The Bid

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “It’s you he wants. You and me,” Jhon pointed out.

  “Then let’s give him what he wants,” she said with sudden ferocity, her fist coming up to scrub furiously at the tears skimming down her cheeks. “Let’s give him so much of us he will choke on it!”

  “That’s my girl,” Jhon said with fierce pride as he drew her in for the tightest embrace he dared. He meant it as a show of strength and support, and she took it as such. By the time he had stepped back away from her the color had returned to her face and was rising high in her cheeks.

  “We cannot go after him in a full frontal assault and he will be expecting us to try and sneak in. What should we do? Why can we not go to the COM with this proof?” Najir asked.

  “What proof? The note isn’t signed and there is nothing to say it is from Majum.”

  “The accusation could be enough to get city guards to search his holdings,” Najir said.

  “She’d be dead and disappeared long before they got to where he’s keeping her,” Hanna said. She frowned. “There’s only one way to do this. I have to go in alone.”

  “What? No!” Jhon barked. “I won’t let you face him alone!”

  “I have no intention of facing him alone. I don’t have a death wish. What I also do not have is any idea as to where they are holding Ashanna. Majum not only has his main residence but he has a country residence. He could also have many more that I don’t even know of. Perhaps somewhere secret where he carries out all his perverse little games. What I do have is two fine warriors on my side, and one of them can track my scent with all ease and be able to find me relatively quickly.”

  “So you mean to go ahead of us, let him lead you to Ashanna and then have us follow and surprise him. But what if he doesn’t bring you to Asha? What if he is lying to you? You know you cannot trust him.”

  “I know. But I can trust my knowledge of him. Majum thrives on the pain and anguish of others. He knows he will get no reaction out of me by having me alone. The best way to hurt me is by hurting my family…and doing so right before my eyes is the only way to make it effective enough for him. He will bring me to her because I will see to it he has no choice. Then, once we are in the same room together, you can come and find me, you and Najir…and I think one other person.”

  “Who else?”

  “Lukan. With all of us trapped in a room with him, Majum will have nowhere to go. He will be very surprised to find himself host to four spitting-mad bellcats.”

  “I don’t like it,” Jhon said, his anxiety clearly written on his features. “It leaves you alone with him and vulnerable to him for much too long.”

  Hanna turned to rest comforting hands over his chest. She leaned in to give him a small kiss on his chin. “We don’t have any other choice. I know that you see that. You are a tactician, Jhon. If you can see some way of doing this that I am not thinking of, some way that will spare my sister pain and humiliation, please let me know what it is. Believe me when I tell you I loathe the idea of letting him have the opportunity to put so much as a finger on me, but I will do anything to rescue Asha and see that she is safe. Please. Tell me how else I am supposed to do that. And tell me quickly, because every minute we waste is a minute more she is in his power.”

  Jhon tried to think, wanting so badly to come up with another plan, but he could hardly see straight because of the fear he felt as he looked down into her frank and expectant gaze. The idea of that monster having her in his power was too much for him to bear. He knew men like Majum all too well. He wouldn’t be alone, would use his borrowed power to make certain no one could get close to his captive. He would be expecting something like what they were planning.

  “Can’t we at least do some recon at his home here in the High City and see if we can scent any traces of Asha?” he asked. But he already knew what her answer was going to be.

  “It’s probably been much too long for us to find and trace a trail of her. And I can’t take the chance, the risk of us skulking around his property and possibly being caught. You know he is going to have his guard on high alert, and his security system is every bit as complex as mine. The only way we are going to be able to defeat it is that it’s set up to keep people out, not cats. Even so, there’s no guarantee you won’t be shot or somehow wounded.” Her hands clutched tightly around his biceps. “I should be more worried for you than you for me. I can keep him off of us long enough for you to get to us, but there’s no telling what you and Lukan are going to run into as you clear the way for Najir.”

  “Shh.” He hushed her gently when he felt her tremble. “This is the type of mission I have trained for all of my life. I will lead them well and easily and I will not let any of us be harmed. Do you trust me to do that?”

  “Of course I do,” she breathed. “You are the one thing I trust most in this world. I have complete faith in you, Jhon.” She turned to look at Najir. “Just as I have complete faith and trust in you, Najir. I know you will not let me down.”

  “I cannot let you down,” he noted grimly, tension wrapped tightly throughout his big body. “I never have before and I am not about to start now.” He reached out to briefly touch her cheek, the petting stroke a little too intimate for Jhon’s liking, but considering the circumstances he let it slide. Despite what he had promised her, Jhon knew there was a good chance that they would not all make it back in one piece.

  “Hanna, you’d best change into something easier to fight in. I know clothing becomes a nonissue once you change into the bellcat, but you may not want to make the change unless you absolutely have no choice. You do not know what kind of witnesses there may end up being,” Jhon pointed out.

  “I know. I will go do that now. Then we’d better hurry off. I don’t want him to have any more time to touch her.” She shuddered when she thought of it, then she pushed away from Jhon and ran up the stairs to her room.

