by Cara Villar
Coming awake was like that.
The residual ache encompassing my entire body was the first sensation to batter my subconscious into wakefulness. The full impact of my recovering injuries resounded like a deep throb down to my bones, starting at my back and spreading out to my arms and legs. Every so often, when I least expected it, like a hiccup, a spike of pain would lance through my temples, causing me to tense in discomfort, which in turn made my body scream.
I sucked in a sharp breath of shock.
The scent that flared my nostrils and coated my tongue was the second sensation. It was all snow, ever-greens and the odd spicy tang of Vampire and cigar smoke. It was reminiscent of a small cabin in the woods, tracks in the snow and the familiar sound of an axe hitting a chopping block around back. It was deep brown eyes the color of dry earth, the rasp of stubble across my skin, and the callused hands of a man who whittled little animals for me, and brought me to life with his tender touch.
Brown eyes glazed with pain, bloodied lips… Run, Willow… Just run…
My eyes opened and refocused as if I’d done nothing but blink, rather than waking from the oblivion I’d fallen into when I’d released my hold on that pack strap, Felix’s bellow echoing through the chaotic emotions, both mine and his, raced through my mind. He could have loved me, every part of me. I could have loved him.
“You’re almost healed.”
I stiffened at the voice that was achingly familiar and icily cold all at once.
“Though I am disappointed it’s taken so long. Made travelling rather awkward, but then, he was not to use his venom when he struck you.” A pause, as if he were shrugging, “Never mind. One manages as one must.” The voice had drifted closer, and the soft surface of the bed I was lying on, the bed that smelled so much like my husband and a murderer it made me feel sick to my stomach.
“My apologies for not providing adequate satisfaction,” I grumbled, slowing rolling onto my back and avoiding looking at him all together, eyes skimming over the posts of the bed I lay on. That’s it, Red. Work that bravado, bluster your way through. I also avoided thinking about the fact that I wasn’t wearing the uniform I’d changed into at Jade’s house any longer. I didn’t want to think about who had touched me while I was unconscious, and why the material was cool and slinky against my skin.
“On the contrary, my dear.” A brush of fingers down my bare arm that made me tense all over again, especially when I felt the unmistakable coolness of my chain bracelets on each arm, “You are as you have always been.”
I looked at him then, for I could not tell from his pompous tone, for my Glenn was as common as they come, his accent as comforting to me as down-comforters, whether or not he was insulting me.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
My insides tightened at the familiar features, the soft brown eyes framed in dark lashes under the dark slash of his brows. His lips that were the shape of a diamond stretched wide under a straight, narrow nose. Dark hair swept back from a face that wasn’t pretty in the least, but utterly masculine, unmistakably male, right the way through to the stubborn square line of his jaw. His shoulders were as broad as I remembered, his body as muscled as I recalled, definition showing through the crisp whiteness of his shirt. Though the hollows in his clean-shaven cheeks that defined sharp cheekbones were strange, given my Glenn was very rarely without a beard since he had begun to sprout facial hair, only added to the sophisticated, yet lethal air he possessed.
I lost my ability to breath. My heart skipped. Tears burned the backs of my eyes.
Not my husband.
Ambrose tilted his head as he perused me with the same yearning intensity. “Exquisite,” he murmured, his fingers lifting to brush my cheek.
At the soft caress, the burning behind my eyes strengthened, my vision blurred, and big fat tears brimmed over my lashes. The yearning on his face softened, taking the harshness from his clean-shaven features.
“Hey, now, little tree.”
A sob broke free from me at the sound of that old endearment with his voice.
“No tears.” And he gathered me into his arms.
I couldn’t resist going to him. Couldn’t resist wrapping my arms as tightly as I could around his neck as I’d always done as a child. Couldn’t deny the security that instantly eased my bones, nor the luxury of being held by someone who’d once known me better than I had known myself. I forgot that Glenn was Ambrose and that Ambrose was a sadistic murderer out for world domination, because for that moment, with his heat against me and my fingers curling in his hair and his deep, familiar voice murmuring softly to me, he was my Glenn.
