I pushed open the door, slid my key from the lock and stepped inside. My apartment was dark except for the bluish glow from the videocassette recorder display light. I put the basket down in the armchair, threw the cloak over it and stretched. The entire apartment was eerily silent as I looked around. That same feeling nagged at me that something wasn’t right. I palmed my keys prepared to use them as a weapon. I turned on lights, chasing away the darkness so I could see every corner and hiding place. The last room was my bedroom. I forcefully shoved both doors open so anything behind them would get smacked. I flicked on the light.
Rin sat on my chaise lounge still impeccably dressed in his tux and opera cape. The phantom mask rested on the curve of his crossed knee. He looked like he had been pleasantly awaiting my company. I glared at him, amazed by the sheer gall of such a move. I gripped my keys tighter feeling them dig into my flesh.
“You’ve got some nerve. I put up new wards! How the hell did you get in?” Rin reached down to his side and slowly brought a key into view.
“I found this under the fire extinguisher in the hall.” My mouth dropped open. How could I have forgotten about the spare key? Maybe because the guy whose idea it was is no longer my boyfriend and Aram rarely used the front door. I stomped over to him and snatched the key from his fingers, careful not to touch his skin. I tossed it and my own onto the bed.
“Get out! You’re not welcome here.” I headed for the phone by the bedside table. I snatched up the receiver and found the line dead. He’d taken precautions. I was going to call the police, but he’d seen to that. I looked to the door. In the living room, my mobile sat in the basket. I glanced in his direction and ran for it. I didn’t make it. Rin tackled me from behind, bringing me down to the floor with a loud thud. I smacked my chin on the door jamb, which hurt like hell but wasn’t enough to stun me. I struggled. I couldn’t turn on my stomach as I pushed his weight off my back. He pinned my wrists under his large hands, forcing me into submission. I panted like I’d been running.
“Get off me,” I growled angrily. His mouth was perilously close to my ear. I could feel his hot breath against my lobe.
“Don’t struggle. Don’t make me hurt you.” I ground my teeth trying to use all my strength, but he could feel it and countered it. His strength could not only match mine, but exceed it. I felt fear bubble up inside my throat.
“Who are you?” I asked him, sure that there was more to him then I knew.
“I told you Cassandra, my name is Rin!”
“You keep saying that like I should know who you are. You’re nothing but a murderer.” I felt his chest rise off my back. I shoved with all the force I could muster, which only managed to land me on my back looking up at him. I grappled with him, but he easily pinned both my wrists with one of his massive hands.
“You seem to think very poorly of me. It wasn’t personal. It was business.”
“That doesn’t make it any better. And I might have believed that, but we found Solomon.” He blinked at me tracing his free hand down the side of my face.
“So beautiful,” he said almost mesmerized. “I’m going to let you up. If you go for your cell phone again we’ll end up right back here.”
He released me and pulled himself up onto his feet, leaving me sitting on the floor desperately trying to think of what to do. Rin watched me as I carefully examined the possibilities.
“Solomon had to die. He pleaded then demanded that I enchant you. He wanted to make you his pet. He was so sure I’d do it he got his little room ready. The things he wanted to do to you.” I stared at him.
“You killed him to protect me?”
“He was not worthy of you,” spat Rin, “that vile, ugly man with his grasping hands. He understood even less about who you are and how far below you he was, than you do. He was so foolish to think that he could threaten me. Threatened to hand me over to the police and get someone else to do the spell.” A sinister and cruel smile broke onto his face.
“His own greed was his downfall, crushed by its weight! He got no less than he deserved.”
“I’m not saying Solomon wasn’t an awful human being, he was scum, but what gives you the right to act as his executioner?”
“I am better than he.”
“Not from where I’m sitting.”
“His own sin destroyed him. He was weak.”
“This is the twenty-first century,” I said, pulling myself to my feet. “It’s not survival of the fittest anymore. Those with strength should protect the weak, even if it’s from themselves.” He chuckled, running his hand back over his smooth head.
