Page 110 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
She swallowed, tasting blood, then spat a mouthful of it onto the ivory silk, filled with dark satisfaction when it seeped through the cushions in a splattered cranberry stain.
Of three things she was certain. One: her nose was badly broken. Two: Caesar was on this yacht somewhere and other parts of her body were likely to get broken if she didn’t act fast. And three: killing him had become more than her mission.
It had become her religion.
She felt deep horror and anger over what he’d done to Marguerite. She felt responsible, too, because that was her mind’s default setting when everything went to hell, even though she knew on some level he would have killed Marguerite no matter what she did or didn’t do. That was just Caesar’s MO.
But she also felt a profound sense that ridding the world of this murderous, crazy bastard was the right thing to do, not only for Marguerite and for Christian, but for everyone else on the planet as well.
He was a rabid dog that needed to be put down.
And she was the one who’d do it.
She stood, then froze as a wave of vertigo hit her and her head began to spin. When it passed in a moment, she kicked off her shoes and stepped over to the desk, careful to keep her feet as silent as possible against the floor. It wasn’t too hard; a thick layer of white carpet muffled the sound. She crept up to the desk, frantically scanning the glossy mahogany surface and the vest itself for any sign of the detonator.
It wasn’t there. Without the detonator, the vest was useless.
She turned around, slouched down and, looking over her shoulder, opened the top drawer of the desk with one of her bound hands. It wasn’t there, either. So she searched for anything else that looked like it could be used as a weapon. It wasn’t as good as the vest, but she knew there were several things that, if inserted with enough force into the brain stem, could kill someone.
Something like a knife. Or—her heart stopped—a letter opener. Her gaze fell on the silver letter opener with an elaborately engraved handle and a long, thin blade and Ember nearly laughed aloud in relief.
Or panic. Or hysteria. She wasn’t exactly sure which.
She gripped the letter opener in her hand and slid the drawer shut with her hip, then darted back to the couch as the sound of voices grew louder.
“…blow it. If we have the serum, that’s all that matters.”
Caesar entered the room from the bridge, talking into a chunky mobile phone with a long antennae. He saw her sitting up on the couch and his brows raised as his gaze raked over her. He leaned against the wall and sent her a dark, lazy smile.
“Leave them. They’re not important. You know where to rendezvous, I’ll speak to you when I’m close,” he replied to a question posed from the other end of the line. Then he disconnected the call and stood staring at her, with that sinister smile and a heated intensity that filled the room.
“The broken nose is an improvement,” he drawled, eyeing her bloody face. “At least now you’ll have some character in that boring mug.”
That didn’t even sting. Feigning fear, wondering how the hell she was going to stab him with her hands tied behind her back, Ember dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Aww, did I hurt your feelings, little rabbit?” He moved toward her with a leisurely stride, and she stiffened as he stopped in front of her and touched the top of her head. He stroked his fingers through her hair and she shuddered, disgusted to feel any kind of intimate touch from such a monster.
Caesar mistook her disgust for terror. “Is that what he liked about you? Your sensitivity? Your small-animal trembling? Because honestly, rabbit, you’re so goddamn average, I’ve been having a hell of a time figuring it out.”
He squatted down in front of her. Ember glanced up at him, and they were eye to eye.
It was amazing to her that a creature so purely evil could be so beautiful. Except for a pair of black, glittering eyes that held no empathy or human kindness whatsoever, his face and body were as lovely as an angel’s.
A random memory: she and her father watching an old Jacques Cousteau episode about great white sharks, and Cousteau explaining in his French accent as the shark gleefully tore a seal to bloody shreds, “Zee most beautiful creatures are always zee most dangerous.”
How right he was.
Swallowing around the urge to spit in Caesar’s face, Ember whispered, “Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover. We’re both proof of that.”
This made him smile, which flashed a dimple in his tanned cheek. “Hmm. Maybe it’s your sense of humor he likes. Though I’ve always thought clever women are overrated.” He lifted his hand and trailed the tip of one finger over the blood crusted on her upper lip.
She held immobile because she realized when she appeared to be cooperating, she didn’t get hit. Also, she needed to stay conscious—and close—if she was going to kill him.
Still tracing her lips with his finger and staring at her with hooded eyes, Caesar murmured, “We’re going to have a lot of fun, you and I. I’m so going to enjoy breaking you in.” He leaned closer and inhaled against her neck while she clenched her teeth and tried not to vomit. “You do smell rather edible, I’ll give you that. And I already know how well you can scream.”
Ember stopped breathing as a big, hot hand spread open on her thigh. The single finger on her lips became five cupped firmly around her nape when he slid his other hand around her neck. His voice beside her ear grew husky. “How loudly do you think you’ll scream when I fuck you?”
Filled with revulsion, Ember tightened her fingers around the letter opener and decided to rip off this pig’s ear with her teeth and worry about the rest later.
