by Ford, Rinna
“I can’t believe it. Your magic really is gone, isn’t it?”
“I wasn’t lying,” I said and tried to pull my arm free, but Alec tightened his grip and tugged me closer.
I reached inward for Soliel and my vampire, sensing that something was very wrong with the situation after all, but instead of finding the strength I needed to break free, it seemed my body was growing weaker by the second. The energy my body had was slowly draining as if a battery was wearing down.
I screamed inward for my predators to help but there was no reaching Soliel. She was nowhere to be found, hidden away in some deep dark part of my psyche I couldn’t reach. It felt exactly like what it felt to have my dragon suppressed when Di turned me.
Darting my eyes toward Alec’s, I saw that he was the one doing it to me, and doing it on purpose, leaving me partially defenseless. His knowing smirk morphed into a sadistic grin and I knew I was in trouble. My vampire tried to spring forward but my body became too heavy to stand and I fell to my knees. I hissed and scratched at his hand, unable to do the damage I intended because I was getting dramatically weaker with every attempt I made to break free.
“Behave,” he chuckled darkly and dug his fingers into my skin even harder, making my mouth open in a silent scream.
With his free hand, Alec pulled out something that looked like a necklace and snapped it around my neck, making my vampire recoil until I couldn’t feel that part of me either.
I was as helpless as a human.
“You know, you could have made this more of a challenge for me, Emelia,” Alec mocked, releasing my arm and letting me fall to the sand.
I tried to get up, to attack, to run away, to do anything, but every ounce of energy seemed to have been sucked out of me. I could barely even move on the ground.
“I was promised a challenge,” he continued and started circling me slowly. “It was the only reason I took the job, really. How disappointing. I really thought I’d never get you away from those two. They treat you like the most precious thing in the world rather than a con artist and the freak that you are.” He sighed as if totally put out by the whole situation. “I should have expected such a weak showing from someone like you. Serves me right, I guess.”
He made one and half circles around my body as I lay on my right side, stopping behind me. He scooped me up effortlessly, holding me away from his body as if I were a dead carcass. Nose scrunched in disgust, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. I tried to say something, anything, but it seemed as if my voice had left me as well. It didn’t stop me from trying to wiggle free from him.
“Stop,” he commanded and squeezed under my arms and knees, making me open my mouth in another silent scream. “You should feel lucky to even be near me. Filth.”
He then shifted my body, throwing me over his shoulder, freeing up one of his hands. I could only see his back from my current position but I heard the unmistakable pop of a portal opening.
I knew that if he took me wherever he was planning to take me I’d be a goner, so I tried to fight once more. He slapped my ass hard, making me wince.
“I told you to stop,” he snarled. “Behave, little queen.”
With that, he stepped into the portal, leaving behind my beautiful sandy beach and everyone I loved.
Chapter Sixteen
Alec stepped through the portal, taking us from the sandy beach to a pristine foyer. I was fighting the pressure of sleep that wanted to take me under, but I knew I needed to take in my surroundings as much as I could if I wanted to have any kind of knowledge as to where I was. I was able to turn my head to see the rich-looking space we were passing through. The floors were white marble with gray flecks in it, the walls were blue, and the furnishings were high end. Everything that I was able to see was well thought out and placed with a purpose, much like the rebel’s mansion.
But I knew I wasn’t with the rebellion anymore. I was in the hands of the Council. That bit of info I didn’t need to discover as I tried to stay awake. Every time my eyes blinked closed I had to fight to open them back up. I wasn’t ready to let exhaustion win over and take me.
“Hey, man!” I heard a male voice coming from the opposite side I was facing. I tried to turn my head but even that was too much. “What do you have there?” he asked my captor, gleefully.
Alec stopped and slightly turned without saying a word, although I was sure his smile was wide and full of pride. He stood still and was going to let the newcomer have a better look at my face. The man who I could only describe as weasley, with his narrow nose and beady eyes, knelt down so we were face to face. He tilted his head to the side as he looked over my facial features, but then his eyes went up, looking at the markings on my back. I was only wearing a sports bra, so much of my cursed mark was exposed.
The man stood and ran a clammy finger over one of the more prominent swirls near the bottom hem of my bra, sliding it under and pulling the fabric up. I threw myself away as much as I could when I felt his finger move down toward the side of my breast. He pulled his disgusting hand away from me and laughed.
“Nice catch!” he told Alec with a huge grin as if I were a fish and slapped me on the back hard enough to leave a handprint. I closed my eyes with a wince. “Boss will be very happy!”
I felt Alec shrug as if he didn’t care but I knew his smile was still very smug.
“Gotta take this bitch to her cell,” he said to his friend.
“Sure, man. I’ll see ya when you’re done.”
The guy’s eyebrows raised up and down suggestively and I wanted to throw up. I didn’t think Alec would try anything based on how he reacted to having to hold me, but who knew with him. He was very good at deception. He had us all fooled from the beginning. He even fooled my mates, letting them think he was interested in me for other reasons than he actually was. They thought he wanted to bed me, but he was really playing us expertly. I hated him.
