycamore near the side of the house, at least a dozen other lions had converged around back. Apparently, Mark hadn't been kidding when he'd said he was going to double the guar
ds entrusted with keeping me contained.
With Rocky at my heels, I went on a search of the living room to find the cats and make sure I hadn't scared them as badly as I'd scared him. However, I found Butterscotch curled up on a long beige couch, sleeping just as soundly as could be. Not seeming troubled in the least, Lily-Rose was sitting beneath the clear glass coffee table, sedately grooming her fluffy gray fur with strokes of her tiny pink tongue.
I soon fed Rocky his dinner and refilled the cats' automatic feeder at the same time, then let Rocky out again, because the little wiggle-worm was acting like he already had to go again. However, he turned out to be a little faker. Seeming to be completely at ease with the lions, he made a beeline for them in the fading light, yipping rapidly and even growling a little when one of them engaged him in some gentle play.
Watching from the sliding glass door, I smiled, not surprised that Rocky wanted bigger cats for playmates. Though they'd been very spirited during the daytime, Butterscotch and Lily-Rose had both nibbled some dinner before promptly going to sleep on the couch.