Page 52 of The Redd Key (Bone Coven #1)
W hen we finally separated, my movements were lazy from being fully satiated. Soreness was already settling into every single place of my body. Cole rose from the bed, and moved within my home as if he lived here for years. He drew a bath so warm that the steam billowed into the living room. His pants hung low on his waist, undone revealing the delicious V from his hips to even lower. I sat up on my elbows and just watched him move. His skin was tanned from the long days on the docks. Cole’s entire body was etched with tight muscles from the constant physical labor he performed everyday. But the most extraordinary part of him, and not because I just experienced what they could do, were his hands. They were large, strong, and beautiful. His fingers were artistic like a pianist, but rough with the throes of hard work. He was perfect, and my heart tumbled at the sight of him.
Heat eased my muscles as I let the water wash over me. We didn’t speak as he massaged my neck, shoulders, and back, working out all of the stress and tension that I had carried for years. Internally I struggled with the two storms inside of me. The one was furious, raging beneath the surface, screaming for control. The other, relinquishing its power and succumbing to the desecration. There I was, yet again, repeating my behavior of clinging to anyone who gave me a sliver of attention. For all things holy, this man kidnapped me. Though, it was for my own good. To stop me from becoming the shadow of the past…but did that make any of this right?
Water caressed my skin as the roughness of Cole’s hands brushed against me while he continued to knead my knotted muscles. As he moved, I instinctively leaned into his touch.
“Why do you feel so…familiar?” I struggled to put it into words. Ever since I had seen Cole with Jeff on the docks all those months ago, looking at him felt like home. That’s why the storm of emotions brewed in me whenever I saw him. The reality of Cole was so conflicting when mirrored with the Cole I dreamt of in the Cove, with the man who I laid with in the Cove. And the dream is why I never felt like I was in true danger when he held me captive, as stupid as that sounded. Being with Cole held a beautiful sense of vulnerability that didn’t give me the typical discomfort as it had with others in the past. Instead, the vulnerability seemed to carve out depths inside of me to make room for him. Emotions I buried deep cracked and dissipated, replaced by him. All of him. “You must think I’m crazy,” I said when he didn’t speak, and then waited, too afraid to turn and see his face.
“You are not crazy.” His voice was low and gravely. “And you are not wrong. I did know you the moment I saw you. At the harbor. Just as if we had met many lifetimes ago.” Now, that was crazy, well, it should have been. Instead, I leaned back into his touch, grateful that he felt the same way. “It is quite terrifying.” He said the words without a hint of fear. He continued to knead my shoulders. “And quite thrilling.” He nibbled my ear, and I melted once more. “However,” he pulled back, “it is most of all, dangerous.” Cole stood and held out my bathrobe. I raised an eyebrow.
“Dangerous? You plan on hurting me?”
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so much worse in the cavern.” He cocked his head to the side, and the light in his eye flashed. A sense of unease settled into my stomach, as some of my common sense broke free from the spell.
“That is something I will never understand...Here we are, and we just…” I gestured to the bed as I tied the robe at my waist. “And a couple days ago you took me, held me against my will. For days— ” He cut me off.
“You were not held against your will,” he corrected as he walked to the kitchen. “You chose to stay.” I was instantly infuriated. Semantics.
“So I was supposed to just assume that being knocked out, dragged from my home, waking up in a cell out of Pirates of the Caribbean, meant that I wasn’t locked inside and could just walk out anytime I wanted?” He shrugged with a coy smirk on his face that I wanted to smack right off. The dreamy haze of our fairytale dissipated like a morning fog. I was angry.
“And that is exactly what you did.” Cole pulled his shirt over his head, and a pang of disappointment hit me as it hid his perfect body. My inability to keep it together infuriated me even more. He sat down on the foot of my bed, pulling me onto his lap so casually that it made my head spin. I had half a mind to fight him but being wrapped in his scent had me reeling. His arm draped over my thighs, and his hand teased my hip. “I had to contain you,” he said bluntly, and his words did nothing to ease my irritation. “The locket’s hold on you—it was getting worse.” He fingered the pendant at my throat. “There were things happening that were consuming you, and it was becoming more hungry as every day passed.” He locked his steel eyes on mine, and warmth blossomed through me. His dark hair was pulled back into a small bun and loose strands teased his collar. Stubble shadowed his straight jaw. “It is safe now. Please, do not ever take this off.”
“I’m not sure why you feel like you can tell me what to do,” I said as a sudden surge of clarity broke through the dream state I melted back into, and I lifted the locket over my head in defiance. Something that looked like anger flashed in his eyes, but it was gone in a moment. But the damage had been done. “You need to go now, and I need to call my therapist,” I quipped, and I quickly stood, removing myself from his body as shame poured over me.
All of the currents battling inside of me were going to give me whiplash. I knew what I felt, but I also knew how Cole had treated me every day that led to this point. Yes, he was the literal man of my dreams, but he all but ignored my existence, for months. All while fucking Tamara. The sensation felt like I was suddenly drowning. How could I be so desperate for affection that I slept with the man who kidnapped me? God, I was so pathetic.
