The Vampire Obsession

Chapter 12

The only link between the mark and the crimes were the victims. It was not drawn on notes at crime scenes like what he left for me. The marks were always on the bodies of the victims. When the answer came to me, everything became so clear that I almost screamed in commotion.

"It was the initial victim, wasn’t it?" I shot without blinking, feeling euphoria dominate my mind. It was the feeling I chased in every investigation. "He was the one who served as a model for all your victims. He invented the mark, maybe in a drawing or a painting, and it has some traumatic meaning to you. That is why you carve it on the chests of all your victims. That is why you kill those who resemble him. It is personal..."

"I paused when a valuable insight struck me while I was speaking. Did he make that mark on you?"

Going against everything I expected, all the profiling and behavioral analysis that I had built about him, the Ripper smiled affectionately at me.

Almost as if he were proud of my reasoning.

"I never doubted your capacity."

I did not allow his speech to distract me from where I was about to arrive.

"Who was he to you?" I questioned, tapping my feet rhythmically on the floor. Curiosity making me restless. "A father, a brother, a lover?"

I knew it was a male figure.

"None of those alternatives."

"A mentor?"

His silence told me everything I needed to know. I had cornered him in his own trap.

"A mentor, then," I concluded, shaking my head to myself, making mental notes in order to analyze our entire conversation when I was alone.

"There is a detail that you are ignoring," he murmured darkly. "I did not carve the mark on all my victims. Not on your father."

I tilted my face upward severely.

"Why?"

"Perhaps he was different from the other victims." He scratched his chin, unpretentious. "Do you miss your father, Evelyn?"

I clenched my teeth hard. My fingers tightened around the handle of the knife in my hand. How could he have the audacity to ask me a question like that?

"What kind of daughter would not miss her father?"

"But do you?" he insisted, determined to take me to the limit with his provocations. "Have you been visiting the grave of former Sheriff Cross?" A growl escaped from me. He knew where I had gone that day. "I bet he was a good policeman, but I wonder if Michael was a good father. Some would say yes, others no. Especially those who knew what he did when he was not wearing a badge."

"How dare you..." I roared.

It was all too fast.

In one moment I was sitting on the couch, in the next I had jumped to my feet. My fingers brushed the barrel of the gun. I was a breath away from grabbing it when, suddenly, it flew out of my reach.

The Ripper threw it off the table.

The pistol fell to the floor with a crack, bouncing away, until it stopped at the other end of the room.

I ran.

He did too.

I reached it first and quickly bent down to grab it, until strong arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me up. Before I could realize what was happening, my back hit the wall with an impact that stole my breath and made my vision spin.

He pressed me against the hard concrete behind me. His firm chest against mine, his legs between mine, his arms around my waist.

Preventing me from fighting or escaping.

I was cornered in the cage of his arms...

I could not grab the pistol, but I still had a weapon up my sleeve.

My hand, holding the handle of the knife, flew toward his chest. Before I could touch him, the Ripper wrapped his palm around the end of the handle and immobilized my hand in the air, pinning my other wrist against the wall. I tried to move, but his grip was like an iron bar, penetrating my skin and bones.

"What the f**k is this? Are you made of steel?" I exclaimed, indignant.

In a mere blink of my eyes, he reversed the course of the knife, now pointing it directly at my throat. When I swallowed hard, the blade followed the movement. That was when a fearlessly insane idea crossed my mind.

I released my fingers from the handle of the blade and simply handed it to him.

A silent vow of something deeper than trust.

He allowed me to pull my hand away, but continued holding the knife against my throat.

"You said you would not kill me," I declared, my voice firm and steady with a determination that I did not necessarily possess, but needed to make him believe I did.

"I am not going to kill you," he whispered, his lips dangerously close to mine. For a fragile second, my gaze dropped, following the movement of his next words. "But it does not mean that I cannot have fun with you."

Slowly, he slid the knife from my throat to my exposed collarbone, tracing my skin in a soft caress. I sighed, half apprehension, half curiosity to know what he intended with that.

Everything was nothing more than a test for him. To know how far I would allow him to go with me. But I did not know, and by some dark desire buried deep in my heart, I wanted to find out.

"Tell me to stop, Evelyn," he murmured, voice low and hoarse. The air was heavy and rarefied between us. "I need you to tell me to stop if this is too much."

My other hand was free, I could stop him if I wanted. But I did not.

The three-letter word left my lips in a breathless sigh:

"No."

Then he dragged the knife lower, along my sternum, and slid it to the side. So slowly, as if he were giving me time to change my mind. He ran the blade over the sensitive skin beneath my breast and went up, lazily outlining my n****e. I sighed softly when I felt it harden under the cold blade.

My blouse was white.

And I was not wearing a bra.

"f**k," he cursed, voice rough like the roar of distant thunder. His grip tightened on my wrist, becoming almost painful. "Evelyn."

"I did not ask you to stop."

With provoking slowness, he traced my other n****e with the blade in a circular motion, making shivers spread and a wave of electricity run through my entire body. I threw my head back against the wall and a gasp escaped my lips. I closed my eyes, savoring the delicious tingling sensation that took possession of every nerve in me.

He slid the blade further down, outlining the line of my abdomen, until stopping at a point below my navel, dangerously close to the apex between my thighs.

My back arched from the wall.

I pressed my legs together in expectation.

If he moved one more centimeter, I would be ruined.

"You would put a bullet in my head if you could hear my thoughts right now," he whispered hoarsely by my ear.

"I do not need to hear them to have that desire," I shot back, sarcasm dripping from me, even breathless.

His low and lascivious laugh resonated through my body from how close we were. An empty part inside me tightened painfully upon hearing the sound.

"What are you doing to me, Evelyn?" he asked in an almost tortured tone. If I did not know better, I would think it was he who was under the threat of a knife.

"Playing the game that you invited me to play with you." A subtle smile crossed my lips when I blinked innocently at him. All to keep his focus on me. He was completely unaware of how my free hand snaked dangerously behind him, almost reaching the bar of his mask. "Isn’t that what you wanted?"

But then he stepped back. And my engineered distraction to uncover his identity collapsed.

"You are bleeding."

"What?" I asked, disconcerted.

"Your stitches opened." He pointed to the red trail that began under the sleeve of my blouse and ran down my forearm.

"s**t," I yelped, looking at my arm.