Alec turned back toward the way we were originally going and opened a door, leading us down a long staircase. My body hit his with every step, making me lull further and further into sleep, but I fought it the best I could. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done, staying awake. Whatever he’d hit me with was potent, but I was stronger, even without being able to call on my beasts. I’d been through a lot in my life, as a supe and as a human, but I knew I couldn’t fight it indefinitely. I just hoped I was somewhere relatively safe when I couldn’t fight the exhaustion anymore.
When we reached the bottom, I immediately felt cold, letting me know what we were in a basement of some sort. After walking several more feet, he lowered his shoulder, letting me fall off and onto a chilled concrete floor. My head bounced off the floor after my legs did, making my already tired head swim. I could barely make out the sounds of heavy locks clicking into place as my eyelids became too heavy to open back up and the darkness took over.
* * *
The wind was cold as it whipped around my body and the sun was gone, leaving only darkness over the field. I loved it when my dreamscapes were light and calming, not when they were like this. But what did I expect when the situation I was in was so dire?
I was worried my father wouldn’t be there like he wasn’t there the last time I entered into our shared space. I needed him and his guidance because if there was ever a time to need it, it was this exact moment.
He stood under a tree on the edge of the field, his hands in his pockets and his eyes hard and determined. He stood still, making no attempt to come to me so I walked through the tall grass to get to him. Time was of the essence since it was limited in the dreamscape. I needed to get any help he would offer before my time with him ran out. I hated that there was no time for pleasantries, no time to savor just being in my father’s presence.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
My father’s words were gentle, even though his face wasn’t.
“Dad. Please, tell me what to do. I’ve been…”
“I know, that’s why you’re here. Y
ou’re in trouble.”
“It’s the Council, right? They’re the ones who have taken me.”
He shook his head. “This is the work of one man with illusions of grandeur. He has many followers, in and out of the Council, but there are those who will stand by your side. When they offer their help, trust your instincts. They haven’t steered you wrong yet.”
“Like with Alec?” I looked at my dad skeptically. Alec tricked me, he tricked everyone. I thought he was a good person.
“You knew something was wrong with him, but you wanted to believe he was good because of where he was found. You didn’t trust your gut.”
I looked at the tree to my dad’s left as I considered his words. I was a little weary of Alec because I saw how charming he was. He charmed me too, but I knew that it wasn’t right. I turned my eyes back to my father and nodded, understanding what he was talking about.
Dad looked to the sky and frowned as if he’d seen something he didn’t like, then back toward me, his expression a little more frantic. Suddenly, the wind got stronger and the air got colder, indicating what I already knew from the way my father was looking at me. My time was up.
“Is there anything else?”
I had to speak loudly to have my words heard over the wind that swirled around me and through the trees. Dad opened his mouth to tell me what I needed to know but the wind was too loud in my ears. His words were carried away into the sky, away from me.
“What? I can’t hear you!”
He tried to say it again but the edges of my vision began to blur and moved inward until I was pulled from my dream and away from my dad.
* * *
Shivers wracked through my body, waking me up from sleep and for a moment, I wondered if the coldness from the dreamscape made me cold in reality. The longer I lay there, the more I realized that it was the concrete floor. It was unforgiving and the coldness seeped into my bones, which made me even colder. Even my teeth were clenched together as I tried to warm myself up by rubbing my hands over my bare arms.
When that didn’t help, I rolled onto my stomach and put my shaking palms on the ground and tried to push myself up to no avail. Whatever Alec hit me with when he touched me, drained every bit of my energy. I wondered how long I’d been out.
I looked around the darkened cell, seeing a small mattress pushed off into one corner and a bucket in the other. Knowing the mattress, no matter how dirty it was, would be my best option, I began to move myself in that direction, using my hands, knees, and whatever else I could to get there. It took several minutes and despite being nearly frozen, I was sweating profusely. I had to keep pushing wet strands of hair out of my eyes and it was making the floor harder to grasp. I ended up resorting to digging my nails into the groves of the concrete to push me along. Effective but when I finally made it to the mattress, most of them were broken and bloody. I didn’t care. A little pain would be nothing compared to what was going to happen to me if I didn’t find a way out of there.
I slowly turned myself over to lay on my back with my arms stretched out as far as they could go in the cramped space. Reaching inward, I searched for Soleil and my vampire, not finding either one.
Losing my magic was hard, even if it was meant to be temporary, but it was my choice, so I could live with it. However, having parts taken from you that made you, you, without your consent, well, that was heartbreaking.
Even though I couldn’t feel the strengths of those parts of me, I still felt some of the weaknesses. Hunger being one of them, and I don’t mean for food. The need for blood was strong and I knew it was because I was so drained of energy. Reaching up toward my throat, I fingered the half-inch thick metal band that circled my neck. This had to be what was suppressing my vampire side. I ran my slick fingers all the way around not finding a latch or anything that I could try and pry open. It was completely solid and I wondered how Alec got it on me in the first place.
