curve of his mouth, almost sardonic; the look in his eyes, the wild, unfiltered look of pure male lust. No, more than lust. Need.
Thinking of him was like playing with fire.
She had been married; she knew very well that a healthy relationship hinged on respect and constant compromise. With Lucas there could be no respect and no compromise, because they were not equals. He owned her. She was his property and once she opened the door to a relationship, he wouldn’t let her close it.
Karina shut her eyes. She could picture herself wrapped in those powerful arms. It would feel safe, so safe. Her life was broken like a mirror and the shards kept cutting her fingers. She was desperate to forget that she was little more than a slave. She craved that illusion of safety as if it were a drug and she had to score a hit. She wanted to feel the heat of his strong body warming her skin. And she wanted to see him bend, to find out what it would be like to see the vulnerability of intimacy in those hard eyes. She was completely powerless and she needed to feel powerful, as a woman does who is wanted so badly by a man, he would do anything for her.
There it was. All of it, out in the open.
Well, now it was out. She owned all of it.
She had to keep things in perspective. He was strong and she was weak and vulnerable and not in her right mind. She would take it one day at a time, wait until the last of the poison cleared out of her system, and when a chance to escape presented itself, she would take it—and they would never find her and Emily again. And if she let herself buy into her own lies, she would never wonder what it would have been like to feel him inside her . . . She cut off that thought. The less she imagined it, the better.
Karina opened the toothbrush. She would brush her teeth, locate her jeans, and check on her daughter. And then she would go out there and make a chocolate cake.
Emily seemed to have no memory of Lucas and Daniel’s fight the previous night. She slept well and when Karina had come to get her, she got a hug. The violent episode had passed her daughter by completely. Karina held her for a long time, breathing in the scent of her hair. They were both alive. She would get to keep Emily with her. It would be okay. It would be hard and painful, but it would be okay.
Karina took Emily to the kitchen. Sunlight poured in through the open window. Nobody waited for her. Nobody demanded breakfast. The house was quiet and serene. Karina exhaled her tension, pulled the ingredients from the pantry, and started mixing the cake batter.
Henry walked into the kitchen, looking a bit lost. “Good morning!”
“Good morning!” Emily chirped.
“I have something for you.” Henry put a drawing pad and a set of watercolor pencils on the table.
“For me?”
“For you.”
Emily pried at the pencil case.
“What do you say?” Karina murmured on autopilot.
“Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.” Henry offered her a small smile.
“Where is everyone?”
“They’ve gone to check the perimeter net. What is it you’re making?”
Karina glanced at him. “A chocolate cake. Did they go to check for signs of those people who sent the lizards to spy on us?”
Henry nodded.
“Lucas called them Ordinators. Henry, who are they? Who are you?”
Henry smiled again and slid his glasses up his nose. “It’s a long and complicated explanation. It’s better to wait a couple of days. Too much new information too fast will only make things worse.”
“I’d like to know.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been through a great deal of violence in the past two days and you’ve been exposed to things that conflict with your worldview. I don’t want to be the one to add to it.”
“Henry, not knowing is worse. All I’m asking is that you don’t treat me like a slave who is told where to be and what to do and isn’t owed any explanation.”
“No,” he said quietly.
They looked at each other over the table. Karina held his gaze. It might not have been wise, but she wouldn’t back down now.
“Look, Mom, I drew Cedric!”
Karina looked down at the ball of brown fluff that looked like a sheep with a sabertooth’s fangs. “That’s looks very nice, Emily.”
When she looked up, the kitchen was empty. Henry had escaped.
The cake smelled of chocolate and vanilla. When Karina took the two round pans out of the oven and set them out to cool, the familiar scents floated through the kitchen, so reminiscent of home and happy times, she almost cried.
A door banged. She looked up just in time to see Lucas loom in the doorway. His face was grim. He glanced at the cake, then at her. She stared back, suddenly terrified that all her thoughts would pour out through her eyes.
He didn’t seem to notice. “Would you like new clothes?”
“Yes.” Oh, God, yes.
He jerked his head toward the door. “They have some things prepared for you at the main house. I didn’t know what size, so you have to come and try them on. Come on, I’ll walk with you.”
“Can I come?” Emily slid off the chair.
“Yes,” Lucas said. “They have clothes for you, too.”
“And Cedric?”
“Cedric doesn’t need clothes,” Lucas said.
“Can he come with us?” Karina asked.
“Sure.”
Karina washed her hands, wiped them on a towel, and followed Lucas out. The sun shone bright. Cedric already waited for them at the foot of the stairs. Emily stepped down and the bear-dog rolled to his feet and trotted next to her, nearly as tall as she was.
Lucas led them out of the yard and down a dirt path. It wound around the hill, flanked on the left by stunted oaks and shrubs climbing up the slope and rolling off to the prairie on the right. Cedric and Emily pulled ahead a couple dozen yards. Karina watched them, aware of Lucas striding next to her, like some tiger who had learned to walk upright. The air was dry, and the heat beat down on them from the pale, burned-out sky, painting the path in stripes of bright yellow sunshine.
“We’re in a fragment of reality,” Karina said.
“Yes,” Lucas said.
“Why is the sun shining? Why is there air?”
“Because the fluctuation occurs on the universal level,” Lucas said.
“So it’s a duplicate sun?”
“No, it’s the same sun the Earth has. We just get access to it on a different level. Think of a house with many rooms. We walked out of the main room into a smaller side bedroom, but we’re still under the same roof.”
Karina sighed. “It makes my head hurt.”
“Don’t talk about dimensions to any Rippers, then,” Lucas said.
“Rippers?”
“They make inter-dimensional rents that let people like you and me travel back and forth. You get one of them started on the subject and the insanity pours out until you want to stick your head in a bucket of water just to wash it out of your mind. When a man has to continuously cut himself, because pain helps him punch through dimensions, you can’t expect him to be lucid anyway.”
