Grace Goodwin - The Virgins - Complete Boxed Set

“He did.” Maddox’s voice was deep and bitter. “This was another message. A much more deadly one and truer to his nature.”

“Why is this happening?” I took deep breaths of the fresh air, but the smell of spilled blood still tinged my nose. “Why did he do this? Was it because of me? I’m just a woman who works at a boarding house. I have no family, no beau, no prospects or even any money. I’m nothing.”

With an arm banded about my waist, Maddox scooped me up and spun us about so I was standing before him. With his fingers beneath my chin, I had to look at him.

“You’re not nothing,” he replied vehemently. “You’re my mate. You belong to me. You are not alone. What Neron did, how he slaughtered those two men—” he angled his chin toward the house, “—is exactly what he did to my sister. What he wants to do to you.”

My stomach lurched and I lost my balance, leaning heavily on Mr. Maddox’s steady arm. “Why? Why me? He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me.”

“He knows you’re mine, Cassie. He knows hurting you will hurt me.”

I jerked my head away from his hold. “Then leave! Go and take the danger with you. You made your problems, my problems. You had Mr. Anderson killed!”

He slowly shook his head. “Neron is a psychopath. He will kill anyone in his way. As for leaving, yes. We have to leave. But I told you I won’t go without you. I can’t.”

His jaw clenched and fine lines formed around his mouth and eyes as he lifted his head to look around us. He was comforting me, protecting me, and all the while that killer might be out there, watching us. But Maddox hadn’t left me behind. Even now he sheltered me from the wind with his body, risked his own life to stay beside me. “Is he still here? Watching us then?”

“No, Cassie.” The arm about my back gave me a reassuring squeeze. “No. He’s gone. He is evil, but not stupid. If he were still here, I would have killed him. He strikes and he runs like the coward he is.”

“Then if you leave, he’ll follow you. Everything will be fine,” I replied. Even I knew that nothing would be fine again. If Maddox walked away, I wouldn’t go inside and find Mr. Anderson trying to crack an egg. I’d find his lifeless body in a pool of blood.

“No, he won’t. Not now that he’s found you. You can’t stay here, Cassie. If I leave, he won’t follow me, he’ll follow you . He’ll kill you.”

I shook my head as my nausea was replaced with dread, a cold that turned my limbs to lead and made my mind go strangely blank. “You’re crazy. You’re both crazy.”

Hysteria unfurled in my gut like a dozen baby rattlesnakes had taken up residence in my stomach. My hands grew clammy and my vision blurred.

“You’re in shock, Cassie.”

“Shock? Yes, of course I’m shocked.”

His hands cupped the sides of my head and I looked into his pale eyes. It was all I could see as he spoke.

“No, your body is reacting to the trauma of witnessing the deaths inside. Breathe. Yes, that’s it. Again. Good, once more.”

When the black receded, when I felt calmed, he sighed and pulled me closer. I didn’t have the strength to resist, simply slumped forward and allowed him to press my ear over his beating heart. The steady, thumping rhythm soothed me over several long minutes. When I felt like I could stand on my own, like my body would, perhaps, actually listen to my commands, I pushed at him, ready to get moving. Ready to run.

I needed to get the town sheriff, but I didn’t know how to explain what had happened, who had done it. Someone would have to clean up the bodies—the mess inside. I couldn’t do it. Perhaps the sheriff, or some of the ladies from church?

Whatever was going to happen, I would need to keep my head about me. No more thoughts of kisses and mating. No talk of murder. No talking about implants and spaceships and other planets. Crazy talk wouldn’t get me anywhere. The sheriff wouldn’t believe any talk about men from… from somewhere else. Surely the boarding house belonged to me now, but what if Mr. Anderson had willed it to someone else? How would I survive? If I were left homeless and alone? I refused to entertain the idea of seeking work at Madame Maryanne’s in town.

I straightened my shoulders and weighed my options. So, I’d marry instead. I’d refused offers from two older gentlemen at church just last year. Both gentlemen remained unwed. Anything would be better than becoming one of Maryanne’s whores.

God. I must be in shock. My thoughts were so irrational and twisted.

“I… I have to get the sheriff,” I murmured, pushing away.

“You are coming with me.”

I looked up into Maddox’s eyes and refused to acknowledge the longing coursing through me. Maddox was dangerous and full of fanciful talk no sane woman could believe. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have to go into town and get the sheriff.”

He shifted and we stood, but he kept his arm about me. “Forget the damn sheriff, Cassie. You have to come with me. You don’t have a choice.”

“Yes, I do,” I countered, crossing my arms over my chest. “And I choose to go to town.”

He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Why? Why? I keep saying the same thing. If you leave, he’ll follow. That is the logical conclusion.”

Maddox shook my shoulders, gently, just enough to force me to lift my head and meet his gaze. “And I keep saying the same thing,” he replied. “Neron knows that you mean something to me. If he hasn’t figured out that we’re marked mates, he will soon enough.”

I tried to wiggle out of his hold on my shoulders. “I’m not your marked anything. Let me go.”

“I can’t. I don’t want to. You’re mine, and I’m yours. I’m the only person who can save you. The only person in the world, in the entire universe, who belongs to you.”

I dropped my arms to my sides, the conversation seemingly futile. “No one belongs to another person. And I don’t believe that you’re from… from somewhere else.”

Lifting his free hand, he held it before me, palm out. There, in the same place as my own, was a birthmark that looked just like mine.

“It is a birthmark, Cassie. You’re right. But it has a purpose, connecting us together. It’s a mark that proves you are mine. My mark,” he said.

A mark. All this time I’d thought it something else, something benign.

Gently, he took my wrist and lifted my left hand up, looked at my own palm. “Your mark. They are in the same place and they are pulsing with heat. Mine is. Is yours, Cassie?”

I looked between our two marks, looked at the pale design I’d studied since I was a girl, at the raised flesh that had been innocuous to me. I’d always wondered about the odd birthmark, the hypnotic swirls. I’d never considered the scar might be something else until five days ago when the dreams began. The dreams. And Maddox.

When I didn’t respond to his question, he put our palms together and linked his fingers with mine.

I gasped as heat flooded my body from that small point of contact. My breasts grew heavy and my core clenched, aching for his touch. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest and I could not tear my eyes from his lips, his skin. My hand clutched at his, desperate for more contact. My gaze lifted and I noticed the pounding of his pulse at the base of his neck, the strained muscles of his jaw as he clenched his teeth, fighting for control. When I finally looked up into his eyes, the darkened irises, the intense desire I saw there stole my breath.

He believed every word he said. Did I dare believe him? How could I not when proof of our connection blazed through my body like liquid lightning? “I don’t understand any of this,” I whispered.