Marissa recoiled, squirming uselessly for fresh air and freedom. “No.”
Nash lifted the silver hunting blade to eye level. He twisted it inches away from her nose. “Call for him, or I’ll cut you.” His tongue darted out and licked the length of her jaw.
Her muscles knotted in disgust. She pressed her lips together and jerked her chin away. “No.”
“Do it!” he growled. He released her head in favor of knotting calloused fingers in her hair. He shook until she lost her balance. “Don’t be stupid.” He pushed the tip of his blade into the soft flesh of her jaw. “You don’t need to die for him. You die for me.”
“Let her go, Nash.” Blake’s voice echoed through the cave. His hazy silhouette nearly filled the jagged opening. Rain sheeted behind him, forming puddles on the rocky floor.
Marissa’s heart sputtered in a tide of mixed emotions. Blake had come to save her, but Nash only planned to let him watch her die.
Nash yanked upright, returning Marissa to her previous position, mashed against his chest by the pressure of one forearm. “There you are. The knight in shining armor. Come to steal my wife.”
Blake moved slowly in their direction, eyes pinned on Nash and the knife. “She’s not your wife. I’ve already taken all of those.”
Marissa struggled for air as Nash clutched her tighter. She pried uselessly at his arm with weak and frozen fingers. She didn’t want to die in a cave.
Blake raised his gun and pointed it over her head, presumably at Nash’s. “You don’t have to die today,” he said in a tone that seemed to disagree, “but if you hurt her again, I promise you won’t leave this cave without a body bag.”
Nash laughed. He stepped back, opposing Blake’s advance and dragging Marissa with him. His grip loosened slightly, and Marissa sucked air, clinging to his arm now, for balance on her good foot. “Won’t it be poetic for Miss Lane and I to die together? One final romantic gesture. A grand finale, if you will.” He floated the knife near her throat. “Here’s what I have in mind. I kill her, then you kill me, and then later you kill yourself because how could you live with that?” He exaggerated each word of the sick proposal. “It’s the perfect show of our commitment to one another, really.”
Marissa whimpered. Hopefully Blake had a plan because she had nothing left, and the finale Nash had in mind was the stuff of her nightmares.
Nash danced the knife closer to her face.
Blake’s steady cop expression didn’t waver. Nash’s words had bounced uselessly off him.
“You don’t mind?” Nash taunted. “No skin off your nose?” He tapped the tip of Marissa’s nose with the blade for emphasis before lowering the blade to beneath her jaw, He slid it carefully along the length of her throat, and she flinched when the steel nicked her collarbone, just above the zipper of her borrowed jacket. “Oops,” he said carelessly, no doubt enjoying the madness racing over Blake’s face. “Still think you have the upper hand?” Nash asked, gloating over the response he’d driven from Blake. He dragged the blade’s tip into the groove between Marissa’s breasts, then stopped it above her heart.
Blake swung his hands up, palms forward. “Stop. Don’t hurt her.” He released his offensive stance and allowed the gun to hang from the crook of one thumb. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his gaze slid from Nash’s eyes to Marissa’s for the first time. “What do you want, Nash?”
“What do I want?” he parroted in a mocking whine. “Don’t you recognize a cry for help when you see one? I want to finish our game.”
“What game?” Venom and hatred coated Blake’s words.
Nash rubbed his cheek against Marissa’s. “Has he told you our story?”
She shook her head quickly. Tears formed in her eyes, and her shoulders crept nearer her ears, attempting to put space between herself and the madman.
“Why don’t you tell it?” Nash asked Blake.
“Why don’t you let her go and we can finish this alone.”
Nash made a show of twisting the knife against her breastbone. “First, put your gun down.”
Blake lowered his weapon to the cave floor and released it, then straightened slowly, palms in plain sight. “Your turn. Let her go.”
Marissa’s eyelids fell shut. Blake had given in to Nash’s demand, and nothing good could come from that.
Nash lifted the knife from Marissa’s heart, and her head went light with relief. “First,” he said, “tell the story. I like our story.”
* * *
BLAKE’S MIND QUAKED with five years of awful memories. Their story, as Nash called it, was Blake’s personal hell. He could recite the lengthy list of leads he’d followed to their inevitable dead ends in detail, but what good would that do? He locked his jaw, refusing to entertain Nash or his whims any longer.
Blake had plenty of old failures engraved on his heart, but he wouldn’t add losing Marissa to them. He kept his chest carefully squared with Nash, concealing the spare firearm nestled in his waistband at the middle of his back. That gun was his last chance at fulfilling his promises. He’d vowed to keep Marissa safe, whatever the cost, and he would proudly fit Nash for a shiny new body bag.
“What are you waiting for?” Nash shifted Marissa in his grip, repositioning the knife at her side, just below her rib cage. “I’ll get you started.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a tragic story of loves lost. Every time I find my perfect mate, she dies. First my mom, then my fiancée, then all the rest.”
Blake forced himself not to lunge for the knife. It was a calculated risk he’d gladly take if it was only him who could get hurt. “You stalk innocent women. You attack them. Murder them. Which part of that sounds like love to
