Confession by Carey Baldwin Page B

brother, and, you said so yourself, you owe my brother, too. That puts us both on the same team, so yeah, we’re going to get to know each other real well, real fast.” He picked up her hand, traced his thumb along her palm, trailing fire everywhere he touched. “And one of the first things you’re going to learn about me is that I don’t mess around. I don’t cajole. I don’t persuade. I don’t seduce. Subterfuge isn’t in my nature.” First his breath was in her hair, fogging up her brain. Then he was whispering close in her ear, melting her like warmed sugar. “When I see something I want, Faith, I don’t apologize. I just go get it.”

 
    NINE
    Friday, July 26, 7:00 A.M.
    W ithout finding anything he could choke down for breakfast, Scourge slammed the refrigerator door and sidled along the kitchen wall, one arm covering his eyes. Unable to bear looking at the calendar while its red dates pulsed at him, taunting him like the very blood that surged through his veins, he’d been forced to begin chronicling time in a spiral notebook.
    Twenty days.
    That’s all the time he had left until he was supposed to fulfill his destiny with the Donovans.
    Just last Sunday he’d been itching with anticipation, but now—­he pressed his palms to his eyes—­after all his practice, all his dedication everything was falling apart. Thanks to that incident at the lab, he’d hardly slept in days. The sight of the red vessels fanning across the whites of his eyes sent shivers racing down his back and thick waves of nausea rolling through his gut.
    With determination, he hobbled to the bedroom and pulled the book from beneath his pillow. As he traced its title with his fingers, electric volts shot up his arms and jolted his heart into a terrifying, galloping rhythm. He jerked his hand from the book and fell to his knees.
    Pressure welled behind his eyes. How could he fulfill his destiny now?
    Of all the obstacles he’d prepared for, all the possible complications and hindrances he’d imagined that might keep him from executing his plan, this particular problem had never occurred to him. And so he hadn’t been ready. Not for this.
    Still disbelieving, he tried one last time. Clawing his arm, he gouged his nails deeper and deeper until red droplets began to ooze from his skin. An agonizing scream tore from his throat as a wave of terror swamped him. It couldn’t be true.
    But it was.
    Tears streamed from his eyes.
    He was afraid of blood.
    F aith Clancy had just become an official part of Scourge’s master plan.
    Pleased with himself for coming up with the perfect solution to his problem, Scourge settled himself in the big leather chair on the patient side of Dr. Clancy’s desk and smiled. If he’d had any qualms about choosing a target—­about choosing Dr. Clancy —­off book and for his own pleasure, those points were all moot now.
    This was destiny, plain and simple. No wonder he’d been drawn to her so deeply, so inexplicably, from the first moment he’d seen her face in that brochure. And here she was, the very one who’d turned Dante Jericho over to the police. Dr. Clancy’s fate was sealed. She was meant to be his.
    Though he despised a man who couldn’t regulate his appetites, waiting for this temptress would be the ultimate exercise in self-­control. His release would come, but only at the appointed time. Although this hemophobia he’d developed posed an unexpected problem, he was quite certain he could overcome it in short order and keep to his schedule.
    A great vocabulary word: Hemophobia.
    And Dr. Clancy was just the person to cure him of it.
    Irony.
    Also a good word. He made a mental note to use both words in a sentence at least once today and nestled deeper into the comfy leather armchair. The butter-­soft animal hide felt like living skin as he dragged his fingers over it and