Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

water from the brim. “Sorry about that, but you weren’t exactly cooperative. Or so I hear.”
    “My first time being kidnapped. Didn’t know there was a protocol.”
    King chuckled. He was almost giddy. “I assume you’ve found your quarters adequate. If there’s anything you desire, you need only ask.”
    “Got an extra key?”
    “Now, now. No reason to be difficult. We’re about to embark on a glorious journey together.”
    “And where are we going?”
    “I was speaking metaphorically, but business before pleasure. Just a quick trip up the coast tomorrow, if the weather clears. Then we’ll have all the time in the world to get to know each other.”
    “Are you speaking metaphorically again?”
    King leaned back and rested his palms on the arms of the chair. A monarch on his throne. “You needn’t be afraid of eternity, Elizabeth. Imagine the things we’ll see. Civilizations rise and fall in the blink of an eye. All of it ours to behold. For eternity. Together.”
    Her heart was pounding now. She was sure he could smell the blood coursing through her veins. “And if I refuse?”
    “You won’t.”
    “You seem pretty sure of that.”
    “I’m a man who gets what he wants. I wanted you. And here you are,” he said, gesturing expansively about the room.
    “It’s fate,” he said and reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out Sebastian’s ring and set it on the table.
    He tugged off one of his gloves and rested his hand on the table, an exact duplicate on his finger. “What else can explain this? A one of a kind, suddenly two. A rather blatant sign, don’t you think?”
    Elizabeth shuddered at the implications. “Quite a coincidence,” she said, casually slipping her hand further under the pillow.
    King smirked. “Fate. So, you see,” he said as he tucked Sebastian’s ring back into his breast pocket. “It’s destiny. You can’t fight it.”
    “And the fact that I’m in love with another man?”
    “A mistake. You are, after all, only human.”
    “Love isn’t—”
    The sudden crack of King’s hand slapping the table made her jump. The sharp edge of the mirror fragment cut into her fingers.
    “Don’t lecture me on love!” he shouted, and stood up so quickly his chair fell back against the wall. His face began to change, arteries bulged from his neck. She could see him struggling to rein in the demon. He paused and with a great force of will, returned to humanity.
    “The priest tried that this morning,” he said in a thinly controlled voice. “He shouldn’t have interfered.”
    “You didn’t....” Dear God. Not Father Cavanaugh.
    “He was a fool. Even until the very end, he spouted his endless drivel about love and redemption. Telling me what I can and cannot have. Nothing in this world is given freely. You have to take what you want, before the world takes it from you,” King said and then seemed to realize he’d said too much. He squared his shoulders and pulled his glove back on. “He was an obstacle between us. I simply removed him.”
    She felt sick again, but would be damned if she’d show him weakness now. “So you killed him.”
    “Regretfully.”
    “Regretfully? Is that the demon or your soul talking? Or can you even tell the difference anymore?”
    “Do not speak of things you don’t understand.”
    “You’re right, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how someone with a soul could do the things you’ve done.”
    “I did what was necessary,” he said, anxiously moving around the room, teetering on the edge of madness.
    “Necessary for what?”
    “For us to be together.”
    Elizabeth steeled herself. It was a gamble, but, after all, she was a gambler’s daughter. When you’re dealt aces and eights, the only thing you can do is go down fighting. She played her last card. “We’ll never be together.”
    “We are. We will be,” he said like a plaintive child. “Forever.”
    “No, we won’t. You can take my body. You can kill me. You can turn me into a creature like you. But you will never get what you want.”
    In one quick movement he crossed the room. His fingers dug into her shoulders, and he jerked her to her feet. His dark eyes flared. “I will!”
    Elizabeth wanted to scream, to turn away in revulsion, but she’d made her final stand and wasn’t going to back down now. “You can’t make someone love you,” she said and saw the uncertainty flicker across his face. “And if you really loved me, you’d let me