“You’re an idealist. You’re young. Soon all of that will change. Come here,” he said, offering a hand to me. I shook my head. I wasn’t going to take it no matter how many times he offered.
“Please, it is your destiny. It awaits you.”
“What is it you think you know about me?”
“More than you do obviously, princess.” I crossed my arms over my chest. His eyes looked down and took a while coming back up to my face.
“Stop calling me that. I’m not a…”
“Do you think you were named after one by accident?” He arched a brow at me in a very derisive manner. Rin turned his face into profile and the moonlight shinning in through the window created a disturbing shimmer around his body.
“It’s a name,” I said softly protesting. “What’s in a name…”
“A rose by any other name,” he interrupted me, closing his eyes, “smells as sweet. This is true. You’ve been raised away from your people, isolated and ignorant. It is time for you to embrace…”
“My destiny?” I said lacing the two words with as much sarcasm as I could muster. His eyes snapped open and he extended his hand to me again.
“Exactly.”
There was something about the gesture that struck me as familiar. Rin was offering me answers. Answers he knew I desperately wanted. All he wanted was me to take his hand, go with him and submit to his will. I asked myself how different a fate he had planned for me than Solomon had. Rin was a dark wizard. He couldn’t be trusted and I’d seen the desire in his eyes. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t want to, knowing how easily he killed.
I knew why the gesture seemed so familiar. This pose was so similar to Hamilton’s when he’d drawn me back in to my right mind in the police station. I had felt safe and protected. I felt no such connection to Rin. He wasn’t like me. He said I’d been raised away from my people, not our people. He wasn’t another phoenix, although I suspected him of being more than he appeared. He still registered to me despite his strength as mortal, as human.
“Tell me something,” I said flexing my arms down to my side and balling my hands up into fists, “was I supposed to be raised away from my people?”
“You,” he paused. The question seemed to stump him. It took him more than a moment to rally, a moment in which I gathered all my mistrust and doubt around me like a shield. “It is your destiny. Your loss and your triumphant return, our triumphant return.”
I scoffed. This wasn’t about me. I was just the key to something that he wanted for himself. I braced my feet prepared to fight him.
“Destiny, it seems to be a word used by fools. It cannot simultaneously describe something that happens the way it ought to, and something happening that you didn’t expect. Is that what destiny is? Shit happens so we’ll call it destiny. If I am to believe anything, it will be that a person can make what they want to happen, and that means we can chose our own destiny. And right now,” I said, tightening my clenched fist till the bones groaned and the fire started a slow burn up the back of my hand, “the odds aren’t stacked in your favor. So you go on. Babble on all you like about destiny. As long as you understand that I am going to shove it where the sun don’t shine if you keep attempting to force me to do things I don’t want to.”
Rin retracted his hand looking disappointed. His eyes flashed darkly and he started to unbutton the tuxedo jacket. The shirt undern
eath billowed out in a puff of white fabric, the material arching around a wide V of flesh. What I could see of his chest was tanned and toned.
“Why do you women always have to be so very stubborn? I have not walked this planet only to find you and be denied now.”
“You want a fight, “I said taking up a pose I’d learned from my training with DJ. “I may not throw the first punch but you can bet your sweet ass I’ll throw the last one.”
Rin gave a throaty chuckle, really yucking it up. It was very disarming to have your opponent just stand there and laugh at you. He was bigger than me, stronger too. I guess he saw himself a little as Goliath standing over David, but we all know who won that fight. It was infuriating. I wanted him gone. I pulled back my arms and sent it flying towards him.
“Get out of my home,” I screamed it at him. He had invaded my space, my privacy. Not for the first time, and thought he could mock me while he did it.
