Chapter 17
1079 Words
Chloe’s pov
Later that night, I was sleeping in my room when the urge to drink pulled me out of it. My throat felt scraped dry, a thirst that wouldn't let me fall back asleep no matter how many times I turned over, so I gave up and padded barefoot out into the hall, heading for the kitchen instead of ringing for Ray at an hour this unreasonable.
The manor had gone unnaturally quiet by the time I reached the stairs, a silence that pressed against my ears instead of comforting me, no wind through the trees, no distant murmur of the night guard's rounds, no scrape of a chair from the kitchens below where the staff usually stayed up late gossiping over the last of the evening's dishes. I told myself it was just the hour, exhaustion making me jumpy after everything the last few days had thrown at me, and kept moving down the stairs toward the sound of running water I meant to pour for myself.
Glass shattered somewhere near the pantry, and I froze three steps from the bottom.
Footsteps moved through the kitchen, someone trying hard not to be heard and failing at it just enough for me to catch the rhythm. My dagger was upstairs, tucked beneath my pillow where I'd left it, and I cursed myself silently for not thinking to bring it down with me. I pressed myself against the wall at the base of the stairs instead, my heart already slamming against my ribs, and eased toward the kitchen doorway to see what I'd walked into.
A man stood inside first, broad and scarred, a puckered line running from his temple to his jaw like a memory of some old fight he'd barely survived. His eyes swept the room, marking the cupboards, the pantry door hanging open on its broken hinge, the silver drawer half emptied onto the counter. Behind him, a girl who couldn't have been older than fourteen hovered near the back door, thin and hollow-eyed, clutching an empty sack against her chest like it might protect her from whatever was about to happen.
He turned before I could pull back out of sight, and his eyes landed on me like he'd been waiting for this exact moment.
"Where's the vault?" The man crossed the kitchen in three strides before I could back away. "Every pack house like this has one. You're going to tell me where."
"I don't know." My voice shook despite every effort to hold it steady. "I'm not from this pack. I don't know where anything is kept."
"Wrong answer." He closed the distance between us fast, faster than I expected from someone his size, and caught my arm before I could twist free of him.
"Please." The girl's voice cracked from the doorway, barely above a whisper. "Just let her show us and let's go. We don't need trouble."
"Shut up, Tabitha." He didn't look back at her. His hand closed around my throat instead, not enough to cut off my air, but enough to make the threat unmistakable. "The vault. Now, or I make this a lot worse for you."
I drove my knee up hard between his legs, the way Lisa had drilled into me a hundred times over on quiet afternoons in her kitchen, and for one triumphant second I felt him buckle, a grunt of pain tearing out of him that gave me half a heartbeat of hope.
It wasn't enough.
He recovered faster than any man his age had any right to, backhanding me across the face hard enough that my vision whited out for a second, stars bursting behind my eyes. I hit the floor, the impact jarring up through my hip and shoulder, my cheek already throbbing where his knuckles had connected, and he was on me before I could scramble back toward the doorway.
"Feisty." He pinned my wrists above my head with one massive hand, his knee driving into my stomach hard enough to steal the breath from my lungs. "I like that in a woman. Makes it more satisfying when you finally give in."
I thrashed against his grip, every self-defense move Lisa had ever taught me screaming through my head at once, twist here, strike there, none of it reaching my limbs fast enough to matter against the sheer, crushing weight of him. My lungs burned, my wrists throbbed under the force of his grip, and panic clawed up my throat thick enough to choke on. I could feel my own pulse hammering wild against his fingers where they circled my wrists, faster than it had any right to go.
"Tabitha." His voice stayed flat, almost bored, like pinning a struggling woman to the floor cost him no more effort than breathing. "Check the hallway. Make sure nobody heard that little display of hers."
The girl didn't move, her knuckles white around the sack still clutched to her chest. "I don't want to do this anymore." Her voice trembled, closer now, like she'd stepped further into the room instead of fleeing like he'd ordered. "This isn't what you said it would be. You said we'd be in and out before anyone woke up. You said nobody would get hurt."
"I don't care what you want." He didn't so much as glance her way, his full attention locked on me, his grip tightening around my wrists until I felt my own pulse hammering wild against his fingers. "Tell me where the vault is, girl, or I will start taking pieces of you until someone in this house cares enough to tell me themselves."
"She's not from here." Tabitha's voice cracked. "She said so already. She doesn't know."
"Then she'd better learn fast." He didn't look at her again, his eyes fixed on mine instead, dark and patient in a way that scared me more than his strength did. "Everyone learns fast when it's their own blood on the line."
I gasped for air under the crushing weight of him, my vision swimming at the edges, and for the first time since I'd walked into this pack house believing Lisa's lessons would be enough to keep me safe, I understood how little that training was worth against a man built like this one, strong enough to hold me down without breaking a sweat while I fought with everything I had and still couldn't move him an inch.
He lifted his blade with a snarl.
- Writer
