Love and Decay, Kane's Law (10 page)

I walked her inside and motioned for her to
sit down on the bed. I hated this next part, especially because we
seemed to have just made progress; but I wasn’t foolish enough to
think this was unnecessary. I pulled the handcuffs from my back
pocket and she flinched and then tensed to rigid uncertainty. My
inflated chest collapsed immediately. I had just been the hero, but
now I was back to being the villain.

Still, it couldn’t be helped.

She would learn.

This wouldn’t be necessary one day soon.

With huge eyes she asked, “Can I at least
keep my hands in front of me? If they’re behind my back you’ll have
to cut them off by morning.”

I shook my head but only because I didn’t
want her to catch me laughing at her sense of humor. I gestured
toward the head of the bed and she slowly moved into position.

“You won’t try anything?” she asked a little
desperately.

“Not a thing,” I swore- and I meant it. “Not
tonight.”

“Swear it to me. Swear to me that if I put my
hands above my head you won’t touch.” Her eyes were flooded with
uncertain tears and her hands shook as she held them in front of
her, reluctant to submit.

She had to learn to trust me. And at least in
this, I wouldn’t disappoint her.

I had no interest touching her until she
absolutely wanted me to.

“Reagan, I swear to you that I won’t touch
you tonight unless you give me permission.”

She rolled her eyes but raised her hands
anyway. I drew close to her and enjoyed the heat that radiated from
her body, the pliancy of her body beneath mine, the way I could
just drop another half an inch and press the length of my body
against hers. But I stayed true to my word and didn’t touch her
except for her wrists.

“Would you like a blanket?” I asked while she
wiggled around trying to get comfortable. I decided I would offer
to massage her wrists in the morning. They would be sore, and I
honestly hated the idea of her suffering.

“No, thank you,” she answered simply.

“What about your shoes?” I asked. “I could
take them off for you.”

She flinched again and those same alarm bells
sounded out inside my head. She shook her head, trying to play it
off. “Uh, no, thanks.” I raised my eyebrows at her and waited for
her explanation. “It’s just that I’ve slept with my shoes on for
two straight years. I know you say this town is safe, but I need to
see it for myself. I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t have them
on. At least not yet.”

That could be true.

But she could easily be trying to pacify me
so I didn’t see a deeper meaning.

And then she sucked in the corner of her
bottom lip and I had my answer.

I decided to let her think I believed her
words at face value. If she relaxed some but was also planning
something, maybe she would give herself away.

I walked over to the door, but needed to
reassure her that she was doing the right thing by staying here.
“Reagan, I know this isn’t ideal for you, but you are for me. I
mean, you are ideal for me. I think you should give this, us, a
chance. Your friends would have a chance, too, then.” I didn’t wait
around to hear her argue with me or shoot down the idea completely.
I turned off the lights and left her alone to think about what I
said.

I locked her door from the outside and all
but whistled a happy tune on the way to my own bedroom.

This felt right. This felt good.

I couldn’t fall asleep though. As calm as I
felt and as positive as I was that this, Reagan, was my future… I
couldn’t silence my frantic thoughts. All I could focus on was
losing her. My mind fixated on the pinpoint possibility of her
escaping and I obsessed over every minute detail of my house and
how I had left her.

When her bed creaked loud enough for me to
hear the sound all the way down the hall, I didn’t even feel
surprised. She would fight this- I knew she would. That was who she
was and one of the reasons I felt so attracted to her.

Still disappointment and frustration washed
over me like a bucket of ice water. When the creaking didn’t stop
and the clear sounds of a window opening and the steel bars being
shaken permeated the sleepy night, I couldn’t lie still any longer.
My skin prickled with the effort not to lash out at something- hit
something, destroy something. My glasses were still on- I hadn’t
even bothered to take them off.

I knew this moment was coming.

So why did I feel this so acutely?

But it was like everything with her. I felt
more. I thought more. I wanted more.

