Submitting to the Shadow: Kindred Tales 27

by Evangeline Anderson

  “To our date, Beautiful.” Sonny-boy raised his glass and drained the purple juice in one gulp.

  “To our date,” Sammi murmured, though the words tasted like ashes in her mouth. She also took a sip of the juice, though she didn’t drain the glass like her captor had.

  “Well…” He slapped the glass back down on the table in apparent satisfaction and licked his lips. “That was delicious! Now it’s time for dancing.”

  “Dancing?” Sammi looked up at him uncertainly.

  “Sure—you taught me how to dance, don’t you remember?” he demanded, frowning at her. “Right before the prom? But then you got mad and said I shouldn’t take that whore, Sara Daniels to the dance. You told me you were the one I ought to take—remember, Beautiful?”

  “I…I did?” Sammi asked.

  He glared at her.

  “Of course you did! You always had to remind me you were the most beautiful one of all—remember? Remember how you called me your ‘handsome Sonny-boy’ and I always called you ‘Beautiful?’ Remember? Remember?”

  He was making the angry bear face again. Sammi felt her stomach knot with fright.

  “Of course, I remember, my handsome Sonny-boy,” she said quickly. “How could I forget?”

  “Good.” He nodded and gave her a warning glare. “It’s good you remember, Beautiful. I would hate to have to do anything to you to jog your memory, you know?”

  Sammi stared at him in horror. She thought she was beginning to recognize the roots of her captor’s fantasy. A controlling mother and a bad childhood must be the cause of his psychosis. It was sad, of course, but nothing could excuse stalking and kidnapping women the way he had done to her. Especially since he seemed to realize he was acting out a fantasy and was demanding that she play along.

  “Come on.” Standing, he offered her his arm again and Sammi had no choice but to rise and take it.

  Sonny-boy led her out into the living area. The sitcom on the TV had changed to a scene of couples slow dancing with the girls leaning against the boys as they swayed to the music.

  “This is perfect!” Sonny-boy exclaimed, grinning. “Come on, Beautiful—let’s dance.”

  Before Sammi could object, he yanked her into his arms. Squeezing her tight so that her face was pressed uncomfortably close to his chest, he began humming along with the music coming from the TV and swaying roughly back and forth.

  Jerked around like a rag doll, Sammi could do little to control the situation. As before, she found it horrifying in the extreme to be so close to her captor. It wasn’t just the fact that she was scared to death of him either. It had to do with his smell, she thought. It was wrong somehow. Besides the fact that he smelled like stale sweat and spaghetti sauce and canned clams, there was also the fact that his scent was not the right one.

  It’s not right because it’s not Roark, whispered a little voice in her head. Admit it, Sammi—even the most expensive cologne in the world would smell wrong to you if it didn’t smell like Roark.

  Which was true. She desperately missed Roark’s dark, spicy scent. Sonny-boy’s reek was bad, but it was made worse by the fact that her entire body seemed to reject the idea of being with anyone who wasn’t the big Shadow Twin.

  I wish Roark was here now, she thought, tears pricking her eyelids. I know he hates me now but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t stand by and let me get raped and murdered. Oh, Roark—I’m in so much trouble! If only you were here to help me!

  To her surprise, she seemed to hear Roark’s voice in her head. It was as clear as when Meg had called her on the think-me, but much more intimate somehow.

  “I’m coming, my darling! Just hold on, I’m coming to you as fast as I can!”

  Sammi stiffened with shock—not that her captor noticed. He just kept jerking her back and forth like she was a living mannequin he was pretending to dance with.

  I must have imagined it, she thought. Because I’m so desperate and I feel so helpless. There’s no way it can be real—no way I really heard his voice.

  “Yes, you did—I am coming for you,” Roark’s voice spoke again in her head.

  “But how—?” Sammi sent back tentatively. “I don’t understand.”

  “We have a partial bond,” Roark explained. “The Goddess has enhanced it for a time to allow me to find you. I’m coming, my darling! I swear I am!”