I needed to find a way to get back all the parts of me that were missing. If I had my magic...
Letting go of the spelled choker around my neck, I reached down to touch the small front pocket of my exercise leggings and found the slight bulge still there, telling me that the potion was still intact. It had only been a day since I last took the potion; at least I thought it’d only been a day. There was no telling how long I’d been passed out. There were no windows where I was to give me hints about the time of day, but even so, I could have been asleep for quite a long time.
I had maybe seven days until I needed it again, but I needed to time things out perfectly if I were going to escape. Deciding to get rid of the potion and let the magic return in it’s own time, hoping that my magic, even being messed up would help me escape, I began to reach into the pocket but stopped suddenly when I heard the knob turn on the door that led down to the basement dungeon.
Two sets of footsteps clomped down the stairs in a rough cadance and I moved myself over to the back of the cell, pulling myself up to sit. I didn’t want to let on how weakened I was, so I did my best to school my worn out features.
As I sat up, I got a better look around the room. The back of the cell was more solid concrete while the front and sides were made up of strong metal bars, with about a three inch space between each bar. There were several cells all lined up, much like we’d found in the detention facilities, but from what I could tell I was the only person down there. That was, until my two visitors showed up.
They both walked across the floor with such confidence, such bravado. I wanted to throw up in my mouth, especially the way they leered at me. One of them looked as though he wanted to stomp me into the ground while the other took in my expanse of skin. His eyes slowly moved over me in a sleazy way and I considered ripping them out of their sockets.
“Look who’s finally awake,” the second one said, his mouth pulled up in what was supposed to be an appealing smile. “Our boss has been waiting for you, sweet thang.”
I curled my lip at his tone and awful term of endearment and sat myself up straighter, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept looking at me as if I would appreciate how slimy he was.
“And who is your boss?” I asked, wanting to get to the matter at hand.
“I think you know who,” the first one remarked, looking down the end of his nose at me. He took a couple of sniffs and turned away disgustingly.
“No, I don’t know who. Why don’t you tell me?” Tilting my head to the side, I couldn’t help but challenge the two idiots. I mean, I had a pretty good idea who the ‘boss’ was, but the fact of the matter was, I was missing a lot. They may know more than me in that situation, but that didn’t mean they were smarter. By far.
The first guy flared his nostrils and put his hand on the lock of the cell door, opening it with magic then rushed inside.
“Don’t play coy. It doesn’t suit a freak like you,” he growled and roughly grabbed me by the arm. “Kenny, get over here!” he called out to the other man and they both had a hold of each of my arms and began pulling me from the cell.
No matter how much I wanted to appear strong, my legs wouldn’t cooperate and they practically dragged me toward the stairs.
“Move!” the first guard yelled in my face when he realized that he would have to take a good bit of my weight.
“I’ll take her,” the other one said and threw my left arm around his shoulder so that he could grab onto my side and lift me up.
We got up a few of the stairs that way when his hand began to ride higher and higher until he was grazing my right breast with his fingers.
“Watch it!!” I shouted and smacked him across the face, making us stumble down a few of the steps.
Once he got his footing again, the first guard reared back and elbowed me in the face, making me see stars and I tasted blood that dripped from my nose. Even though it was blood I was hungry for, my own didn’t sate my needs. I reached up and wiped it away looking dead at the pompous asshole.
“Hit me again, and I’ll kill you,”
I told him, then looked to the one who still had a hold on me. “And if you touch me like that again, I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you before I kill you.”
“Bitch, you should feel flattered.” he muttered and began hauling me back up the stairs.
The first guard rolled his eyes and continued to lead us to the door that led us out of the dungeon.
Chapter Seventeen
The first thing I noticed was the sun had gone down. It was pitch black outside, leaving the hall we were walking through dull and muted. My feet barely touched the floor as I was carried by the two a-holes to see their boss.
We turned a corner and arrived at a solid wooden door that was different from all the other ones in the hall, as if the person who resided behind it was special. The first guy lightly knocked and took a step back as we waited for whoever was on the other side to let us in.
“Enter,” a muffled voice yelled and douche number one turned the knob, letting us in.
My eyes didn’t flit around the room to try and take it all in. No, they went straight to the man, the “boss” sitting behind the desk. He was leaning over, his cheek held by his left hand in a nonchalant manner, as if kidnapping someone was an everyday thing. But for someone like Michael Ironshot, I didn’t dismiss the idea that it was something that he did often. He was the one who imprisoned supes for merely living their lives after all.
A wide, welcoming smile stretched across his face when he saw me. “Emelia! Please! Sit!”
He motioned for the two men to lead me to the folding metal chair sitting across from his desk. They did as he’d instructed, dropping me into the chair and backing away to the only door leading out of the office. They stood on either side of the door and relaxed against the wall as they waited to do whatever else they were told to do.
