“Please don’t,” she whispered.
Matteo didn’t respond. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing or not. By rights, his respiration should have been as labored as hers. She wasn’t a large woman, but no normal man should have been able to hold her like this without showing signs of strain. But he didn’t. He just cocked his head at her, the movement eerily reminiscent of a praying mantis.
She was set down on her feet as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. His mouth was open, his tongue out to taste her. Isobel tried to break free, but his grip was like iron. She sobbed aloud as her feet sliding and dragging across the floor in an effort to get away.
Matteo made that odd growling sound again, and he dragged them a few paces to the right. He pulled at her hair until she lost her footing and fell backwards, his heavy body following her down. Isobel landed on the bed in the corner, pressed into the soft mattress by his weight. She screamed, a cry that was cut short when he forced his face to hers and plunged his tongue into her mouth.
Twisting her head aside with a wrenching motion, she struggled against him, pushing and shoving with her arms and legs. When he tried to kiss her again, she bit him. He withdrew his head once more, laughing at her with a strangely flat parody of Matteo’s voice.
His hands were everywhere. One stroked her hip while the other pulled up the hem of her nightgown to stroke the bare skin of her calf and thigh. She used all her strength against him, scratching and biting, but the struggle only helped him. Her attempts to kick him only made it easier for him to slip between her flailing legs. She gasped as his iron hard shaft pressed against her most intimate place.
Matteo’s shirt was open now, the skin of his chest abrading her breasts through the thin nightgown. To her shame, her body quickened underneath him. Confused and frightened she clawed at his face, but he easily subdued her before she could do any serious damage. He took hold of her arms and moved upwards, rubbing his whole body against her with another of those strange growling purrs.
She should have felt hot, smothered by his heat. Instead Isobel was chilled to the bone, all of her warmth leaching out as it came into contact with the icy exterior of his body.
When he let go of her to tear at the fastenings of his breeches, Isobel put her arms on his chest and pushed—but this time didn’t use her arms.
She used her mind.
Acting on instinct alone she reached out with her ability, terrified that the long dormant skill would fail her. But the power came, raw and unfiltered by a spell to give it form or purpose.
She didn’t have the words or knowledge to put Matteo to sleep or kill him. All she could do was push her energy in his direction in an effort to force him away from her.
Her hands ached as they made contact with Matteo’s chest. Above her, he convulsed, the blackness in his eyes flaring brightly for an instant. His hands reached out to clutch at her. They bit into her skin, and his mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. Horrified, Isobel desperately gathered her energy back to her body to try and strike at him again, but the blackness in his Matteo’s aura followed it, sticking to it like tar.
Panicked that the creature was now trying to invade her soul, she thrust the energy away again with a force she hadn’t known she was capable of.
For the first time in her life, the energy that she’d always associated with her ability left her body. The effort blinded her, burning out her vision with a wall of white. It was excruciatingly painful, like being stung by a bee everywhere.
Eventually the moment passed and her awareness returned in fits and starts. She was weak and out of breath, but otherwise unharmed.
Vision blurred, Isobel gingerly sat up on the bed. Matteo was sprawled on the floor, knocked back by the force of the blast. Her chest was tight and painful as she tried to get a hold of herself. Still trembling, she dragged herself to the end of the bed farthest from the fallen body until she could stand. With unsteady feet, she stepped over Matteo’s legs, stopping short at the sight of the stain on the floor a few feet in front of her.
Isobel tried to step around it. But the strange black stain moved toward her like a creeping shadow. Indeed part of it seemed to be more of an oily shadow than a physical thing—and it was heading right for her, gaining speed as it went.