Chương 6: Chapter 6: No Games

After one quick glance, she focused on her hands. He leaned a wide shoulder against the door, arms crossed over his powerful chest, not one ounce of guilt or discomfort on his face. The rat.

Sabrina held the needle so tight, it was a miracle it didn't break. Focusing all her concentration on the material in her hand, she stitched with slow deliberate movements. If she stopped sewing, she'd gibs slap him and, with her luck, his teeth would grow and he'd bite her.

"I didn't expect you back this soon. Or is cheating on your wife done faster these days?" she sniped.

He sighed, as if he was the wronged person. She had to breathe very deeply for a moment to stop herself from jumping up and pummeling him.

"I didn't sleep with Jo."

"I don't believe you." Actually she almost did, but wasn't about to give him the impression he could treat her like dirt and get away with it. She'd seen what it did to her mother. She wanted to know what was going on, exactly what was going on. "I want the truth." She might sound hoarse, but at least her voice was calm. She'd be dignified through this. No hysterics. No throwing things at him and screaming like a broom seller. "Why did you have me come home alone so that you could stay with Jo? And don't deny you wanted to be with her."

"It's not what you think."

"So what is it?"

Did he really think there was any way to misinterpret his actions?

He hesitated, a strange way for him to act. "You have to trust me."

Maybe she'd gibs slap him, after all. He straightened and paced up and down, making her workroom seem small with his towering presence. In a strange way, he also fitted among her grandmother's antique desk and cutting table, the pieces of their family history displayed. A small silver cup, said to be from Indonesia, a patchwork blanket framed and hung on the wall, made by her great grandmother for her first child.

"Do you believe I didn't have intercourse with Jo?"

What an old-fashioned way to put it. Sabrina hesitated. Did she believe him, or was she so desperate to believe he wouldn't do that to her, that she closed her eyes to the truth? And why was she suddenly the one being interrogated?

"Don't play games with me, Mark. You went off with another woman tonight." She very carefully stitched a seam into where she'd folded the material over the paper. "If the positions were reversed, would you meekly go home and accept me going off with another man?"

He checked and swung around, fixed her with a ferocious glare. "Don't you ever dare - " Realization dawned and his shoulders tensed even more. "I can't tell you what's going on, but I'm not interested in Jo in any carnal way."

Her eyes played a terrible trick on her and his skin changed, as if parts of it struggled to stay human. It became like granite, his eyes glowed, long incisors gleamed in the artificial light. She really was going crazy, because, for a fleeing moment, she'd also seen wings.

Sabrina whimpered and pierced her finger instead of the material. She didn't know if she was turning schizophrenic or if he was a monster. "Please stop."

As sudden as the illusion started, it disappeared.

Mark prowled to her with an eerie soundless stride, his eyes flashing backlit white. He took the material and needle out of her hand and carefully put them on the little table where she kept the scissors, silver thimble, and other precious items she inherited from Ouma. He kissed her and this time it was more bitter than chocolate.

She drew away from him. "You don't go off with another woman and then kiss me."

"Oh, hell."

Before she realized his intent, he picked her up.

"What are you doing?" She wanted to stay mad at him, not feel a thrill at being carried as if she weighed nothing. Not after he'd changed into something that scared her out of her mind. "Put me down, I'm not done telling you off." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you laughing at me?"

"This room is too small. We'll talk downstairs." He carried her to the stairs.

Sabrina glared up at him. "That room is not too small. It runs the length of the house."

"It's small and I'm not having this conversation. I'm not fighting with you over the size of a room because you are mad and want to pick a fight." He reached the bottom of the stairs, walked to the living room, and lowered her carefully down on the couch.

He paced up and down before her, the way he'd done upstairs, acting like a man under a bigger threat than being accused of adultery. Pushing a hand through his short brown hair, he picked up the remote and switched on the large television he'd installed in her cozy living room, even before they got married. Sabrina thought it was more a case of wanting to do something than a need to watch television. She'd never seen him like this.

Her stopped and nailed her with a look that burned. "It's not what you think. I'm not interested in - " He stiffened and turned towards the television.

A young newscaster gazed at them from the television screen. A picture was shown behind her and Mark stopped and stared at it, his skin paling. "Translate that, now," he clipped out.

Sabrina listened to the Afrikaans news cast and translated it for him as best she could. "John Chamberlain, the documentary film maker, famous for his work on Pangea, infamous for his claim that intelligent life existed on the first continent, was found dead in his home this morning."

Mark swore with an inventiveness that made her blink. On the television screen, the newscaster continued in Afrikaans, and Sabrina repeated in English. "Mr. Chamberlain died under gruesome circumstances. His corpse was a dry husk. The coroner is at a lost for an explanation as to the condition of the body."

Mark watched the whole program, listening to her translation without moving or even blinking. He paced in front of the television, his gaze fixed on the screen. What made her breath catch and induced the desire to whimper like a child, was the way his body changed between human and something else. In her darkest moments, she'd feared vampires existed and she'd married one. Now she wondered if maybe she didn't marry something worse. She wanted to run but her knee made moving at more than a slow limp impossible. Even if she could run, her legs had gone boneless. They wouldn't hold her weight.

Mark spat out something in a language she didn't understand. Lowering the volume on the television, he threw the remote on the couch where it bounced a few times.

"Why are you so upset over his death? Did you know him?" She'd been married to Mark for three months, had made love with him, but at this moment all she wanted to do was run from him. Screaming. Maybe she could sneak out when he wasn't focused on her.

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