Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,84

a cruel snicker that made my blood turn to ice.

Every step he took pulled me further from safety—further from civilization and the eyes and ears of passersby. Panic rolled in my stomach like vomit as the condemning forest closed in around me.

“Dominic! Let me go!” I demanded as I flailed harder and then somehow managed to back-kick him in the balls.

A painful oomph blew out of him, causing him to slightly loosen his hold on me. But that was all I needed to break out of his grasp. I literally hit the ground running.

My feet pounded against the rocky terrain as I bolted over and through bushes and overgrowth that my eyes could barely process in the darkness. Branches and shrubs whipped out at my legs like a lashing, but I couldn’t even discern the pain from the terror that was rocketing through my body. My fight or flight reflexes had taken over, drizzling numbness into my limbs and making it impossible for me to feel anything but the thumping of my heart.

My feet continued to hammer against the uneven terrain as Dominic’s menacing laughter rang out around me, closer now, mocking me as it followed me deeper and deeper into the woods.

Because I had been disoriented.

Because I had gone the wrong fucking way.

Callous hands coiled around my body, plucking me off the ground and then launching me like a missile into the massive tree trunk of a towering Red Cedar. The air burst out of my lungs like an explosion as my back slammed against the tree and knocked the wind right out of me. Unable to take in a proper breath, I gasped in horror as Dominic calmly strolled over to me, his dark form bleeding into the pressing shadows around us. It was as though they ached to touch the darkness too, to reach out and wrap their shadowy claws around it, and he was the perfect specimen for just that.

I knew that better than anyone.

My own heart had once danced at the sight of him prowling toward me, reveled in absolute delight, but that felt like a lifetime ago now. In that moment, I felt nothing but unfathomable fear.

He crouched down in front of me and picked up a strand of my hair, his eyes thoughtfully fixed on it as he twirled it around his finger. He was cloaked in darkness save for the sliver of moonlight creeping in between the birch trees to illuminate the edges of his once angelic face. But there was nothing seraphic about his face anymore. Not in this light, and not with that baleful glint in his eye.

“What do you want from me, Dominic?” I rasped, my lungs finally regaining semi-normal function.

“I want only that which is mine,” he said to my hair, his fingers still twisting the lock pensively.

I had no idea what the hell he had meant by that, but it didn’t sound good in the least.

“Does the notion make you afraid, angel?” he asked, his eyes finally lifting to mine. Letting my hair fall, he pushed forward into my personal space and sniffed. “You smell very, very afraid.”

A muffled sob sounded at the back of my throat as I scooted myself further into the tree and pulled my knees up to my chest. “People are going to come looking for me, Dominic. They’re expecting me any minute now.”

He smiled kindly and for a moment he looked like the old Dominic—like my Dominic.

“You always were a terrible liar.” He drew closer, his forearms resting on the top of his knees. “It’s just me and you, love, and we have all the time in the world. Can you imagine all the things we could do?”

I swallowed against the knot in my throat.

“All the ways I can hurt you.” His eyes flared with hunger, and my vision blurred at the corners.

“I’ll scream,” I warned him, my eyes fixated on the elongated fangs peeking out from his cruel smile. Fangs that intended to cause me pain, not pleasure. Fangs that wanted to rip my flesh apart, piece by piece, not ravish me.

“Oh, you’ll scream, will you?” he asked and then threw his head back and howled like a feral wolf, the sound ricocheting all around me. He was proving a point—that nobody could hear us, and nobody was coming to save me. “Go right ahead. I’m counting on it.”

Seeing no other openings, I rammed my hands into his chest and knocked him backward. I didn’t bother sticking around for the fallout.