Gaslight (Crossbreed #4)(83)

I looked back at the empty doorway. “Go after Fletcher.”

“I’m not leaving your side.”

Trembling with anger, I stared at the cuts and bruises on my knuckles. “He needs to pay.”

Christian removed his coat and draped it around me. “I’ll make your Creator suffer a thousandfold for what he’s done.” He held up his bleeding wrist. “I vow it on my blood.”

Hot tears burned my eyes as I looked down at myself. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

As I sat there in that cell, all I could think about was how clean Christian’s coat smelled. I breathed it in, and it wasn’t just his scent in the fibers, it was freedom. So unlike the smell of captivity, which was a distinct blend of sweat, urine, mold, concrete, and humiliation. I hated Fletcher. Wanted him dead. Wanted to set him on fire and put him out repeatedly for the next fifty years.

Or were those Christian’s thoughts?

I wiped the blood from my lips.

Christian glanced back at the door. “Niko’s waiting outside. If you don’t want anyone else to see you, then we’ll go home without them. Niko can stay here and watch the girl. Fletcher’s already taken the car and left her behind. She’s sobbing upstairs.”

I nodded, unable to look him in the eye.

Christian collected me in his arms and stood up. Though Vampire strength ran through my veins, I felt weak in his embrace. He pressed his forehead to mine, his voice a soft caress. “I never stopped looking, Precious. Never.”





Chapter 25





Cold water from the shower beat against my head. A curtain of wet hair surrounded my face as I looked down from my seated position in the shower stall. For whatever reason, standing in that shower made me feel normal again, and I wasn’t ready to feel normal.

“Where have you been, Christian? She’s been in there for over four hours,” Blue said in whispers. “She’s not talking. Shepherd wants to look her over. He said she needs an IV.”

“For feck’s sake. The girl’s been in a dungeon for over a month. Give her a chance to breathe before you accost her with sharp needles. I’m her partner, so let me take care of it.”

The door slammed.

When I looked up, a dark shadow appeared on the other side of the glass door. I’d been sitting in here a long time under a stream of lukewarm water just to get used to warmth on my body.

A knock sounded against the glass. “You can’t stay in there forever,” Christian said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call Niko in to restore some of your light?”

“No,” I blurted out. “Tell them to stay out.”

My core light would replenish soon enough with time, food, and rest. Though my wounds had already healed from Christian’s blood, I still felt phantom pains all over my body.

Christian drew a circle on the glass. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Mortified, I covered my head with my hands. Why did Christian of all people have to see me like this? Even more confusing was how tender he’d been when he found me. What could possibly have come over him?

The door clicked open, and he reached in to shut off the water. I slicked back my hair and watched with an absence in my heart, as if all my emotions had run down the drain.

Christian knew what I needed without asking, and the last thing I’d wanted when we got home was to talk. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, the lanterns on the wall flickering as he carried me to the claw-foot tub. I looked down at the steaming water inside. That explained why the glass on the shower door was fogged up. When he lowered me into it, I grimaced from the hot water against my cold skin.

“You’ve lost weight,” he said, the anger in his voice barely caged.

I glanced at the candles in the recessed wall to my right. “I guess your blood wore off. I feel so weak.”

Christian dragged a small stool to the edge of the tub and sat down. His black T-shirt had a small hole near the collar, but he was never one to care about such things. “I’ll have Kira bring you up a plate of food. Real food. Not that shite we were eating months ago. I think you get a free pass from eating downstairs for as long as you need. She makes a decent roast.”

“She’s still here? I thought you all would have scared her off by now.”

“Shepherd does a fair bit of frightening the poor lass, but she doesn’t take nonsense from anyone. Leaves us alone, just as Viktor promised. Doesn’t have any desire to learn English or mingle. She was introverted when I found her. Well,” he said, rubbing his chin, “maybe introverted isn’t the word. She doesn’t seem to want any part of living in the real world.”

“Maybe you two should date.”

“I desire no one else.” When he touched my hand, I jerked it away.

Christian poured a dollop of shampoo in the palm of his hand and reached over, gently massaging it into my scalp. Not a lot, just enough to clean my hair and add a milky film to the tub. I bent my head forward, knees drawn up and arms hugging them. When he finished rinsing my hair, I raked it back and wiped the suds from my forehead.

Christian dipped a sponge into the water and started washing my arm from the wrist up. “Do you want to tell me what happened? The whole of it?”

I couldn’t even verbalize all the things running through my mind. “What happened to Rachel?”