Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel by Mari Carr (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

Damn it.

She should get the conversation back on track, keep him talking about her work, about anything that would play into his fantasy. And yet…

She needed to know what he’d done to Jakob.

Annalise swallowed hard and accepted that she might be about to fuck everything up. That in the next few minutes, she might be suffering the consequences of breaking his delusion. Annalise glanced up, smiling softly. He released her wrist but then placed his hand atop hers, lacing their fingers together. She felt physically ill at the intimacy.

“Oh,” she said, as casually as she was able. “I keep forgetting to ask, is that a new poison you have?”

He glanced sharply at her, and Annalise nearly whimpered in fear. She tried to hold on to rage, to her anger, while maintaining a calm, slightly curious expression. In his delusion where they were in a relationship, she should know things about him. Things like his interest in poison, or his profession if that’s where he’d gotten whatever poison he’d managed to slip to Jakob.

After a moment, his brow cleared. “Venom, not poison.”

“Oh, of course. Wrong word.”

“Bullet ant venom.” He said the words with relish. “It’s the most painful insect sting. They call it a bullet ant because it feels like being shot. Days of agony.”

Days.

Jakob wasn’t coming.

“Oh dear,” she murmured, her tone noncommittal as she desperately tried to hide her panic.

She must have failed, because his face darkened. “I’m protecting you. From him.”

Annalise nodded, but this time it didn’t seem to appease him. Her stalker squeezed her hand so hard she once more felt her bones creak. Though she tried to keep her composure, a small sound of pain escaped as he continued to crush her hand.

“It was going to be fine, until him. That’s why I had to get you away from him. I knew when you came to Krakow that you wanted me to rescue you, and I had to act fast. That it was our chance to be together.”

“So you pulled the fire alarm,” she gasped. “Very clever.”

“Clever? Are you making fun of me?” He jerked her toward him.

Annalise tipped sideways on the bench, catching herself with the chain-wrapped hand. “No, of course not.”

He looked down at the chain and smirked.

Damn it, damn it.

The chain would serve as a visual signal that he could have other, more direct power over her.

He released her, then stood, coming around to her other side. This time when he grabbed her, Annalise clung to the table. It wasn’t fear, but rage that clamped her fingers around the wood. Rage that wanted to lash out. To fight him, hurt him. Punish him for what he’d done to her, to her sister, to Jakob.

Rage that wouldn’t be enough. Unless she could incapacitate him. Lashing out would only serve to escalate the situation and put herself in danger.

And Jakob wasn’t coming. Walt would tell someone, someone would be looking for her, but Walt wasn’t a member of the Masters’ Admiralty. He’d go to the police. It would take time.

Which meant rescue was hours, maybe days away.

If this were a movie she would have grabbed something, managed to knock him unconscious, and then get away. But this was reality, in which she had considerably less physical mass than him, was hobbled by the chain, and there were no conveniently heavy objects besides the nearly empty wine bottle, which may have been enough to knock him out if she managed to hit him in just the right spot, and with enough force.

Too many mights and maybes, especially when she knew that any aggression on her part would only escalate his own behavior.

And so, when he grabbed her by the hair and yanked, she let go of the table, scrambling off the bench in a desperate effort to alleviate some of the pressure on her scalp.

When he pushed her up against the wall, his hips against hers, his hand tight on her jaw, forcing her face up, Annalise closed her eyes.

And when he kissed her, she stayed passive, holding her need to thrash and bite in check, even when he forced her mouth open. Even when his hand trailed down from her jaw as tears slipped from under her lashes.

Jakob looked from the tracks back at Vadisk, who’d jumped out of the car and come running up beside him.

Vadisk looked at Jakob, and together they turned and raced back to the car. Walt had just managed to get the back passenger door open and his shoulder and head were hanging out the open door, his hands scrabbling on the seat to try to gain purchase to pull himself upright, or maybe out.

Jakob stopped, grabbed Walt’s shoulders, heaved him up, then shoved him back into the car, slamming the door. He raced around, jumping in his still-open door even as Vadisk put the car in drive.

“What’s going on?” Walt demanded.

“Tire tracks.” Vadisk said.

“Fresh tire tracks,” Jakob added.

“You think it’s Annalise?”

Jakob wished he had a more tangible reason than some tire tracks for the instincts screaming inside his head. For his absolute, unshakable belief that Annalise was down that nearly hidden tract through the forest. He didn’t. Just a feeling that she was close. Very close. And he would give up his own life if it meant saving hers.

“Yes, she’s there,” Jakob said.

Vadisk steered them off the road and into the dark, cold woods.

Annalise huddled in on herself when her stalker stepped away. Something, somewhere, in the caravan was beeping, but all she cared about was the reprieve. With the chain at its limit, she couldn’t cross her arms, but did her best to cover and protect herself.

He’d cut her shirt off, but left on the bra.

The part of her brain that was detached from reality, that wasn’t trembling in revulsion at the way he’d “kissed” her and mauled her breasts, was able to look at it clinically. She doubted he had sexual experience, meaning his frames of reference were porn, where the