Torn(Demon Kissed Series)

CHAPTER THIRTY

I expect him to scream, but he just smiled at me. His fingers slid off my waist and he wiped his hand off on his dark jeans, before walking over to Shannon’s closet to lock her back inside. My heart was racing as he walked away. Staring at his back, I wondered what was wrong with me. Did I really like him? How could that happen? I loved Collin. Convinced that it must be something that Eric was doing to me, I didn’t worry about it too much. For some reason, Eric didn’t force me to take his blood.

Before we left the room, he gave the old man food and put a drop of his blood on the man’s cup. He picked up the glass and obediently licked it clean. I cringed inside. Watching someone else take what I wanted was unnerving. I looked over at Eric. “What are you doing with them? Are they part of your collection or something? I thought you were going to kill Shannon,” I asked. “Why did you lock her up?” I wrapped my arms around my middle to ward off the cold.

Eric’s gaze cut back to me unconcerned, “They wronged me. This is their punishment.”

I swallowed hard, knowing I’d been lumped in with them. “When you left me in Hell, you said you were going to kill whoever did this to you. Why are they still alive?”

Eric rounded on me outside the door. “You’d be dead now if I did what I’d originally planned.” He turned away from me, “Besides,” he smiled over his shoulder, “there’s more than one way to destroy a person.”

My throat constricted as I watched the evil smile fade off his face. I decided it was time to leave; time for me to leave and face whatever was coming next. Losing Al and Collin’s trust wasn’t something I wanted, but I thought I had to tell them. No matter what I felt about Eric, aligning myself with him would be insane. He was collecting people and feeding them blood. Shannon was happily living in a closet. I wondered who else he had trapped in this big old house. No, it was time to go, but I had to find out what I’d originally wanted to know.

I followed him back to the white room, where he closed the door behind me. His voice was strange, “I didn’t think you could resist me.” I turned to him and shrugged, not wanting to discuss it. I remembered how eager I was to please him when he had a drop of blood on his finger. It shamed me, and I felt my face grow hot thinking about how I was all too delighted to kiss him when he asked. Thinking back, that part seemed weird. I looked over at him wondering why he did that. He only asked me to kiss him. And that had nothing to do with the Lorren. My brows knitted together as I thought about it. “What’s that look on your face,” Eric asked.

I turned and looked up at him, asking, “Why’d you ask me to kiss you?” I asked it without feeling—the same way you’d ask for someone to save you a table or grab your mail.

Eric arched a brow and moved closer to me. He liked trying to use his body to intimidate me. He didn’t realize that I thought he looked nice and really didn’t mind. “What’s it matter?”

I shrugged, “Just thought it didn’t line up with the rest of your questions. And I would have told you that stuff anyway. There wasn’t any need to do whatever you did.”

Eric smiled crookedly, “You would have? Just as quickly and without question?” He laughed and turned away, “I don’t think so.”

Defiance rose up inside of me. If he acted normal—like Eric—I would have answered his questions. I grabbed his arm and turned him back toward me. We stood nose to nose. “Try me.” It wasn’t a choice.

“Kiss me, Taylor,” his lips turned up at the corners as his eyes bore into mine. “Kiss me like you need me. Like you want me. Open your lips for me, and think of me—think of the Eric you knew before I died.” His arms were folded across his chest. He leaned down while talking to me, so that all my senses were going nuts. Normally, I would have never done it… but this time I did.

Without a second’s hesitation, I reached out and took his face between my palms and pulled him to me. I swept my tongue over his lips once, and when they parted I kissed him deeply, knowing that he could take my soul any time he damn well pleased. Maybe it was insanity; maybe I had more issues than I thought. Either way, it was reckless. Collin and I never said anything about cheating, but he’d be pissed if he knew I willingly kissed Eric. I pushed back the thoughts as I focused on the thing Eric requested.

Little things shot into my mind, along with the big things—the fights, the tears I shed when I thought he killed Apryl, how I didn’t really blame him for her death even though that wasn’t what I told him. I thought about who he was and how I didn’t mind his hands on my body, or his lips on mine. Breathless, I pulled away from him determined to get the information I needed.

He licked his lips, and gasped, “Thank you.”

I nodded, not knowing what he was thanking me for. Jumping straight to my question, I asked, “How much of your old life do you remember, Eric?” He winced and turned from me, but I grabbed his arm and wouldn’t let him walk away. “I just did what you wanted, no questions asked. You need to return the favor.”

He smirked, “Fine,” he folded his arms looking down at me. “What do you want?”

Hope swelled in my chest. I reached into my pocket and unfolded a page. I had copied it from the book when no one was paying attention. Al and Collin thought it was a bad idea to take the book with me, so I didn’t. I only took one page and didn’t tell them about it. I pressed the page into his hands.

“Read it to me.”

Puzzled, he looked down at the crinkled paper, and smoothed it out. Walking over to a desk, he put it down and ran his finger over it. After a minute, he shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s coded or something.” He crumpled it and threw it back to me.

“No! You have to read it!” I yelled, smoothing the paper again and thrusting it at him. He wouldn’t take it back and just turned to look at me. There was no bond with Eric, nothing to tap into to see what he was feeling, but something had changed in the past few hours. He didn’t go back to being the evil monster again. He stayed trapped somewhere in the middle. “I know you read it.” I saw the flick of his eyes once he identified the pattern. I didn’t think he wouldn’t tell me… Especially if it didn’t matter.

“Maybe I did,” he said, shirking off the paper. “So what? You don’t need what’s on there. Go suck your boyfriend’s soul out and get your life back.”

What did he just say? Shock washed over me as my heart pounded in my chest. He knew what we were trying to do? He knew everything. But how? I stared at him in disbelief with my mouth hanging open. And, he could read that page, too. Too stunned to speak, I watched as Eric sat down in the chair and kicked his boots up onto the desk. He stretched, putting his hands behind his neck. The neck I almost severed…

Completely, frustrated, I made a face. “If you can read it, why won’t you tell me? I need to know what it says.”

Eric looked at me, his face expressionless. “It doesn’t tell you what you want to know. Bring me the rest of the book and I’ll find it for you.” With that he shot out of the chair and left me alone.