“You think I don’t know that?” He shifted his body beneath me, making me painfully aware of something. Two somethings, in fact, one of which was how far up my short skirt was. The other wasn’t my problem. I wriggled, to shimmy my hem down, but his expression perished the thought. When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying.

Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.

“Let go of my hands.”

“Make me,” he taunted. “Voice me, Ms. Lane. Come on, little girl, show me some power.”

Little girl, my ass. “You know I can’t. And that makes what you did to me tonight even more unforgivable. You might as well have raped me. In fact, that’s exactly what you did!”

He rolled hard and fast, and I was on my back beneath him, with my hands pinned above my head, the weight of his body crushing me to the floor, his face inches from mine. He was breathing harder than the exertion merited.

“Make no mistake, Ms. Lane, I didn’t rape you. You can lie there on your pretty little P.C. ass and claim with your idealistic little P.C. arguments that any violation of your will is rape and that I’m a big, bad bastard, and I’ll tell you that you’re full of shit, and you’ve obviously never been raped. Rape is much, much worse. Rape isn’t something you walk away from. You crawl.”

He was off me and on his feet, stalking out the door before I’d even managed to catch enough breath to reply.

Part Two

PART TWO
____________________

The Darkest Hour

Nightfall.
“What a strange word.
‘Night’ I get.
But ‘fall’ is a gentle word.
Autumn leaves fall, swirling with languid grace
To carpet the earth with their dying blaze.
Tears fall, like liquid diamonds
Shimmering softly, before they melt away.
Night doesn’t fall here.
It comes slamming down.”

—Mac’s journal

Chapter Ten

TEN

I slept fitfully and dreamed of the sad woman again.

She was trying to tell me something but an icy wind kept stealing her words each time she opened her mouth. Laughter rippled on the chilling breeze, and I thought I recognized it, but I couldn’t lift the name from my mind. The harder I tried, the more frightened and confused I became. Then V’lane was there, and Barrons too, with men I’d never seen before, and suddenly Christian appeared, and Barrons moved toward him, with murder in his eyes.

I woke up, iced to the bone, and in a state of alarm.

My subconscious had put something together that hadn’t penetrated my conscious mind: Today was Thursday, Christian was returning from Scotland, and Barrons was onto him, because of me.