  That left Najir and Jhon at the foot of the stairs alone together. Jhon turned to Najir with a grim set to his lips. “It’s as good a plan as we can come up with in such a short amount of time.”

  “True, but there is one detail I wish to add,” Najir said carefully.

  Hanna walked up to the gates of Majum’s household, her heart racing in her chest and the snarling bellcat roaring angrily in her mind. No one threatened the family. No one. Majum was going to regret the maneuver if it was the last thing she ever did. And if he had laid so much as a fingertip on her sister, he was going to pay for it in ways even his sadistic mind could never conceive of.

  She moved up to the guard at the gate carefully, making sure Majum’s cameras could see her approach and that she held her obviously empty arms out to her sides. The leggings and snug shirt she wore clung tightly to her every curve, very obviously showing off that there was no possible way for her to conceal a weapon. What he wouldn’t understand until it was much too late was that she herself was a weapon concealed.

  “Tell the Baron that Master Drakoulous is here at his bidding,” she said softly to the guard, working very hard at keeping the emotions of anger and outrage from being apparent in anything she did. She might be feeling all of those things, but she refused to give him even an ounce of satisfaction by showing it.

  The guard didn’t even have to call in to check. Apparently they had been told to expect her. The gate opened and the guard walked her up to the main house, letting her through a second locked gate and the front door besides. When she entered the main foyer, she could see straight into the hall and on to the parlor. There her target stood, leaning back against a desk with his arms folded across his chest and his booted feet crossed at the ankles.

  Without hesitation, she crossed to him, noticing out of the corner of her eye that his right-hand man, Hyde Sozo, was just out of the line of direct sight, a little deeper into the room, but he came fully into view the minute she crossed the hall. Majum’s partner in crime was sitting in a wing chair, one ankle hooked over a knee as he gave the impression of lazing back in the chair. But he wasn
’t fooling her. She could smell the tension on his body, like a tightly coiled spring that was oh so eager to be released. Sozo wanted to be a part of what was to come every bit as much as his master did. So, not only would she have to manipulate Majum, but she’d have to work through the cooler head that Sozo represented in this little setup. She could easily trick Majum into losing his temper. Sozo, however, was going to be a strong obstacle working against her.

  “Well, well,” the Baron said. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to take me up on my invitation. But, of course, Hyde knew you would. He knew you wouldn’t leave your poor, defenseless sister here under our tender auspices.”

  “Where is she? I want to see her and I mean right now. This will go no further if you’ve harmed her in any way,” Hanna warned.

  This made Majum laugh. He looked over her head at Sozo. “She says that as if she has a choice now.” His cold eyes then turned to her. “You are in my House now. This is my property. These are my guards. What makes you think you are ever going to leave here at all? What happens to you and your sister now are my decision.”

  “Mmm, except for the part where if I don’t call off Najir in the next hour you will find the city guard jumping over your lawns and a delegation of the COM at your door. You really don’t think I would be that stupid, do you?”

  “That stupid and more,” Majum hissed. “If you don’t call off your dog I will see to it that this next hour will live wretchedly in your little sister’s memory for the rest of her days. So far she’s only gotten to watch us do to others what we will do to her. And believe you me, she is quite thoroughly shaken.”

  “Where is she?” Hanna demanded through her teeth, her hands curling into fists she could not help. She wanted to claw his throat open right then and there and be done with it, but she knew she had to wait. She had to see Asha first. “Or do I need to call on Kell to ask him where it is you do your dirty deeds?”

  “As much as I would have liked to have him round us out into a nice trio”—Majum indicated Sozo—“Kell doesn’t have what it takes to understand and enjoy the darker tastes of life. Oh, he certainly has the Majum blood in his bones, his passions running deeply and, I suppose in their own way, darkly, but he simply wouldn’t understand our enjoyments. No, Kell will remain ignorant of my pastimes. And you can tattle all you want. The boy trusts me. Thinks I’m a saint, to be perfectly blunt about it. I may have to hand over power of this House to him very soon, as you so kindly pointed out, but with me as his sole and most entrusted adviser, he will make for a very pretty puppet. And if he should grow too independent…well, as you also pointed out, I have my ways of dealing with that as well.

  “No, Hanna,” he continued, “I will always have guardianship over this House in one form or another. And with Kell as the leader of it, it will be no different than it is today. He will vote the way I wish him to vote and he will always resent House Drakoulous for all its committed atrocities during the Feuds.”

  “Lies. More and more lies until you are living in a house built of them!” Hanna stepped up to him, her blue eyes snapping with fierce determination. “One day Kell will know what a monster you really are, and on that day I will feel nothing but pity for him. He will be crushed by the understanding that he has been holding a viper to his breast all this time. That he has been so sorely manipulated. Yes. That day I will feel very, very sorry for him. But I will also be there for him. One day, Majum, you are going to fall hard and fast, and House Drakoulous will come to Kell’s aid, burying all ill will between us once and for all.”