  Now Sammi was sure she was imagining things. She knew Roark didn’t believe in the Kindred Goddess from several off-hand remarks he’d made about the foolishness of religion. And she wasn’t sure about the Goddess herself, though she knew most of the Kindred and their wives believed whole-heartedly in the deity.

  I’m going crazy, she told herself. Going stark, raving mad because I’m so scared.

  “Hey Beautiful, are you tired of dancing already?” Sonny-boy’s harsh voice boomed in her ear, making Sammi jerk her head up to look at him.

  “Tired of dancing?” she asked stupidly.

  “Yeah? Are you ready for our date?” He raised his bushy black eyebrows at her significantly.

  “I…I thought we were on our date already,” Sammi faltered.

  “Yeah, but the most important part of our date. You know, where you take me to the bedroom and teach me how to be a man?” His piggy little eyes were filled with lust as he looked down at her, making Sammi long to squirm away from him.

  But she sensed that if she made him mad now, things would move very quickly to their ultimate—and probably deadly—conclusion.

  “Oh, that part,” she said, trying not to let the revulsion she felt show in her voice. “Um, that’s important, of course, but I think we should keep dancing for a little while longer. I don’t…” She swallowed hard. “Don’t think you quite have the steps down yet and…and I want you to be your best at the Prom, right?”

  “Oh, right. Okay.” He nodded agreeably. “Well then, rub yourself against me some—like you did the first time we danced, okay?”

  “Okay, sure.” Feeling sick, Sammi rubbed her breasts against his chest, pretending to get into the music which was still playing on the old TV set.

  “Mmm, that’s nice.” Sonny-boy nodded in approval. “That’s the way we danced before.”

  Sammi didn’t answer. She just closed her eyes and prayed that she would find a way out of this…though she had no idea how.

  Fifty-Three

  The male who had kidnapped Sammi from the HKR building had said that her stalker had an old shack way out in the woods at the end of a dirt road. As Roark followed her fear, he also scanned for any sign of a shack and a dirt road. He had to fly low to do it—the light was fading fast and the dense forest canopy blocked much of his view.

  Luckily, it wasn’t only sight that guided him.

  He could feel Sammi’s fear growing and he had even been able to send some thoughts into her mind and receive some of hers in return. Unfortunately, she had decided that his mental voice was a figment of her imagination—a stress-induced hallucination.

  Roark gave up trying to convince her what she heard was real and just concentrated on finding her. Now that they had made contact once, her emotions were even clearer to him—a beacon that drew him onward as he raced to rescue her.

  At last he saw a flicker of brownish-gray between the tree tops and felt her terror grow even stronger. He caught a glimmer of an image through her eyes—she was pressed roughly against a male’s chest and he was jerking her back and forth as Earth music played in the background.

  Keep him dancing, Sammi was thinking frantically to herself. Just have to keep him dancing…

  “Yes, keep him dancing,” Roark sent as he landed the shuttle in front of a run down, two-story cabin that looked like it had been new a hundred years ago. “Keep him busy until I can get to you, darling. I’m on my way!”

  Fifty-Four

  Hearing Roark’s voice in her head again made Sammi jerk in surprise.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with you, Beautiful?” Her captor glared down at her. “You tired of
dancing?”

  “No, no!” Sammi exclaimed. “No, I love dancing! Let’s keep on dancing, Sonny-boy!”

  But it was too late. He had already started dragging her to the bedroom.

  “Now it’s time for the most important part of our date,” he told her as he pushed her inside the very room she had feared the most. “The part where you show me how a man treats a woman like Sara Daniels.”

  “Sara Daniels?” Sammi asked frantically. “But isn’t that the girl you were going to take to the prom? The one you said—I mean, I said—was a whore?”

  She was having trouble keeping his twisted mythology straight but apparently she had gotten this detail right, because Sonny-boy nodded vigorously.

  “You showed me how to do it, Beautiful! You taught me how to dance and then you showed me how to treat a whore. You made me a man!”

