Pursued(141)

“Merrick, no!” his mother shouted but her words were lost in the full-throated roar coming from Merrick’s lips. He launched himself at his hated stepfather, armed with nothing but his bare hands and his fangs. Jonquil shouted and raised his knife, and then all hell broke loose.

Elise winced, wishing she could close her eyes. But Merrick had watched her ordeal, feeling the terror and pain right along with her—she owed it to him to watch until the end. So she wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to gasp and cry out as Merrick’s stepfather cut him, his long cruel knife biting into Merrick’s bare chest again and again in long slashes and stabs.

Merrick fought back, of course—giving as good as he was getting, though he was essentially unarmed. He was trying to go for Jonquil’s throat and several times he nearly succeeded, only to be held off by the older man’s longer reach. His mouth and his stepfather’s neck were both bloody but he hadn’t yet managed to nick any of the large arteries that pulsed under Jonquil’s pale skin.

Merrick’s mother was screaming on the bed and her two clients had finally gotten their pants up and beat a hasty retreat, sliding carefully around the man and boy fighting in the middle of the room.

Neither Merrick nor his stepfather could get the upper hand. Merrick was big for his age, but still just a boy and Jonquil was making good use of his knife. Too good, in fact—as Elise watched, Merrick threw himself forward and Jonquil dodged left and gave a vicious downward slice. The point of the knife started at Merrick’s scalp and bisected his eyebrow, causing blood to pour into his eye. He jerked to one side just in time to save his eyeball, but the blade continued down. It flayed open his cheek like raw meat so that Elise could see his teeth and gums where the knife had sliced into his face.

Merrick’s mother’s eyes widened as she saw the ugly wound as well. “Stop it, Jonquil—you’re hurting him! Stop now, both of you!” she screamed. Jumping off the bed, she threw herself between them.

Elise saw it all as if in slow motion. First, Merrick finally managed to get his fangs locked on the side of Jonquil’s throat. But at the same time, his stepfather raised the knife again, clearly intending to bury it in Merrick’s chest.

His mother got in the way.

Elise gasped in horror as she saw the silver blade pierce the slender, white throat and then slide outward, severing precious arteries in its random, hateful path. With a gurgle of pain, Merrick’s mother sank to her knees just as Merrick ripped out Jonquil’s throat.

Blood spurted everywhere, covering the three of them like scarlet paint. It was obvious to Elise that Merrick didn’t understand what had happened. He shook his stepfather like a dog shakes a rat, his fangs still buried in the other man’s throat. Only when Jonquil was limp in his arms did he happen to glance down…down at his mother, who was writhing weakly at his feet with blood still leaking from her neck.

With a gasp, he dropped Jonquil’s lifeless form and scrambled to take his mother in his arms.

“Mother! Mamam,” he cried. Frantically he tried to cover the wound in her neck, but it was clearly too late. The blood was no longer jetting from the severed artery—it was a sluggish flow now that would soon stop. Under its spattering of red droplets, Merrick’s mother’s face was as pale as paper. As white as death.

“Merrick,” she whispered, reaching for him with one hand. Somehow she managed to cup his unwounded cheek. “Sorry…so sorry.”

“Don’t go.” There were tears in Merrick’s mismatched eyes. “Don’t leave me. I don’t care what you were doing—I don’t care about anything, Mamam. Just don’t go.”

“Have to.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now and Elise wondered how she could talk at all with such a horrible wound in her throat. “You…go too,” she told Merrick. “Go back…Rageron. Stay with…father’s brothers. Keep you…safe. Love…you.” The last words were so soft Elise could barely hear them.

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Merrick told her but he was talking to a corpse. Somehow the life had leaked out of his mother’s eyes, leaving them as cold and empty as green glass marbles.

She was gone.

Merrick sobbed convulsively and crushed her to his chest. “Mamam…Mamam…no.”

It was a cry from his heart, a plea that fell on deaf ears. Elise, watching him, found that she was crying too. Sobbing right along with Merrick as her heart broke for the boy he had been and the man he had become. Kneeling there in that blood-soaked room she watched him lose his innocence as surely as she had lost hers when her stepfather had ripped it from her. They had both lost something irretrievable at a young age. They had both been stained and wounded by a cruel fate.