My best friend. My lover. My husband.
So, when I turned my head, and he turned his, natural instinct was to kiss. Because the hero always kissed the girl, the nightmare ended, and they lived happily ever after. I wanted my nightmare to finally end and to wake up knowing it was nothing but some weird dream that I could entertain my husband with. I wanted it so bad that I was willing to let myself get lost in this stranger’s kiss as surely as I’d been willing to lose myself in Felix’s blood.
Felix. Felix doesn’t kiss like this.
I flinched, eyes springing open as I jerked back. Brown eyes, hot with desire, stared back at me, and I looked away, rubbing at wet cheeks, sniffling.
“Willow?” A hand cupping my cheek, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of my husband saying my name. “My apologies. You’re recovering from a near fatal injury and I took advantage.” He lifted from the bed, his tone authoritative once more, stony. “Are you hungry?”
“Where am I?” I asked instead, glancing around the small room that barely held the bed I lay on and a vanity in the corner.
There was a small cove where a bathroom stood open-plan. No curtain. No door. Great. The walls were a non-descript grey, but the floor was carpeted in a lush deep blue, and fluffy cream rugs abounded, matching the midnight-colored satin sheets and comforter. There were cameras too; one in the corner by the dark wall, above the bathroom entrance, and one other in the opposite corner. He’d be able to see me wherever I was.
“My home,” Ambrose absently replied as he turned away and moved to one of the walls. It was darker than the rest, and strangely smooth in comparison. “Or one of them,” he finally added, like he couldn’t resist boasting to me, distracting me from wandering about the dark wall. “This one,” he waved a dismissive hand at the room, the tan in his arms enhanced by the whiteness of the shirt he wore, “was as far as I could get from Chicago without leaving the country.”
At least I was still in the States. I kind of knew my way around all the major cities of the U.S. in this decade. Most countries outside of it I wasn’t quite so familiar with. I’d be lost. I made a show of looking around, the mumbled, “And I was expecting gold-veined marble.”
Glenn—Ambrose—turned to me and arched a condescending brow. “Not in this part of the house. I learned that the hard way.”
I frowned at that comment, and he smiled. A smile of true amusement I hadn’t seen in three centuries. It stole the words from my throat, left me breathless with longing, and I took in the full extent of him for the first time. He wore black slacks and shiny shoes that matched his belt. He looked…weird. Impressive, but weird. Then again, this was the male who’d had me dressed in a floor length white gown with skinny straps and pretty little shoes, my hair brushed out and unbound. Everything I would hide was exposed. I felt like a doll that had been primped and dressed appropriately for my master, and nothing like the female I knew myself to be.
Could it be that Ambrose still saw me as the wife I’d been? I fought so desperately to remind myself that Ambrose wasn’t my husband at all. Could he be utterly ignorant—or more likely, dismissive—of the changes three hundred years had wreaked on me?
“How long has it been since that night—” My mind rebelled against the memory of letting go. “Since that night?” I finished. No need for clarification.
“Four days,” Ambrose re
plied.
Four days. I’d been unconscious and at the mercy of a killer for four days.
Pressing a hand to my stomach, I forced myself to ask, “You knew we’d go to Natasha’s work, didn’t you?”
Ambrose peered at me, like a scientist at a rare species of butterfly before he pins its wings, his eyes scouring me with frost burn right to my soul. “Of course,” he replied.
“It was a trap.”
“Only after I saw you at Emerald City.”
“Why only after?”
He shrugged. “I acquired what I went there for, and saw my next acquisition.”
Oh, God… “What did you go there for?”
“The snake Shifter, of course.”
“And,” I swallowed, “your next acquisition?”
Ambrose stopped his aimless wandering around the bed and turned to me, his expression bland, his eyes cold. I don’t know why I kept expecting anything else.