  As he spoke, he shoved her on the bed and got on top of her.

  “Hey, stop!” Sammi blurted desperately. He was so heavy she could barely breathe. “You…you can’t treat me like this, Sonny-boy!” she gasped, trying to play into his fantasy and make him stop. “You…you have to treat me with respect!”

  “Whores don’t deserve respect.” His tiny black eyes were bright with a mixture of fury and lust. “And that’s all you ever were, Beautiful—a whore.”

  “I’m not—” Sammi started but he didn’t let her finish.

  He shoved his face close to Sammi’s and glared into her eyes.

  “That’s why you taught me how to dance and rubbed yourself against me and took me in the bedroom and taught me how to be a man and how a man treats whores,” he spat at her, his words tumbling over each other in a kind of religious fervor.

  “Sonny-boy, please!” Sammi pleaded desperately. But it was too late to stop him— clearly he was working himself up, losing himself in his own sick fantasy.

  “You taught me how because you are a whore!” he snarled. “Because—”

  He stopped abruptly and pulled back, his nose wrinkling as he inhaled. Bending forward, he pressed his face to Sammi’s neck and sniffed suspiciously. When he pulled back, he was glaring at her.

  “You didn’t wear your perfume like I told you to, Beautiful,” he said in an accusing tone. “That’s very important—you have to wear the perfume.”

  “Okay…” Sammi’s throat was so tight with terror she could barely get the words out. “Okay, just…just let me up and I’ll put it on.”

  To her surprise, he did indeed raise up off her—but only enough for Sammi to reach for the purple perfume bottle on the night table. She squeezed it tightly in one hand, feeling the sharp angles of the glass bottle dig into the meat of her palm.

  One chance, she thought desperately. I only have one chance at this!

  Turning the bottle, she pretended she was about to spray some on her throat. But at the last minute, she whipped the purple bottle around and sprayed it directly into her captor’s cruel black eyes.

  “Arrrgh! You bitch! You whore!” he roared, rearing back as he grabbed at his face.

  Sammi took the opportunity to squirm out from under him—mostly, anyway. One of her legs was still pinned under his heavy torso. She started to spray him again, but a blow from his arm knocked the perfume bottle out of her grasp. It fell with a muffled thud to the carpeted floor and she was once more weaponless.

  Or was she?

  Looking down, she saw the sharp heel of the black stiletto she was still wearing on her free foot. Without thinking, she reached down and plucked it off. Reversing it, she gripped the top of the shoe and rammed it into her captor’s eye.

  Or that was what she had planned to do, anyway. At the last minute, he moved again and the sharp heel of the shoe hit him in the throat instead.

  Sonny-boy made a muffled gagging sound as the sharp heel hit him right in the larynx. He grabbed at his throat, which was bleeding now, and tried to shout something at Sammi. No sound came out but she could see his thin, spit-flecked lips mouthing the words, Bitch! Whore!

  Suddenly two thick hands were around her neck. Sammi gasped and tried to hit him with the shoe again, but he elbowed it out of her hand and started to squeeze.

  “No!” she shrieked, but it came out as more of a frightened whimper. “No, stop! Stop!”

  “Whore!” Sonny-boy’s voice was back as a hoarse, raspy whisper. “You’ve always been a whore, Beautiful. And now I have to kill you for it—again!”

  The hands tightened on her throat and Sammi started to see black spots dancing in front of her vision. She was vaguely aware that there was a pounding sound coming from somewhere—maybe from the door at the top of the stairs? But she couldn’t concentrate on that—couldn’t think of anything except how badly she needed to get some fresh air—how badly she needed to breathe…

  Fifty-Five

  Roark could feel her fading fast. He was hurting her—the bastard was killing her and Roark couldn’t get to him to stop him—the door was locked!

  He kicked the thick wood again and again and again but he might as well have been kicking iron. Unlike the rest of the house, this door was new and it had been made to withstand any assault. Roark felt like he was going to go mad—he was desperate to get to Samantha!

