Page 14 of The King of Hearts

“W-who are you?” My voice is shaky and breathless.

“That’s not important,” he replies.

I take a step back, and he matches my move with a step forward. His legs are miles longer than mine, so his step forward is bigger than my backward one. Fear has saliva gathering in the back of my mouth, and my legs feel like they’ll give out at any minute.

I want to stand my ground and ignore his demand to keep my mouth shut and scream as loud as I can. Marcelo is just a couple of doors from my room and would get to me first. Dad would barge in right afterward. In less than thirty seconds, people would storm the room and get rid of this stranger.

But something holds me back. Maybe it’s the menacing vibes coming from this man. Or maybe it’s the tone in which he issued his order. Something inside me says everyone is better off if I keep quiet. At least for now.

I lift my foot to take another step back, but I stop myself. To show fear is to give the other person power, and I refuse to give this man that.

“What do you want?” I ask, inserting strength in my voice that I don’t really feel.

I’m scared out of my fucking mind. So scared my teeth are nearly chattering.

“Everything, Savina.”

Goose bumps break out over my arms, and my scalp prickles at his declaration. And itisa declaration. It’s in his tone, and it’s in the rigid way he holds his body.

I hate that I can’t see his face. His voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. Whatever’s covering his face doesn’t help. It’s almost like he’s altering his real voice to throw me off. I know this man, but he doesn’t want me to figure out who he is.

I cross my arms over my chest and hug my middle, making myself smaller. My room is big, but with this man filling the space, it seems only half the size it was before.

“What does that mean?”

He doesn’t answer right away. He takes a long step forward, and it shortens the space between us, making my heart rate skyrocket. I move back more, but I only get so far before my back hits the edge of my desk. He moves again, and there’s only a handful of feet between us now. This close, I can see hisface better. Or rather, what’s covering his face. It’s a solid black mask with deep grooves slashed from the top corner and goes diagonally down to the opposite corner.

“It means,” he says, eating up the little bit of space left between us with another step, “I want everything. Every single fucking inch of you. Everything about you belongs to me. Every first, middle, and last experience you have will be mine to give you.”

What. The. Fuck.

The surety in his voice, the way he doesn’t even hesitate with his claim, says he truly believes the shit coming out of his mouth. He actually thinks I belong to him.

And that right there tells me just how dangerous this man can be.

I’ve already been through something similar with another deranged man, and it nearly cost me my life.

When he’s only a couple feet from me, my muscles tense, preparing to run. To get the fuck away from this man. My eyes dart around to anything in the room I can use as a weapon. There’s plenty of stuff, but it’s all too far away to get to before he gets to me. The desk I’m pressed against only has a couple of notebooks, but there’s a charcoal pencil I can use. Blindly, I slowly move my hand behind me. I know exactly where the pencil is, and sure enough, I feel the tip of it graze my hand. I curl my fingers around it.

My whole body shakes, and my heart slams inside my chest as I stare at the man. I can’t see his eyes, but I know he’s staring right back.

Before my mind can fully form the thought, I’m sprinting across the room toward the door. I get only a couple of feet before I’m suddenly grabbed from behind. I open my mouth to release a scream, but it never makes it past my lips. An unrelenting band is around my throat, and it’s so firm I canhardly pull in air, let alone make any sounds. I’m pulled back against a hard chest.

I lift the hand holding the charcoal pencil with every intention of stabbing it anywhere I can, but my wrist is caught. He squeezes the bones so hard that I’m forced to let my measly weapon go.

With an arm around my waist, I’m picked up so my feet dangle, and he carries me to the bed. I’m tossed on the end, my bottom half hanging over the edge, and a heavy weight lands on top of me.

A really large, very hard, heavy weight.

I squirm and buck, trying to get away, but there’s no chance of that happening. He’s simply too big and too strong.

His hand is now on the back of my neck, pushing my face into the mattress. His legs straddle mine and his groin presses against my ass. Something hard pokes me, and it doesn’t take a genius to know what it is.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck.

Panic and terror stop my bucking and lock every muscle in my body. I open my mouth, whether to scream or simply pant in air, I don’t know, but as soon as my lips part, something is shoved into it. Two of his fingers drive past my tongue and hit the back of my throat, making me gag. Saliva pools out and drips onto the mattress.

“Try that again and you won’t like the consequences, Savina,” he growls in my ear. “I’m going to let you go. If you scream, the promise of sewing your lips shut is still on the table. Bite down if you understand.”

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