Page 30 of Trapped By Clocks and Hearts

Chapter 9 - Curious

My eyes nearly popped out at her noise. The vividness of her moan sent a bolt of desire straight through my core. To be fair, it was a decent mimicry of one of my most recent companions. Incensed, I grabbed her shoulder in alert and rolled her back flat against the wall once more. “Are you actually trying to get us caught?”

The Dodo and his men were walking down the hall, coming closer and closer to our darkened nook. Clever blocking was not going to disguise the fact of who I was. Much worse, if the animals caught wind of anything at all suspicious about Allie’s nature, I could risk losing the coeur.

Dammit.

I racked my brain to think.

Across the corridor, I spotted a cleaner carrying a mop exiting a cabin he must have just finished cleaning. Eyes lighting up, I grabbed Allie’s arm and pulled her across and into the door before it locked shut behind him.

Or at least I’d thought it was a door to a cabin.

“Ow!” Allie hissed as she slammed against a supply shelf.

I almost stumbled in the pitch dark. Ammonia and salts bathed the air around us in the cramped space—of the cleaning closet.

“Well, this is much better,” Allie drawled. Feeling around for a light switch, she tugged on a little string and the dimmest bulb ever lit up the dank closet. Not exactly helpful.

I leveled a dark gaze at her. “Stop talking. And definitely stop moaning like that,” I snapped. “Don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop on other people’s intimate acts?”

She scoffed. “How could I not eavesdrop when all those women were so loud? To tell the truth, I’m a bit glad they haven’t been coming around lately. I’m finally managing to get a decent night’s sleep. I mean seriously, you guys would go at it for hours and hours and hours—”

I gritted my teeth. As proud as I was of my libido, hearing Allie refer to my sexual conquests with a certain banality was grating on my nerves.

“God only knows what the hell you were doing to those women all night long, makes it sound like they’re being murdered—then again, you are an assassin, and a rabbit,” she rambled on.

She was driving me crazy.

Without warning, I pushed her back against the closed door, grasping the nape of her neck, and leaned down.

“What the hell are you doing?” she gasped, pawing my face away. Those ridiculous glasses fell in the darkness.

My eyes flashed as I pressed my body against hers. I just wanted to shut her up. “I thought perhaps you wanted a proper demonstration.” My gaze dropped to that annoying mouth. “The other day you asked me to kiss you.”

She tilted her head back as far away from me as she could. “Right, perhaps if my life depended on it. Plus if you recall, I was seriously high the other day.” Her eyes glittered in the dark. “Besides, I already told you I’m not seducible.”

“That’s what all those women said,” I relayed confidently, stroking the side of her face with my thumb. “Before they fell under my spell and I carved their hearts out.”

I had intended for my statement to be disarming, intimidating, but I was distracted by how smooth her cheek was. That flowery scent was close by again. I bent my head lower, closer, in an attempt to seek it out.

The sudden lack of protest from Allie made me stop short. She didn’t try to push away either. Perhaps my declaration was a little more than disarming. When I looked into her face, her gaze was distracted off to one side in deep thought.

A shadow crossed her face. It was the vivid memory of the devastating slaughter back at Veridia. The heart in my chest gave a dull thump in the tense silence.

Allie swallowed hard. “Rabb…why do you do this for the Queen?”

I stopped short at her question. Her mouth was still a mere breath away from mine. “I have to. I’m bespelled to follow her commands.”

“That’s all?”

I pulled back an inch. “The Queen saved my life.”

“Saved your life? How?” Curiosity filled her eyes, but there was also a certain measure of…pity.

I dropped my hands from her and straightened up. “I was cursed. My soul trapped in the form of a rabbit. I was about to die and the Queen saved me. We made a deal. She would restore my life, my human form, and in exchange, I would dedicate my immortal existence to serving her.”

“By seducing women? By luring them to follow you and then stealing their hearts?”