I jumped out of bed and sprinted down the
hallway. I fumbled with the lock a little bit, but eventually got
the damned thing off. Drawing my gun, to intimidate the hell out of
her, I burst into the room ready to tackle her to the ground, but
she was nowhere. I panicked at the sight of the empty space. My
vision tunneled to the open window and all I could see were those
goddamn bars and how they had been useless when I really needed
them. Forget the Zombie threat. I didn’t need to keep something
out; I needed to keep the most important thing in.

“No,” I heard myself utter that desperate
sound and I flew to the window to see if I could talk reason into
her. A string of vile curses left my mouth and I swore to myself I
wouldn’t strangle her once I tracked her down. But she wasn’t down
there, she wasn’t anywhere. I lowered my gun and reached for the
bar, promising myself it had been strong enough to keep her in
here.

Confusion replaced my blind anger and I
didn’t understand how she’d squeezed through the bars. It was
impossible and they were still firmly in place.

That meant she was still in the house, still
with me.

Joy and relief replaced everything else and
just as I was getting ready to stand and tear apart the room until
I found her, the tip of a very large knife jabbed itself into bare
skin, hovering right over my kidneys, and I couldn’t move without
cutting open the flesh.

“Don’t move,” she hissed at me.
Smart
bitch.
“Unless, of course, you want me to take some of your
vital organs with me on my way to Mexico?”

That debilitating rage was back and this time
I wasn’t sure I could talk myself out of punishing her. She needed
to learn a lesson.

“Put the safety on your gun,” she ordered. I
was too angry to move, too furious to respond verbally. The tip of
her knife cut through my flesh and I felt the strong bite of
burning pain and then the hot, sticky gush of blood down my hip. I
finally listened. She wasn’t joking. “Throw it back on the bed,”
she demanded.

I’d be lying if I didn’t find even this side
of her sexy as hell.

Damn, this girl had me so twisted in
knots.

“You won’t even make it out of town,” I told
her when I’d finally found the ability to speak again. “And if you
try, by the time you make it back to me I will be beyond pissed.
For your own sake, knock this off. Give up, Reagan. Be smart.”

Please be smart.

Please don’t leave me.

She laughed cruelly at me and I had never
hated anyone more than I hated her in that moment. “Kane,” she
cackled. “If I don’t make it out of this town, I hope for my own
sake you are pissed off and put me out of my misery.”

Somehow I found the strength to hide the
heights of my fury and taunted her instead. “Now, now, Reagan,
don’t say things you don’t mean.”

Her knife imbedded deeper into my skin and I
stifled a pained wince. The blade felt like the surface of the sun
so deep in my side. I wanted to rip it out and then inflict the
same kind of pain on her, make her writhe, make her scream. And
then I wanted to kiss her, bruise her lips until she cried out my
name, use her body until she forgot her own.

I tossed the gun onto the bed behind me and
swallowed back my agony- both physical and emotional.

She clicked the handcuffs onto my wrists
without any opposition from me- but truthfully, I could barely move
through the pain in my side. My arms felt dead against my weakened
body and my vision was starting to blur along the edges. I was
handcuffed to the window before I could even think through her
actions.

She jumped back from me, taking her searing
knife and I felt my vision go black before I forced my eyes open
and my attention on her.

I glared over my shoulder at her while she
teased me. I drank her in one more time until I’d memorized every
feature on her lovely face and curve of her sensual body; I
murdered her slowly with my eyes- cut to her pieces, put her back
together. I couldn’t decide what to do about her, my body and my
mind were at war with their reactions.

“Thanks for the gun,” she teased.

I sucked in a stuttering breath and warned
her, “Reagan, I will find you. I will hunt you down until you’re
mine again.”

She rolled her eyes and snorted a
disbelieving laugh. “Do not hold your breath for that one.”