Tears stung my eyes as reality crashed in. “You need to leave me alone. I’m not interested in whatever this game of grandeur you’re playing. I have been through enough fucked up shit and been used by enough fucked up men to just believe the words you are telling me, regardless how poetic they are. I don’t care about how you’ve been hurt in the past, it doesn’t mean I’m your next victim. You don’t get to make me fall fast and hard just so you can actually feel some semblance of love for a few weeks.” Tears warmed my cheeks as they escaped my eyes against my will, as all of my control broke. I moved to my apartment door and flung it open, never tearing away from Cole’s hard gaze. He stood, his face expressionless. “Don’t you see how fucked up all of this is?” I said as my voice pitched higher with emotion. “I am not who you’ve been waiting for, and you certainly are not my next regret in a long line of bad decisions. This,” I gestured between us, “will not happen again. You will go. Do not speak to me again.” I opened the door wider, glaring at him. The strength of my conviction struggled to hold as the feeling in my chest protested against my words.
His eyes widened and the look on his face made me suddenly feel like prey about to take its last breath. In two strides he was in front of me and his arm shot out at me so fast that I flinched. In that moment I panicked realizing I shouldn’t have pissed off a man more that twice my size, one morally capable of kidnapping a woman and holding her captive in a literal cave for days. My heart kickstarted when he didn’t hit me like I thought he was going to, but instead he ripped something off of the open door behind me. “Fuck,” he growled.
“What is that?” I took the thin square from his hand. It was paper, or fabric, like canvas or parchment, about the size of my palm. In violet ink so dark it was almost black, was a symbol I had never seen before. The lines of ink were thin, creating the two of the three sides of a triangle, with one side open. A smaller replica of the lines were nested inside of the other. Three dots were aligned in the negative spaces of the angles.
Cole was staring at the symbol in my hand, his face full of brutality.
“Keep that locket safe,” he barked at me before slamming the door behind him.
Standing there alone with the symbol in hand, I felt a rush of waves, lightning, and wind, all at once just washing over me. Overwhelmed by the feeling, I stumbled, gripping the paper even tighter. The ink moved and slithered like tiny tendrils, sliding off the parchment and toward my fingers. The violet liquid spread itself, dancing its way across the skin of my hand, wrist, and forearm as I watched in horror. Aecor in me flared out and the blank paper scorched itself into ash in my palm. The violet ink stilled and with terror in my heart I watched the deep purple lines cut through my skin like a tattoo, fanning out in splintered veins of lightning piercing through the swirls of clouds. I had been marked.
Panic seared my throat as I scrubbed the skin of my left forearm raw. The purple ink did not smear, and its permanency became clear. My heart was beating so hard it could have exploded from my chest. I called Sarah, but the phone went straight to voicemail, and then I tried Bridget. Then I tried again, and again, until I lost count of how many calls were made. The sun was now setting, and the lightning veins looked even more ominous in the crimson glow.
Exhaustion fought against the blossoming fear that was quickly spreading through me. Before leaving my apartment, I grabbed the locket, hesitating to put it on, letting it dangle between my fingers. The way Cole demanded me to wear it made my blood boil, but the mix of the anger and apprehension that embodied me at the moment was a dangerous combination. It swirled inside of me like the storm he loved to refer to me as. Instead, I placed the locket in the weathered trunk I found in the cove. It settled next to the strange array of stones that nestled in the hollow of the trunk. I locked the chest with the key, rusted red from so many years beneath the waves. Sliding the trunk into the shadows beneath my bed, Ferran darted away with a hiss. Then, I hid the key inside of the floor vent next to the door.
Wind whipped my face and I hurried down the stairs into my car, and Ferran followed closely, but he ran off into the evergreens. If Sarah or Bridget weren’t going to answer, I was going to show up. The Wicker Basket was dark as I pulled up, the sign in the window flipped to say “Closed”. Even the warm light in the backroom that Anabel usually kept lit was snuffed out. I drove across town to Sarah’s cottage, but no one was there. Pilot lurked in the shadows under the porch, but after sniffing the air between us, he disappeared farther into the darkness. I looked at my arm and felt so…dirty.
Not wasting any time, I drove to the wild side of the island and passed by the library. I momentarily thought of poor Lydia before pushing those horrid feelings down even farther. I did not need to be reminded right now of the almost-murder I committed.
Darkness covered Bridget’s aged home. A single burning lamp cast an orange glow on the front porch. My fists rapped on the door, instantly aching my knuckles. Urgency rang through each beat against the hardwood. It opened slowly and Bridget and Sarah stood in the foyer.
“You too?” Bridget asked quietly when she saw my arm. My ears rang. Both women before me had the gruesome violet ink tattooed on their arms as well. Each of our designs were slightly varied, with the intricate lines jarring off into different directions. Sarah was visibly shaking. I stepped inside and shut the door.
“Do you know what this is?” I couldn’t even look at the markings. Without speaking, Bridget led us into her dining room, where on her large farmhouse table, old looking tomes laid open, charts strewn about, and candles burned. Somewhere, incense smoke billowed, making the air smell like cinnamon and sage. On the vinyl floor, rock salt was placed in an enormous circle that encased the entire dining room. Protection.
“Sarah’s was on the shop’s door as she was closing, and mine,” she closed her eyes a moment before speaking again, “was my closet door. They were in my house.” The violation she felt resonated with me, and I hugged her.
“We will find them, whoever they are,” and I felt the storm inside of me rage.