His Stoic Mask, Her Bleeding Heart

Chapter 13: The Game

Elyria's spindly fingers hooked onto Matthias' jaw and pulled with a surprising amount of strength, nearly tugging him into the back seat before he managed to begin struggling against her. The car swerved, and my body slammed against the door, but Elyria wouldn't be deterred. She tightened her grip on his jaw with one hand, her other hand snaking around to grip the side of his neck, and he grunted as she doubled her pulling power. The seat belt cut into his throat; his eyes bulged; his hands clung to the steering wheel for dear life. But still, she wouldn't relent.

"Stop this," he rasped around the seat belt's constriction on his windpipe. "Stop this before I have to take Kyrianna from you and have Eli killed."

"If you're dead, you can't do a damn thing," she snarled, teeth bared like she was in the middle of a dog fight. Her eyes flickered red for a moment, and I tensed. This had been funny before, but what if she lost it again? What if she lost it and never came back?

"Elyria," I murmured warningly, but the car jerked again, and I slammed into the door, my head hitting the window with such force that I half thought I'd cracked the glass. Disoriented, I sat there, watching her tug and tug at the man's head.

"Are you going to kill me by ripping my head off?" he asked, laughter to his gravelly tone. His eyes were on the road, but they mocked her.

She stopped pulling suddenly and gripped his head from the other side, slamming his skull against the side window with one swift thrust. The car swerved for a third time, and a horn blared as it nearly ran headlong into a pick-up truck, just barely managing to jerk the other way at the last second.

"Don't test me," she hissed in his ear before ramming his head into the glass once again.

"Elyria," I warned again, finally regaining my senses. She didn't seem to hear me, and I reached for her, but Matthias suddenly slammed on the brakes. Elyria flew into the front seat headfirst, and another car horn rang out behind us.

"My men have strict orders to kill Kyrianna if I don't return," the vampire said casually, rubbing at his throat and studying it in the rear-view mirror as best he could, "so watch what you do."

Elyria pulled herself upright in the passenger's seat, breasts nearly popping out of her top after the fall, and in spite of her messed up hair and disheveled clothing, she looked dead sexy – of course, I had a thing for wild women who could end me, so my version of "dead sexy" was very rarely anyone else's. "I'll kill you when we get to the mansion, then," she said sharply, voice murderously cool. "And I'll finish the rest of your men while I'm at it."

The car began to accelerate, and Matthias laughed rather heartily for someone who had just been so thoroughly threatened. "My, my. What a fiery little woman you are. I might just have to keep you for myself like Terrence did if you keep that up."

A small white fist flew out before he'd even finished the sentence, but I was quick to catch her wrist. She turned her amethyst glare to me, and I only shook my head. Pulling her wrist from my grasp, she turned from me, sliding across the seat to nestle herself in the corner, as far from Matthias as she could possibly get. She glared out the window, Matthias smirked, and I just sighed.

This night wasn't going to end well.

-?-

The sight of Terrence's mansion – Matthias' mansion, now – brought a grimace to my lips that I couldn't conceal. I'd spent so many of my days there, working blindly as a slave of the man who later tried to kill his biggest asset and my biggest obsession, and seeing it again after so long was like a knife in the chest. It had been different when I'd come to save Elyria, different when everything was still bustling with James' chaos, but now that I was likely going to be spending a great deal of quiet time in the building, I felt sick. Was his office where Terrence's had been? Was his bedroom Terrence's? Was I going to be standing in the room where I'd killed my long-time friend and where Elyria had lost that first piece of her sanity – Gabriel – unable to escape?