Anne Brontë Nightwalker

Chapter 47

Numbly, I shake my head, refusing to believe. The bones in my wrist grate from his grip on my arm, stealing my breath. "There are no Night Walker children, ever."

"How do you know? You still have eggs and I ejaculate."

In horror, I try to wrench myself away. "No!" I gasp. "We can't mate. We can't live together. You're a monster." My eyes are filling with tears. "I won't be your slave."

"It's not a slave I desire, Anne. It's a lover. A wife."

With a moan, I push him away but my hands only draw him in. Doubt entwines my brain, and suddenly I feel as if Branwell is here, seducing me with his tangled web of words.

"You're so cold, Anne. So pale." Webb carefully takes my broken wrist in his hand and the warmth of him seeps through my skin into my shattered bones. "You are snow white. You are dying, my pet. Let me save you. Let me give you life. Warmth. I can heal you. I can fill you with light."

I am running on the moors beneath a clear vast sky. The sun shines warm upon my face. A barking Keeper tears through the green-gold heath rippling around us. Small violet bluebells quiver in the breeze like gems dropped from heaven. Emily is there and her eyes glow like the sea when the light shines upon it, a deep, incandescent blue. Strands of copper glint her hair, her cheeks flush rose pink from the wind, and I know if the right man were to see her like this, he could not help but fall in love.

Heaven lives in the light. Darkness belongs to hell.

I'm so tired and cold and lonely. What if I could improve Webb, tame him? Together we could save people, travel the world, find the most vulnerable and injured.

For the first time, I allow myself to truly look at him. Webb's brutal strength pulls at me, filling me with shame at my weakness. Everything about him screams power: the thick bones of his wrists, the deftness of his fingers, the talent as a doctor thrumming through his hands. He has saved the unsalvageable, I've seen it.

Temptation whispers of surrender like a soft breath against my throat. How easy to turn one's life over to another. Let someone else take control and surrender to the heat of their strength.

But that is the way of a child and I am a woman.

There's no going back.

"I'd rather be free than safe," I whisper, grasping for conviction.

He touches my mouth with his thumb. "You are not free now, my dove. You're a prisoner to the darkness, held captive by your own fragility. Women crave security, not freedom. You were not made to go your own way, but to hold the world together. That's your strength."

His touch is gentle, the skin of his hands, smooth. It's what I've always wanted—a home of my own with a husband—a doctor!—and children, a little terrier by my feet and Ivanhoe curled up on a chair before the hearth. What good is liberty without love? I would sacrifice freedom for a life like that in a single heartbeat. So many women would.

Not Emily.

Her blue eyes flash through me like starlight. She would laugh in Webb's face, throat-punch him and run like a leopard into the night. She would never trade freedom for dependency. Submission would never even occur to her.

With a trembling hand, I yank my wrist free. "I don't want you," I hiss. "You repulse me. If you were the last being on earth, I wouldn't come near you. Fuck off."

His hand flies out and stars scatter behind my eyes.

"What happened to not wanting to hurt me?" I spit blood in his face.

He spins me and throws me over the fallen log. My shirt rides up and rough knobs of wood jab into my belly. He is on me like a rabid dog, teeth sinking into my throat, sucking, pulling, while his hands grasp for my belt and release it, reaching for buttons and ripping them open, yanking at my pants as the icy air slices my back like a whip.

His hands throb with fury.

I twist against his grip like a feral cat, clawing at his fingers upon my flesh, fighting to hinder the consummation of his desire as all my strength ebbs.

I'm fading, drowning in bitter cold. His teeth lock me in place while the world dims and darkens, growing colder and colder. Silence swells. Sensation fades while my heart beats frantically against the force of his will like a trapped bird.

So this is how they feel. All my victims. My first frightened girl, the soldiers, the deer and the rabbit. Frozen beneath the force of another's hunger, aware of impending obliteration, but helpless to fight it. Wanting to live.

I'm dying and now it seems too soon.

I'm not ready.