Chapter 21
It felt a little like Draco's brain was short circuiting, with a mix as shock, outrage, sensation and even appreciation for the unexpected move, and she was holding on tightly. Out of all the scenarios he could foresee, this hadn't been one of them.
"What's your move now, Granger?"
She didn't answer, leaving them standing there in awkward silence.
"What are you going to do?" he pressed.
"Why are you here?" she demanded.
A question equally jarring. "Escape isn't allowed."
"I was released, and you know it."
The confirmation sent rage through him. His father had done this. "And how did you manage that?"
"I didn't. You did."
"That's that supposed to mean?"
"You and Flint, and your little pissing contest. I don't think your father trusts you. Why do you think that is?"
If he could reach her, he'd crucio her right now. Like this, he'd catch himself too, and for a moment, he wondered if it was worth it. "Are you going to let go of me?"
"Are you going to let go of me?" she replied.
"No."
Back to their little standoff again. "Although you might have jumped into the fire from the pan," he said. Obviously, this position was more of a threat to her than him. Although her face was on his shoulder, facing away from him as she held him tightly. A position that was awkward and confronting. Honestly, he couldn't remember the last time someone had embraced him like this. Obviously, he had 'entertainment', but there was no embracing involved. This was…
She was soft, her breasts were pressed to him. She seemed to have no strategy to get herself out of this.
"So what now, Granger?" he said and brought his hand up to shift her hair away from her shoulder. Soft, pale skin. Not as pale as his. Bending his head, he ran his tongue along her shoulder. There was a scent he knew, and now a taste. Both were jarring, as was the recognition of that very familiarity. He knew her scent. It had registered somewhere along the way. This she would hate, but she had placed herself in this position. There were certain disadvantages.
As he looked up, he was assaulted by forceful sensation as she kissed him full on the mouth. Hard. A crash of thoughts and reactions spun his head. Hit by the sensations of a kiss, but he hadn't seen it coming. Then she pushed him hard on the chest, and now they were finally separated. She ran, and frankly it took him a moment to get his mind working. It had been so unexpected, it had overwritten his mind. The sensation of it were still hitting him, along with the outrage. How dare she?
She was out of the room by the time he got his brain to work again. Running and now he was after her. The sense of purpose and elation was back.
"Is that what you want, a whore?" she called. He couldn't see her, but she was here somewhere. Still, he listened as he stood in a hallway with doors along each side. She was behind one of them.
But then there was a question. The kiss still make his lips warm. It had been hard and bruising, and a much richer taste of her now lingered—one he didn't want. "I want you dead, Granger. Hasn't that always been the case?"
Now she didn't answer. His ears rung from listening so intently.
"Then why didn't you kill me? You had your chance, but you didn't." Her voice was far away, it was echoing off the walls. Hiding somewhere, but not smart enough to keep quiet. Even now she had to voice her opinions. Was there literally no situation in which she'd shut up?
"Like a cat, I can't help playing with my prey." Every part of him felt alive in this moment, and he hadn't felt this way in a long time. Although this might be a worrying development, the most rational part of his mind suggested. Hunting people for sport was a step too far, even in his book, but he also knew that she was the key to this. It wasn't as if he wanted to hunt random people. This was about her.
What exactly that meant, he didn't know, but he hoped he'd be released from it when this was over.
A noise sounded somewhere and he shifted his head to hear it better. She was moving. Instinctively, he started running again. Stairs, she was on a set of stairs. Obviously, she wouldn't get out. He'd sealed the door to the building.
Running to the end of the hallway, he found a set of stairs, but paused. She'd anticipate that. Stopping, he listened again and was rewarded by hearing running upstairs. Shooting up their stairs, he saw her turning a corner at the end of the hallway. He had her in his sights now. Again she was going up, but she wasn't as fast as he was.
Brightness, the door she'd gone through led to the outside, the roof. As he emerged, he saw her jumping off the end of the roof.
Energy shot out of his wand and captured her, holding her frozen in midair. "Very clever," he said. But not clever enough.