Rin’s fingers locked around my wrist halting my momentum. He pulled me into him and grabbed my left shoulder to shove me backwards. I stumbled to regain my balance, but hit the wood frame of my bed and tumbled backwards onto the mattress. He was on me in a second. His mouth was brutal, warm and wet on mine. It wasn’t a pleasant kiss. It was about dominance. He tried showing me how weak I was. How I couldn’t stop him from planting his mouth over mine. I bit him till I drew blood. I growled with rage pounding my fists on his shoulders, neck and back. I tried to knee and kick him. Rin pulled back, smiling at me as if the kiss had been remarkably more pleasant for him.
“You pig.” Rin licked the blood off his lip.
“I have watched you Cassandra. I have seen your weakness and I know how to make you mine.” Rin wrapped one of his meaty hands around my throat and held me down. I struggled to breath, to keep fighting him. I clawed my nails into his skin. Was he going to choke me to death? He held up his other hand beginning to chant words in a language I thought I recognized. Still, I didn’t know what he was saying. Blackness filled his eyes and he held up one finger, a bluish light hovering around the tip. Rin focused those demonic pupils on me as I gagged desperate for air and freedom.
“Do you want to know your sin Cassandra?” He smiled. Then like a quill freshly dipped in ink, he used his glowing fingers to write a character into my skin.
Chapter Nineteen
The flames on my arms went out but the fire didn’t leave my body. It merely migrated to another part of me all together. I gasped. Rather than pounding my fists against his shoulders, I began gripping them as if I was drowning and he was a rock in the chopping waves. Rin smiled at me, pressing his lips to my neck. The kiss seared under my skin and made my breathing uneven. I could feel the power trying to cloud my rational mine and take me over. I fought it. What had he done to me?
I wanted him. I wanted the press of his flesh against me. I wanted to be taken. I was being overwhelm by lust. Lust? Oh God, no. Rin was feeling it too, I could tell. He wasn’t fighting it as he pressed his desire against me. He’d made me want him. No, my brain corrected. He made me want a man. Skin to skin contact, passion and satisfaction but it didn’t have to be him. He was just who was there. I was long since used to fighting temptation.
My hands shook as I struggled to pull my fingers free from his flesh. Rin’s lips were progressing down my throat, his hands in places I didn’t want them. I patted the bed till I felt the cool metal of my keys. I gripped them, pushing the serrated point between my fingers, rallying my inner strength. Rin nipped my collar bone. It nearly undid me and I struck, clawing the key across and into the flesh of his face. Blood splattered me and he reeled back. The pain cut through his own lusty haze. He clutched his wound and stumbled away from the bed.
I ran. I didn’t go for my phone. I got out of my apartment, the entire building, just trying to put as much distance between us as possible. When my legs grew tired from exertion I slipped into the doorway of a closed business and took deep breaths.
My pulse was hammering and not just because of the run. The adrenaline burned away leaving only the other kind of burning. I pulled myself around the corner, placed my hands flat against the cool glass of the window and forced my eyes up so I could see my reflection. The character for cow glowing blue on my forehead contrasted with the slack, bedroom eyes. My skin thrummed hungrily for the touch of another. I turned and pressed my back against the cold, scanning the road. My breathing took on a Darth Vader like quality, heavy and labored, as my eyes searched for what I wanted. A man, any man would do.
“No,” I said shaking my head, fighting with all my strength. I’d made a promise and I was going to keep it. That conviction would have to see me through. I just hoped I could get there before my will caved in. I started running again.
The crowd outside Dante’s was minimal, which I was thankful for. I didn’t want to risk touching skin to skin with anyone. I kept my eyes downcast so that I wouldn’t see any of them. I threw myself against the side door. I pounded on it smashing my number into the security keypad. I couldn’t risk going through the main way. The dance floor would be too crowded. The keypad beeped, rejecting what I’d punched in. I knew that people must be staring at me. I tried not to looking back as I heard mummers and mutters. I was scared that if I picked out a male face I’d go for them and start screwing in the street like a bitch in heat. I was going crazy. My body was driving me, refusing to take the scenic route.
I growled frustrated, grabbed the door by the metal studs and pulled it from its hinges. Someone behind me gasped and the computer pad began a whining alarm. I punched it. The sound spluttered to nothing and the electrics sparked. I balanced the door half against the opening, half against the wall and slipped inside.