  “Goddess!” he cried. “Goddess, help me!”

  There was no answer but he suddenly felt a rush of strength infusing him from some outside source. A final fierce kick splintered the wood and broke the lock and Roark went charging down the stairs.

  “Samantha!” he shouted. “Samantha, I’m coming!”

  Fifty-Six

  Someone was calling her name from far, far away—almost too far to hear. Sammi was still fighting for air but the hands around her neck were too big, too strong. His thumbs were digging into her windpipe and black flowers were blooming in her field of vision.

  She still caught glimpses of her captor’s face, looming above her like a rancid moon. He was grinning down at her with furious glee and chanting over and over in a hoarse, ragged whisper,

  “Whore…whore…whore…” as he squeezed and squeezed…

  Suddenly someone new intruded on the scene.

  “You son of a bitch, get off my female!” a deep, angry voice roared. It rang in Sammi’s ears, despite her fading senses.

  And then someone was dragging Sonny-boy off her.

  “Let go, you bastard. Let go!” the same deep voice was shouting.

  The big, hot hands came loose from Sammi’s neck at last and she was able to choke in a gasp of air. She was too weak to move but she could see two forms struggling in front of the bed. Both of them were huge but one was bigger and had red eyes.

  “You bastard,” the red-eyed one was growling. “I’ll kill you for daring to hurt my female. You’re fucking dead!”

  He was choking the other figure, Sammi realized. Choking him the same way Sonny-boy had been choking her.

  Wait! As her vision cleared, she realized one of them was Sonny-boy. And the other one…the other one was Roark!

  He came for me, she thought and her heart swelled. He does care—he loves me after all!

  She tried to tell him to be careful, but no voice came out at all when she tried to talk. There was only a stabbing pain where the big thumbs had dug into her neck that made Sammi gasp in pain and put a hand to her wounded throat.

  In front of the bed, the fight went on but now the light was fading again. The hot, hard hands were gone but they had done their damage. Blackness began to eat ragged holes in the reality around her and Sammi thought,

  He killed me after all. Roark came but he was too late. Too late…

  And then everything went dark.

  Fifty-Seven

  Roark wanted to choke the bastard to death but through the partial bond he could feel Samantha fading. With a grunt of effort, he pushed the human male against the door frame and reached for his blaster. He should have used it before now, but the sight of his female being attacked had triggered the overpowering Rage inside him—the berserker fury
which comes over all Kindred warriors when their female is threatened.

  But time was of the essence. Samantha was injured—perhaps badly. He needed to finish this and take her back to the Mother Ship for immediate medical attention.

  Yanking the blaster free of his belt, he shot the human male in the guts twice. The male’s small, piggy eyes widened in surprise as he sank to the floor. Looking down, he reached for the place where his internal organs had been…and found only a gaping hole.

  “You…killed me,” he gasped, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  “If I didn’t, I’ll finish the job in a minute,” Roark promised him grimly. Turning, he ran to the bed and knelt beside Samantha’s limp form. Her face was white and there was a ring of dark red marks blooming around the fragile stem of her neck.

  The sight made Roark sick with fear.

  “Samantha?” he whispered. “Samantha can you hear me?”

  He got no sign from her but he could still feel her inside his head through the partial bond the Goddess had strengthened. But she seemed to be fading fast—her life force was flickering like a candle flame about to go out.

  “No!” Roark gathered her into his arms as carefully and quickly as he could. “No, Samantha—stay with me! I love you—I’m sorry I was such a fool. Please, stay!”

  He got no response but he thought he felt the candle flame inside her grow just a tiny bit stronger. Cradling her against him, he lifted her off the bed. Stepping over the limp body of her captor, he started to leave—but was stopped when something grabbed hold of his boot.

  Looking down, he saw that the human male was somehow still alive, despite the gaping gut wound. His eyes were crazed with fear and pain and he was trying to say something.

  “Can’t…leave me…this way,” he wheezed, his eyes rolling up towards to meet Roark’s gaze. “Need…help.”