“Good advice,” I agreed. “Now let me give you
some. Don’t ever stay too long in any town because I will find you.
Don’t tell anyone your real name from here on out, or I will find
you. And…” I paused to steady my breathing, to gain control of my
wavering voice. “Don’t ever, ever think you will be safe from me-
because there is no place in this world I would not go for
you.”

“Now that’s just crazy,” she laughed at me.
“You just sit tight and I’m sure some other, unsuspecting girl will
pop up and you can hold her prisoner for the rest of her life.”

I lost my mind then- I finally succumbed to
the insanity that had been threatening me for two years now. “I
don’t think you’re getting it…”

But she cut me off and I swear my vision
drowned in blackness, right along with my wicked soul.

With her hand in the air she said, “I don’t
really want to get it. I just want to go.” And then she disappeared
through the door, locking me in with a final click.

The moment she was gone, I came unhinged. I
fought against the steel bars as if for my life. Inhuman growls
poured from my mouth, saliva dripped from my chin and my entire
body was coated with sticky sweat. Blood gushed from the wound in
my side and the pain of that injury permeated every blood cell
until it was what fueled my rage.

I thought I caught a glimpse of her running
the street in front of my house, but it was hard to tell. And now
my vision had begun to blur and my head felt too light- like I was
floating away. A ringing in my ear seemed to come from everywhere
at once.

Damn it, the blood loss.

How long until someone found me? Until I
could be released to go hunt her.

Sirens sounded somewhere, only I couldn’t
tell if they were in my head or in the world outside of my crazed
mind. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes, but with so
much blood gone, it was harder than ever.

The sounds of Feeders slavering and drooling
could be heard somewhere, but where? In my dreams? Were they
haunting me now?

Confusion overwhelmed me, warring with my
wrath and panic.

But the worst of all was the darkness, the
consuming shadow that pulled me under before I was ready.

I knew I would fall to it, any second
now.

And so I made a vow- a vow to find that woman
and remind her who she belongs to. She shouldn’t have left me.

But I would make her pay.

And then I would make sure she never left me
again.

She was mine. She belonged to me.

I would find her and remind her. And she
would never leave me again. I would make sure of it.

I would never stop searching for her, never
stop looking.

And why would I? Not when she could breathe
life back into my existence with just her presence.

Not when she could so wholly redeem me.

Thank you for being a part of Season One and
Reagan’s journey! This is an extra for your enjoyment!

Look for Season Two, Episode One of Love and
Decay coming Friday, February 14th, 2014

About the Author

Rachel Higginson was born and raised in
Nebraska, but spent her college years traveling the world. She
married her high school sweetheart and spends her days raising
their growing family. She is obsessed with bad reality TV and any
and all Young Adult Fiction.

Look for more from Rachel in 2013.

Love and Decay is taking a two month break
and will begin again in February, 2014.

Other books by Rachel to be released in 2013
are The Relentless Warrior, the sixth book in The Star-Crossed
Series and The Fall, the second book in the Siren Series.

Other Books Out Now by Rachel Higginson:

Love and Decay, Episode One

Love and Decay, Episode Two

Love and Decay, Episode Three

Love and Decay, Episode Four

Love and Decay, Episode Five

Love and Decay, Episode Six

Love and Decay, Episode Seven

Love and Decay, Episode Eight

Love and Decay, Episode Nine

Love and Decay, Episode Ten

Love and Decay, Episode Eleven

Love and Decay, Episode Twelve

Love and Decay, Boy Meets Girl- Hendrix’s POV
of Episode One

Reckless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book
1)

Hopeless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book
2)

Fearless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book
3)

Endless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book
4)

The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series,
Book 5)

Starbright (The Starbright Series, Book
1)

Sunburst (The Starbright Series, Book2)

The Rush (The Siren Series, Book 1)

Bet in the Dark (An NA Contemporary
Romance)

Striking (A Co-Authored Stand-Alone
Contemporary NA)