“You’re not that stupid, Willow. Although, perhaps you harbor that much denial.” His head tilted at me, and then he was suddenly in front of me, straddling my hips, his gaze burning into mine as his hands slowly rose to cup my cheeks.
I jerked back to my elbows and froze like a deer, making no move he might interpret as threatening. A full-blooded Vampire could kill me in one-on-one combat. His fingertips brushed my skin, skimmed along my jaw and down my bare throat.
Did he do this with the Immortals like he used to do with his little wooden creations? Running his fingers over them searching for imperfections? His… collection… Oh, God…All the missing Immortals. All the special ones, the half-breeds…
Ambrose was the Collector.
“Me?” Shit. Fuck. “Because we were married.”
“Are,” He snapped, “married. We are married.” Ambrose waved dismissively as he sat back on his heels, his fingers threading through my hair. “Lustrous…”
I barely held in a flinch when his hand shot back out at me, Vampire quick, to flick my hair off my scarred shoulder. The urge to turn away, to hide, to cover myself had me lifting my chin and gritting my teeth as his eyes skimmed the old wound.
“Why are you scarred, Willow?” The question was coolly curious, but there was an undertone of expectation behind it, like he already knew the answer and simply wanted me to confess.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “It just healed that way.”
Do you know what I am? The question rippled through my head, and I had to squash down my sudden lance of fear before it scented the air and gave me away. If he thought I was just a Vampire, that my slower healing was due to poison, I was far safer than if he knew I was a hybrid of two species that were legendary for killing each other. Or, at least, I hoped I was safer.
“Immortals full-bloods don’t scar, Willow.” He said softly, his eyes flat, while his words rang in my ears.
Full-bloods... How many times had I said that to myself? How many times had Immortals said that to me before now, upon seeing my marred flesh? Too many times to count… Full-bloods don’t scar... did he already know I was a hybrid?
“Like I said; I don’t know.”
Ambrose stared at me. Analyzed me. Weighed me. Gauged my facial expressions to see the truth. I wondered if he could tell if I was lying or not, wondered if he could separate the truth from the lies. I didn’t think he could, considering how much I’d changed since I’d last seen him, but I didn’t want to place all my hopes on that. Truths and half-truths were better than out-right lies. I just wished my terror wasn’t so constant.
“You are more than you appear, dear wife.” Ambrose murmured softly, almost as if only to himself. “I will find out what else you are,” he said, lifting off the bed and walking over to the dark wall, turning back to me with a smile that made my stomach clench is dread. “I have time to do that now you’re in my possession.” He lifted his hand to the wall.
“I can’t stay here forever, Glenn,” I told him softly, and his smile turned superior.
“That’s what each of my collection say.” He tapped his knuckles on the wall, and the sound made me flinch, for it was not the mute gritty sound of rock, but the hollow gong of glass, “For their first decade. Then they accept that they are mine, or they die.”
The dark wall suddenly began to lighten, to fade, to become translucent, and my heart kicked up a beat to rapid panic. A door appeared as the glass cleared, almost seamless, and I stared with an overwhelming sense of despair as other glass cages came into view.
“My God…” I breathed, my throat too constricted for anything more. So many… A variety of habitats, an assortment of sizes, a collection of beings inside them, all naked and... Scarred. Full-bloods don’t scar... Did all hybrids retain their scars on changing?
Men in military black garb with stun-guns and blades stood in the hallway between the glass cages. Guards awaiting their master. One guard in particular, however, wore a silver suit, pitch-black eyes and an expression of scorn. Alexander lifted his hand and pressed his palm to the center of the glass door. A red ripple reverberated through the glass and a door shimmered. Ambrose walked through and peered at me through the other side of the clear barrier.
“You will be no different,” he said, his voice muted by the glass. “You accept, or you die.”
And I believed him. God help me, but I did. This cold, methodical, murdering creature had no tie to me, sentimental or otherwise. I may have been his wife once, he may have loved me then, but three hundred years separated then and now, and now was a whole different man. Inherently, I knew as soon as I became troublesome, the man who had once been my husband would kill me, and feel nothing when he did.
