[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He blinked.There were four gashes now.They no longer resembled incisions, but the long scratches he’d dragged down the length of Jasper’s back during their lovemaking.Frantic to help him, Ben bent over to lick his lover’s wounds, but Jasper only winced and moaned in pain as he touched them with his tongue.They wouldn’t heal.There was something inside him, some taste that marred the familiar warm copper bite of his blood.Something cold and unwelcoming.Silver.He could see the shiny metal object glistening inside of Jasper, peeking out from between the bloody slits in his skin.Hypnotized, Ben touched a finger to it.It was stuck fast inside of him, buried under his skin.94Ellen GinsbergJasper winced as Ben’s finger traced the inside of his wound.“Don’t touch it,” he gasped.“Don’t—”“I have to,” Ben said, his voice quivering.He didn’t want to hurt him, but he had to get it out.“Please.Jasper, you’ll never heal if I don’t—”“You’re the one who opened me up,” Jasper snapped.His voice thickened into a low growl.“You picked me apart with all your questions.All your questions and all your need.I was fine before I met you.I could keep it from hurting.”His voice broke as Ben dug into him, getting a hold on the curved silver surface.Jasper howled in pain, and Ben knew he must be hurting him, but he couldn’t make himself stop.The halogen glow of the overhead light was blinding as Ben pulled at the piece of silver to get it out, and with each practiced tug, those flickering, buzzing lights seemed to burn brighter, painfully bright, bathing the room in a horrible whiteness that left no room for shadows or secrets.“Stop!” Jasper shouted as the object slid through his muscle.“I can’t,” Ben ground back at him, pulling the glinting metal object free.He held it up to him in wonder.Blood glistened against the metallic shine, but its shape was unmistakable.It was a silver hook.Ben panted with exertion, staring down at Jasper on the table.Now that the silver hook was out, his wound had healed.The unforgiving glow of the overhead lights bore down on them, revealing the clutter inside the room for what it was.The labels on the file cabinets were unmistakable now, each headed with a name and underneath each header, a subtitle.JASPER: Ways I abused my body with sex.BEN: My secret sympathies for Pierson.JASPER: People I betrayed while drunk.BEN: The way I felt when you killed him.JASPER: Why I haven’t shifted since it happened.The files full of folders and papers weren’t Pierson’s records, but their secrets, the secrets they had tried to keep from each other.The things they had Ben in the Shadows95tried so desperately to hide.Ben stared at the sheer volume of them.“This is the room where we have to tell the truth.”“Turn off the light,” Jasper pleaded.Horror surged through Ben at the thought of it.The glare of the light was nearly blinding, reflecting off the metal surface of the examination table, but he couldn’t stand the thought of the dark.He had hurt Jasper on the table, and he was afraid to hurt him again.He thought it might be worse in the dark.He was still holding that shining silver hook in his hand.He didn’t know what he might do with it.Ben’s heart pounded in time with the hum of that buzzing, shining light as he scanned the walls of the room.So many files, so many folders, so many boxes.Bad dreams, bad memories, forgotten items from their childhood that had been haphazardly stuffed into the subconscious.A hard lump formed in Ben’s throat as he read the tags on the boxes marked Morgana.There were three for Jasper—Ben expected that much from the deep-seated hurt the word seemed to draw out of his mate.But there was also one for Ben.Ben moved toward the file as if hypnotized, but Jasper pulled him back.“Stop,” Jasper pleaded again.His hands clawed at Ben to pull him back, but Ben only fought harder, struggling toward the file.“Just leave them closed.”“I have to open it.I have to see—”“You don’t want to know what’s—”His words caught on a cry as Ben struggled against him.The hook was still in his hand, and when Ben finally pulled free, it slid out between them, ripping Ben’s shirt and striking against his skin.It was only a scratch, but Ben jerked back, terrified.In his sudden movement, he crashed against a full-length mirror propped against the work bench.The force of the hook’s impact shattered the glass, and the shards cut into his hand as he dropped the hook, sending it clattering to the floor.96Ellen GinsbergBen bit back a cry as the pain surged through his wrist, staring at the broken shards of mirror on the floor.He could see his reflection, and Jasper’s, and the pain and hurt and remorse in each.But he could also see a flash of movement from someone else there, someone between them.There was a shadow closing over Ben.It paused behind him, and Jasper’s expression in the mirror changed from misery to terror in an instant as Ben heard the scrape of the hook across the floor.Someone had picked it up.Someone’s shadow revealed it sticking out of the dead end where a hand ought to be.The shadow of the hook moved closer over Ben, the dark silhouette of the figure behind him sharpening as he did, confirming the sinking, dizzying realization that had washed over Ben even before he turned to meet those pale, terrible eyes and the sadistic fury buried in them.He had barely opened his mouth to scream when Pierson raised the hook into the air, ready to bring it down and pierce him with a single, sickening strike.* * * *Jasper was clinging to Ben as he woke up, his body spooned tightly around his mate as Jasper came awake with hard, heavy breaths.Their bodies were hot and sticky, and the terrible sinking feeling of uneasiness lay wedged between them in spite of how closely they were pressed together.He could feel Ben’s muscles tight in his arms, his head rolling back and forth in a silent no as he sucked in his breath in a sudden single gasp when his eyes flew open.He was scared.His little mate was scared, but Jasper was scared, too, scared of him.He wanted to hold him, comfort him, but he remembered the pain of the scalpel pressing into him and the dull ache of the silver hook as it was dug out of his back.The memory washed over him all at once, and Jasper pulled away from Ben, abruptly.Ben in the Shadows97Ben looked at him now, eyes wide and frightened, lips drawn tight across his face as he lay there, naked and shaking.Fear rolled off of him in waves as he stared across the distance between them.Jasper wanted to reach across that distance and hold Ben’s hand, stroke his hair, tell him it was okay, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch him.Danny and Lars had shared a nightmare, and it had nearly killed Lars.Jasper had told Ben about it, but once again he and his mate had thrown caution to the wind, and now there was no telling what damage it had done to their relationship.They had shared a dream.He was certain of that.And it had been a very, very bad one.“It’s okay,” he said, forcing as casual a tone as he could muster.“You just had a nightmare.”“So did you,” Ben said quietly.Jasper didn’t reply [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]