Darkness surrounded me as I made my way for the stairs, but someone got in my way.
“Cassandra? Hells bells. What did you do to the door?”
Vincent’s face was visible only by the glow of his cigarette. Vincent was handsome, a rogue. He would be good in bed. He’d probably had a lot of practice. I grabbed him by his t-shirt collar and pulled him to his feet. I dashed the cigarette to the floor and found his mouth with mine. Vincent was slow to respond. I pressed him against the wall and let my hand roam down his chest. Vincent fought for breath.
“Cassandra, oh God. Aram will kill me.” I pulled back. Aram? The haze receded a little at his name. That was right. I’d come there for Aram. I looked up the stairs, as if I could see through the walls to his room. When I turned back to Vincent, a strange, blue shimmer covered the pupils in his eyes. He tried to pull me closer, his previous words forgotten. I shook my head, freeing my hand from under his t-shirt, where I’d kept it in contact with his skin, and pushed him away. Keep it together, I chided myself mentally. Aram is close. Just get to Aram. I trotted up the stairs into the corridor. I could hear Vincent scrambling to his feet, coming after me as I darted for Aram’s room.
I threw open the door to the bedroom. Aram was leaning over a young woman preparing to bite. He looked up at the sound of the door smacking against the wall. I stared at the woman who looked nervous.
“Out,” I shouted at her louder than I meant. She looked at Aram, almost flushed with relief and scurried from the room. Aram looked at me quizzically.
“Pet, we’ve talked about this! I have to eat.”
I took two, long strides across the room. I pressed the length of my body against his and wrapped my arms around his pale neck. I claimed him with my lips, and as his parted, I thrust my tongue in claiming that too. He moaned and his fingers caressed the lacing of the corset. I murmured indecent proposals against our barely parted lips and looked into his eyes. The same blue filled his eyes, like sliding contacts into place so that all he saw was the blue light of my sin. Aram’s hands gripped the corset and ripped it open. I pulled his shirt out of his pants trying to get it over his head. My lips found his pale chest, licking and nipping while he held my head to him. I raised my head, inviting him to kiss me again. I was giving up the last of my con
trol. I was safe in the arms of the man I loved and could stop being strong. Aram pushed the dress off my shoulders. It slithered down my body, pooling at my feet so I stood before him in just my heels and underwear. My vision blurred as I felt his hands on my body, the speed at which he moved to get me out of what little I had left on. I let go completely. As we tumbled to the bed, I swear I felt the bed indent and another pair of hands touch me.
* * * *
I awoke in darkness. My entire body ached and my head pounded like my neurons were playing tribal drums. I lay still trying to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I was lying in the middle of Aram’s bed and I was naked. There was a weight across my breasts and another across my hips. I looked down. The shapes blanketing me were two, pale arms. I turned my neck, wincing as pain shot through me the muscles tight. I fought the pain and looked to my right. Aram lay face down, his left arm flung out over my chest. I followed the line of his back down to the tight mounds of his buttocks. I slowly turned my head to the left feeling the same pinching pain in my neck. The dark fall of straight hair hid most of the face, but I could see his chin. Jareth? What was Jareth doing in bed with me and Aram? He lay on his side so I could see only the narrow line of his naked hip snuggled against mine.
I wiggled away from him and even that tiny movement hurt. I needed away from him. I was creeped out. I couldn’t remember anything from last night. What the hell had happened? I flung his arm away from me. His body rocked then rolled back against me, the arm slapping against my skin with a sharp sting. I squirmed onto my left hip and put my hand on his chest to push him away. My hand on his chest sent a shock through me. I gasped as I had a sudden flash of Jareth moving above me. I withdrew my hand like I’d been stung. Had I had sex with Jareth? I grabbed the unused pillow and whacked him with it until he rolled away from me, and right off the bed. His body hit the floor with a thunk, but he was dead to the world so he hadn’t felt it.
Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks) Page 18