I don’t know what broke my heart more; the fact that Glenn was gone, or the fact that there was never any hope in the first place that he’d come back because I still loved him.
I shoved from the bed and moved toward the glass, fear pounding like my blood in my veins, merging with the utter anguish searing my soul. My eyes burned with unshed tears, my cheeks cold with ones I couldn’t hold back. My heart was a hollow ache in my chest, broken fragments spearing and maiming an already rubbed-raw wound. As I stared at those familiar dark brown eyes that stared so frigidly back, I realized that amidst the tumult of emotions running through me, the one constant was rage.
I was angry. So incredibly angry. Angry at me for not being able to let him go, even then. Angry at him for not being strong enough to stay true to who he had once been. Angry at the world, fate, destiny, Immortals and time… so much time… wasted.
“I’ll never accept.” Because you’re not Glenn. “Never.”
Ambrose’s lips curved up at the corners, and his gaze held mine faithfully, unerringly, and I couldn’t look away. “We’ll see.” He pressed him palm to the glass, and the wall went dark.
27
It was another day before Ambrose returned to clear my glass so I could watch the world go by. He brought me blood at first, and then when I wouldn’t drink it, he brought my food. He watched me eat and asked me questions, touching me and analyzing me. I felt like a coveted pet belonging to an animal testing facility. That thought made my stomach heave, but I managed to keep down my food. I needed the strength it provided, and given that the size of the burger was bigger than the bun, there was enough of it. I didn’t know what Vampires ate, what their appetites were like, and I’d tried to remember how much Felix and his clan had eaten. Not a lot, now that I thought back, but that didn’t stop me from steadily making my way through the entire meal. I hoped Ambrose would put it down to the fact that I’d recently recovered from poison.
It took me a day and a half for me to figure out that the glass cage was soundproof. Screaming down the corridor and banging on the glass did nothing but exhaust me. I’d thrown furniture at the glass, clawed it, run into it, and even tried to bite it. I couldn’t even make a scratch.
At the end of day four, my glass-walled chamber was gassed. I fought to stay conscious, but the heavy weight of the drugs in my system
dragged me under. When I awakened, I knew I’d been moved and touched in places that had me scrambling for the bathroom to empty my stomach. Back in the bedroom, I’d crawled onto the bed and curled into a ball. The sheets didn’t smell like Ambrose, but of almonds. The bathroom was on the other side. The carpet was patterned, the rugs bigger. My glass wall faced a new habitat containing a Chameleon female it took me a full two hours to locate, and only then because she blinked at me.
By day five, and I say five because I didn’t know how long I’d been out when they’d moved me, I was practically foaming at the mouth. Furious at being held captive, literally a prisoner, I’d thrown a major tantrum. I’d wrecked the rest of my room, destroyed my dress, demolished the bathroom tiles and plumbing, and turned my luxury suit into a veritable crash site. Until Alexander had come down looking murderous, pointed a remote at my glass wall, and gassed me.
I’d woken up and my room was exactly as it had been before I’d wrecked it.
That time, I’d been more than touched.
I’d groggily wondered through my skull-cracking headache if I’d gotten totally rat-assed and dreamed the whole thing, until I looked down and found myself in a deep blue gown instead of the white one of before, and became instantly aware of the tender pain between my thighs. That time, I just cried.
Ambrose came to see me only once after that. He never answered my questions about where I was or why I was there, but he happily discussed music, literature, weapons and all the places we had been in the years we’d been apart. It was at times like that, that made the familiar pain in my chest bloom to a headier sting. He seemed so much like my Glenn sometimes, in the sparkle of enthusiasm in his eyes or the gesture of a hand. Then I’d ask a question he did not like or a guard would appear at the glass, and that icy cold mask of utter control would fall back into place, and he would leave. And I’d remember that I’d been raped while unconscious.