  “It must be nice,” the Baron speculated, “to live in such a dreamy world of pure fantasy. The day you speak of will never come. And even if it does, I assure you that Kell despises your House more than enough to keep this Feud going for generations to come. Now, let us stop talking about the future and focus on the here and now. You have a call to make. Although, I must say I am very surprised to see you here alone. Either it means all that beautiful muscle you were so keen to have houses the soul of a coward who would let you face this trial alone; or you denied him access and he obeyed, making him far more subservient to you than I would have ever given him credit for; or he is waiting in the wings with Najir for this call you are supposed to make in the hopes that you will be able to get a message across to him and let him know where you are.”

  Baron Majum stood up straight and began to walk casually around her as he posited Jhon’s reasons for not being there. “But you underestimate me if you think I am going to allow you to have a chance to let that happen. When you make your call you are going to speak only what I tell you to speak and my friend Sozo will hold your sister’s life in his hands for every single second of it. One wrong word and she will die before your eyes.”

  “Bring her to me. I want to see her and I am not going to breathe so much as a word to Najir of anything if I do not see her here before me. I will never make that call. I can promise you that.”

  “Such defiance from someone in such a weak position,” he mused. “It’s absolutely nauseating. Very well then, I will take you to see your sister and you will make that call.”

  Before she could even think to react, Majum suddenly punched Hanna right in her face. The single belt was like being hit face on with a sledgehammer; a stunned Hanna could do nothing but fall flat on her back. Dazed with pain and a jostled brain, Hanna couldn’t put up a fight as Sozo and Majum dragged her up from the floor and hauled her between them out of the rear exit of the main house. She couldn’t even get her feet under her, they moved so swiftly, taking her to one of the many back buildings.

  “How do you know she wasn’t followed? That they aren’t trying to breech the grounds?” Sozo asked his partner.

  “Because they can’t. I’ve doubled the guard and you know the alarms going off will give us plenty of time to kill them both and dispose of them. She thinks she still has the upper hand but we are about to show her just how wrong she is.”

  Leave it to Majum to be so cocky that he did all of his dirty work right there in the main Majum residence in the High City. It was as though he wasn’t even afraid of being caught or being seen. Then again, she had a feeling that it was very rare for any of his victims to survive to a point where they could ever accuse him. He was a cold bastard through and through, Hanna thought, but this one time was all it was going to take for him to make a mistake.

  Hanna had her senses back in place by the time they were dragging her down several flights of treacherous stairs. At the bottom of the stairs was a door; and they opened it and threw her to the floor inside the room beyond it. This time her reflexes served her well and she caught herself against her hands, her body flying lightly around and up onto her feet. She came up with her fists held up defensively to protect herself while at the same time letting her eyes scan the dungeon they had dragged her to.

  To her dismay, there was far more to see than just her sister chained up and banded tightly to the wall, much in the way Jhon had been when he had first come, and just as naked. But she was able to shake off her initial reaction of fury with the utter shock she felt at seeing young children, two in cages and two chained up so tightly they were nearly suspended by their wrists. They were practically babies, she realized with horror. The youngest couldn’t be a day over thirteen, although she couldn’t be certain because he was gaunt with obvious hunger and his face was turned away against the wall. There was a fifth child, a young girl about sixteen, strapped to one of the tables in a spread-eagle fashion. She was there in body, but it only took moments of looking at the glassy vacancy in her eyes to know her mind had left her quite some time ago. And if the bruising on her thin body was anything to go by, Hanna could easily imagine why. They must have been doing horrible things to her for a very long time to have broken her spirit in such a way.

  Her throat went tight with impotent rage, and it was all she could do to swallow it down. She could not show how much this all affected her. Not until she was ready to do so. She w
ould not give them that power over her. If she did, then they would do all of that and worse to her own sister.

  “This is unbearable,” Jhon growled at Najir as he paced around the room for the hundredth time since Hanna had left them. “I want to go after her now! What if he doesn’t let her call here?”

  “We said we would give her an hour before you tracked her scent and that is what we are going to do. We need to stick to this plan if it is going to work. We both know he isn’t going to allow her to say anything to us, and he is counting on that to keep her location a secret. He doesn’t know that as soon as that phone rings we can be on his trail.” Najir was pacing as well, doing no better than Jhon was at being patient. But they knew they had to give Hanna time to be taken where Asha was or it would all be for nothing. The only one in the room who was calm, it seemed, was Lukan. He was in his bellcat form, sitting perfectly still with only the turn and twitch of his ears showing that he was following the men’s movements and their conversation. His tail slowly switched back and forth, the muted gold of his fur broken only by the black rosettes spotted over him.

  For the first time Lukan was in his cat form without being in the enclosure. They figured that since they were in Hanna’s office no one would be the wiser for it as long as the door was closed. No one ever disturbed her when she was in there anyway.

  As if he had no worries for his littermate, Lukan leaped up onto a large chaise and stretched his big muscular body out along the length of it, his natural coloring blending curiously well with the gold and black pattern to the fabric. Now, with lazy half-mast eyes, he could watch the agitated pacing of the other two men.

  It wasn’t that he wasn’t worried for his sister. With a great deal of explanation and with what emotional thoughts he felt bursting from her and these two men, he had come to understand the kind of man this Baron was and what a real danger he might pose.

  To anyone else.