Page 37 of The Dancer and the Dark
The snake of a man in the corner struck. She’d never had anyone hold a gun to her head, but she immediately flashed back to the beatings she’d taken from her ex-boyfriend when she was young.
The fear was the same. The pain was less. The hard metal against her temple was startlingly similar to the handle of a golf club. She froze and slowed her breathing, trying to avoid any reaction that could make the unknown worse.
Gavin had exploded through the door, and in less than a second, the tall man who’d interrogated her was on the ground, his body a limp rag, and the gun she hadn’t known he was carrying was in Gavin’s hand.
“Is Zain okay?” Her voice sounded dull, even to her own ears.
“He was hit with a tranquilizer too. He’ll be fine.”
“I thought he was dead at first, but then when I woke up in that room, I was hoping he was alive. That maybe they didn’t want to kill us.” She felt her stomach drop as they started their descent. “They would have killed me.”
“The vampire in charge of those men is dead. All her people will be dead before sunrise if they aren’t already.”
“I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.”
“The point is, no one is going to kill you. I’ll explain more when we land.”
The sky was cloudy when they dropped down suddenly, straight into the shadowed heights of the Vecchio estate.
In seconds, Beatrice had a blanket wrapped around Chloe. Giovanni was barking orders at everyone around them, and Gavin had his hand at the small of her back, shepherding her into the guesthouse where he had been staying.
The familiar scent of lavender and linen greeted her, and she smelled Gavin’s cologne from a jacket hanging on the back of a chair.
A knot of fear began to unfurl in the center of her chest, and tears burned the back of her eyes.
“Chloe, what do you need?” Beatrice kept her voice soft. “There’s water on the table, and I’m making tea. I already called your mother to tell her you’re back, and Audra is explaining it to her as if it was all a misunderstanding—”
“Gavin.” Chloe turned to him and allowed herself to fall apart.
“Everyone out!” Beatrice ordered.
Chloe clutched the front of his shirt and let the hours of fear and tension release, her body shaking as sweat bloomed over her body. “They were going to kill me. They thought I was someone else. They were going to kill me, but if I told them I wasn’t Keisha, I thought they might try to kill her and I couldn’t let that happen. I’m going to throw up.”
“Beatrice!”
“I got it.”
Someone shoved a trash can under her face, and Chloe heaved into it, nothing but a thin stream of acid leaving her. She hadn’t been able to eat the day of her father’s service. She’d had nothing in her stomach for nearly twenty-four hours.
“I’ll get some water.”
She closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of Gavin rubbing her back. “I told them what they wanted to hear—at least I think they believed me—but that horrible man Tenzin killed never stopped staring at me, and I knew he wanted to—”
“Breathe, dove.” Gavin stroked her neck, her shoulders, her back. “Deep breaths.”
Beatrice handed her a glass of ice-cold water, and she drank and drank until she felt the shakes begin to subside.
She took one deep breath after another. She knew she wasn’t making any sense. She had no idea if Gavin even knew that the whole debacle had been a twisted kind of job interview.
“Keep breathing.” He led her to the couch, sat down, and drew her into his lap, still rubbing her back. “I’ve got you, dove. The bad men are gone.”
“You killed them,” she blurted. “You killed them because of me.”
“I did,” he said quietly. “In my world, some things cannot be negotiated. Threatening harm to a mate is unacceptable.”
“But I’m not a vampire.” She wiped tears from her cheeks and took the tissue that Beatrice handed her. “I’m not your mate.”
“You are.” Gavin’s voice was rough.
