Venom And Vice

13

“Jesus Christ, Ashley,” I growled through clenched teeth. “I thought we were testing my skills?” she quipped coyly. Apparently, she wasn’t as unaffected as she’d let on. “If that’s how we’re playing this—” I said before swiping my leg around and catching both of her ankles. She hit the mat hard but quickly recovered and rolled. “I’m not playing anything. Liam taught me to fight dirty. I’m just showing you what I’ve learned.” Before she could return to her feet, I grabbed one of her ankles. Yanking her back toward me, I smacked her ass with a resounding slap. I didn’t know what temporary insanity had possessed me and didn’t care. She yelped out in surprise, then glared back at me. “I can’t believe you just did that.” “Well, next time you have a problem with me, don’t take it out on my balls.” “I was just practicing my defensive techniques. You were the one who wanted to test me.” She squirmed, wriggling her leg free and kicking me in the chest. My patience already thinning, I traced over to stand directly in front of where she knelt. Her face registered shock just before I swept her backward onto the mat, laying my body over hers and pinning her securely beneath me. “I didn’t know you were harboring a secret need to castrate me when I made the suggestion.” “Sounds like you should have been better prepared. Now let me up. You’re suffocating me.” She clasped my biceps and struggled against my hold. “You can breathe just fine right here. In fact, this is great practice. How would you get away right now if I was a real attacker?” Yeah right, asshole. You just want to keep your d**k pressed against her soft curves. I was abusing my position, but I didn’t give two shits. She needed to see that she wasn’t as almighty as she thought. Confidence could be a good thing, but it could also get her killed. “Ugh! You make me so crazy.” She pressed her hands against my face, a soft blue light brightening her cerulean eyes. “Get. Off. Me. Now.” In a second’s time, I was no longer in the gym. The walls faded away, and a gut-wrenching scene I’d spent years trying to forget played out before my eyes. Every bit was exactly as I’d remembered because what I was seeing was a memory. My memory. The underground cell was damp, the smell of mildew and wet earth permeating the air. As if walking down those rotten wood steps for the first time, I became stymied in the tension and anticipation of knowing I’d found where they’d taken her, just as I’d felt on that horrible day so many lifetimes ago. I was completely disoriented. The recollection was so real, so consuming, that I became instantly engulfed in the scene. When I reached the bottom steps, I could make out her limp form tied to a chair in a dark corner of the room. “Raisa! Oh, Gods, Raisa!” I rushed to her side without a care of who might be hiding in the shadows, my fingers entwining in her dark hair, lifting her head from where it had lolled to the side. I reverently wiped at her filthy face as my world came crashing down around me. Her sallow skin indicated she had been dead for some time. Her normally soft features were hollow and harsh—I could only imagine the living hell of her last days. She still wore her battle gear, arms bound with iron shackles behind her—the shackles that I would remove from her wasted body and carry with me until the day two years later when I would dole out my brand of justice to the man who had caused her death. My chest felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside. I struggled to breathe. Never had I experienced such a profound sense of loss as when I found my Raisa dead. I had known the chances were slim that she would be alive when I finally tracked her down, but I had still held out hope. At that moment, I had nothing. Helpless rage seethed through my veins, and I threw back my head on a murderous howl that rang out in the night. In a desperate attempt to flee from the pain, I forced myself from the icy depths of the memory. When my eyes refocused in the present, I met Ashley’s horrified stare, her face pitying and apologetic. She knew. She had seen everything just as I had. I didn’t know how she’d done it, but she had forced her way into my mind and watched my most closely held memory as if it had been a television program aired for her entertainment. Lifting myself, I stood, no longer meeting her gaze. “We’re done. Get out.” My voice bore a tremor that hinted at the storm of emotions raging inside me. Ashley got up and stilled as if she were going to speak but then reconsidered and left with her head bowed. Her instinct to hold her tongue had been wise. If she had spoken, there was no telling how I would have responded. I knew she hadn’t meant to do what she’d done. She was probably equally as clueless about how she’d done it as I was. I didn’t even necessarily mind her seeing what she’d seen—the problem was that it had been shared without my consent. Giving money to a friend was a far cry from having that same money stolen. The memories were mine to share if and when I chose to do so. She might not have meant to steal them, but that was what she had done, and I needed space to regain my bearings. I had let go of the intense emotions that used to suffocate me after Raisa’s death. However, I hadn’t relived that moment for a very long time. The forced reality of it was more than unsettling. And to top it off, I found myself envisioning just how easily Ashley could have been bound to that chair instead of Raisa—golden blond hair instead of auburn waves. Raisa had been equally as headstrong and spirited as Ashley. They ran headfirst at life, fearless in a way that both inspired and terrified me. I’d been too weak to save Raisa, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again.