She'd had an escape plan, and it had involved jumping across to the next building. Not entirely original, but a few more seconds and she would have made it. Turned out he was faster than her, and now he had her. She was dangling over the gap between the buildings.
Leisurely, he walked to the end of the building and looked down. Utterly motionless, she hung there.
"That's a long way down," he pointed out.
"So drop me," she mumbled. The spell didn't allow her to speak properly, but some momentum slowly turned her sideways. "It's what you want, remember."
Now he seemed stuck in a situation where everything was happening too fast. If he faltered, she'd fall. The was no way of saving her unless he took active steps to do so.
His heart was beating, probably from the exertion, and now there was this painful stillness again. Obviously, he should drop her, but he wasn't. Something in him refused. Maybe because he was lost without her. That was bullshit. Yet he couldn't drop her.
"In all this time, why didn't you kill yourself?" he asked. Anger coursed through him again, for being put in this situation. Why was she still here? It was actually a question he'd wondered about quite a lot.
"Principle."
The answer make him chuckle. Fucking Granger and her stubbornness. He would say it'd kill her, but it was literally what had kept her alive. And now he had her a moment from death. If he did nothing, she'd die, if he dropped her, she'd die. There was nothing she could do to save herself. It was all him, and he would have to take active steps to save her. If Granger was to live, he would have to save her.
Clearly, he didn't want to, but he couldn't make himself drop her either. All that anger and rage, and he couldn't let the axe fall. Because he feared what would be on the other side of it. Granted, some of the anger had defused with the torture.
"I really enjoyed torturing you," he said honestly. "In a way, I haven't enjoyed much of anything in a long time." It had been a sick type of enjoyment, but he couldn't deny it.
"Do I have to hear this? Drop me already."
Yes, he should. This would be over. She even wanted him to. For her, she'd rather he killed her than took her freedom away again. He'd come here to kill her, but perversely, he always did whatever she didn't want him to do. It was a habit of a lifetime, really.
She'd been a part of his life since he was eleven, and in that time, this exact situation had been laced into that. Power. He had it, she didn't. It had been the point he'd been trying to make for years, but she always refused to acknowledge it. Even now. She was goading him to drop her, to end her time here—with him.
And how could he proceed now? Like she'd done just before, he'd caught himself in a situation he struggled to get out of. Other than dropping her, what were his options? Drag her back so he could torture her to death? It had some appeal, but this position had him more rational than he'd felt in a long time. It was as if something had been exorcised, because he had her, and he'd vented. She was his to do with as he pleased, and apparently he couldn't make himself drop her.
There was also a degree of pride here. He couldn't pull her back and let her go. That wasn't how this worked. Equally, the rage that drove him to torture her had dissipated. Maybe it was the whole emotional exertion involved in this. He felt drained. He actually felt more like himself than he had in a good long while, and it was nice.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes, what?"
"You will be my whore."
She tried to fight the hold on her. Oh, she hated that more than anything he could have said, and that pleased him on such a deep level.
"It hadn't been my intention, you know," he said in complete candidness, "but you kissing left me feeling all… sparkly." That wasn't true. Dumbstruck was a more accurate depiction, shocked, because it had gone somewhere they'd never gone—had never intended on going.
"Fuck you."
"Well, yes, there will be that. I can well anticipate your eagerness."
That had not been his agenda, but it was either this or drop her. And he'd suppress his own revulsion in order to bask in hers.
"Do you agree, Granger? If you say no, you would basically be committing suicide. So where are your principles now?"
Again she strained against the magic holding her, but his magic was much too strong. That was the whole point of all this. He was strong because he belonged in the magical world. She was an interloper. Granted a dangerous one because she was intelligent. Only an idiot would deny that.
"Or do I need to imperio you? It would be a much calmer state of affairs for me. I could trust you not to bite me."
In a way, he knew he was resorting to cool sarcasm, because the idea of having her as a lover made him both nervous and perversely elated.
Maybe one day, he would understand himself, but today he'd learned that when push came to shove, he couldn't bring himself to kill her. Now he had a lover he didn't really want, but it was the only logical way to conclude this little episode. It was the only way to win.