I nodded. The two of us weaved through the crowd and I made sure to stay as close to Carter as possible. The idea of finding myself alone in that zoo was about the worst idea that I could imagine. I shuddered at the thought of being stuck back in the basement at Castille's, this time, with him making sure that I didn't get free for a second time.
"What's the plan?" I asked, taking the glass of champagne that Carter offered me. "Just wait for him to pop out?"
"He'll show his face before too long," Carter said. "Guy like Castille is all about being seen. He doesn't come out to clubs like this to be a wallflower."
I nodded and took a sip of my drink, anxiety roiling in my stomach. Nightmare visions whirled through my head of some ape or tiger to something snatching me up as soon as I had my back turned and whisking me into the back of some van, never to be seen again. The thought of this playing out just made me want to down this glass of booze, then another, then another. But I knew I had to keep my head sharp for the night ahead.
I stood next to Carter, getting as close as I could, and looked out over the dance floor. Throngs of men and women gyrated to the music, grinding their bodies against one another, all of them wearing the same sensual, burning look in their eyes. And in the air was a strange scent, something music and primitive. It was the scent of shifters, and I was getting more used to it the longer I spent in this strange world.
"You see him?" I asked, yelling over the noise.
"Not yet," Carter said. "But we don't want to seem like we're looking for him, you know? Try and play it cool; he'll be here." Carter's eyes drifted over the crowd, as mine had been doing. "Come here." He set his drink down and took me by the hand. "Let's make sure that everyone knows we're here."
I barely had enough time to place my drink on a nearby table before I was led onto the dance floor.
"Oh, no-no-no," I said. "I'm not much of a dancer."
"Then let me do the work," Carter said, turning around and staring deep into my eyes. "Just relax."
Carter put both of his hands on my hips and pulled me close. Even through the heat of the bodies packed onto the dance floors I could feel his warmth as he pressed against me. The booze swirled in my head as he began to move his body, the bass from the DJ booth thumping at the base of my brain. Multi-colored laser lights cut through the air, and I could soon feel the eyes of just about every male shifter nearby lock onto me.
I did my best to focus on Carter, who took the lead right away and moved his body against mine. Tension had me in its grips at first, but as Carter gazed down at me, his eyes seeming to glow with desire, the stress melted from my body as the music and dancing took me over.
And all around me, the dancers shifted a bit, their eyes flashing a brilliant orange or a deep red or a coal-black. Fur sprouted from skin and vanished, growls mixed with moans. It was like being in a strange gyre of animals all on the verge of a primal need to rut. And I felt myself slip into it more and more by the moment.
Being in Carter's hands felt right. He held me just the way I wanted, his hands moving up and down my curves his eyes locked onto me with hungry intensity. To my shock, I began to feel wetter from the sheer lustful intensity of the place. As we danced, rubbing our bodies against one another's, I was nearly overcome by the urge to pull Carter off the dance floor and lead him to the nearest private area and let him give me what, at that moment, I wanted more than anything.
But before I could be too lost in the moment, Carter pulled me close and spoke into my ear. "Got him," he said, his eyes focused on some point above my right shoulder. "Up on the second floor. Don't look."
Of course, I wanted to look more than anything. Fear slipped into my stomach like a hot sliver of glass. "What do we do?" I asked.
"No way he hasn't seen us," Carter said. "He's definitely thinking about how to make a play." Then his tone became low and grave. "I want you to know that no matter what I'm watching. Don't be scared. I've got this."
My eyes went wide at this. I didn't know exactly what he was saying, what he was planning, but something told me that I wasn't going to like it one bit.
Unable to resist, I glanced over my shoulder at where Carter had been looking. Sure enough, on the second floor, was Castille. He was seated on a large red velvet couch, his arms draped over the back and a young woman on both sides of him. Several bottles of champagne rested in an ice bucket. He watched over the dance floor like a ruling king, as if looking to see if any girl caught his eye.
For some reason, I found myself unable to look away from him. I knew I was playing with fire, but I couldn't help it.
Then his gaze settled on me.
My heart skipped a beat and just before I turned my head away I saw him rise slightly from the couch. I ducked down into the crowd and tried to hide, but I knew, just knew that he'd seen me.
"Carter!" I yelled over my shoulder. "What do I do?"
But I heard nothing in response.
"Carter!"
I turned to where he was standing, but Carter was gone. My body froze in place, my eyes fixed on where he stood as the dancers moved around me. My heart thudded in my chest.
He didn't just leave me, I thought. No way he just left like that.
I began to weave through the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of his dark hair and lean form. But I couldn't find him anywhere. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced up to where Castille had been seated.
To my horror, I saw that he was gone.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I muttered under my breath.
I knew that he'd seen me and that wherever Castille had gone off to, it surely had to do with me and whatever he had planned. Looking around the club, I spotted the entrance guarded by the biggest, burliest bouncers and made my way toward it. I had no real plan, just hoping that they might be able to do something if Castille made a move.
Carter, where the fuck are you, I thought, my eyes dancing around the club trying to spot him.
I was gripped by both panic and a fierce anger at Carter for abandoning me in a place like this.
Then, before I could consider my situation for much longer, I felt a hand fall down onto my shoulder. Whipping around, I was face-to-face with an with an ugly, bony face, with deep-set eyes, a white ponytail, and dressed in an expensive-looking suit.
"Good evening," he said, his voice a strange tone that cut through the noise of the club. "A guest requests your presence upstairs. Please, come with me."
I panicked. Rushing away from the man, I hurried over to the pair of nearby bouncers. "Someone's trying to kidnap me!" I shouted. "It's that man, over there! Please, help!"
I stabbed the air with my finger in the direction of the man who'd just spoken to me. He didn't budge an inch, a small smirk playing on his long, thin face. Both of the bouncers' eyes flicked in the direction of the man, then back down to me. Then they shared a look and scoffed.
"You want us to do something about that man over there?" one of them asked.
"Please!"
"No can do," said the other. "Not interested in losing my job."
"What?" I demanded.
"That guy over there — that's the fuckin' owner."
Oh shit.
I turned back around and locked onto the man. The expression on his face seemed to be one that said: "now that you've gotten that out of your system, please, come with me."
I tried to make a break for it, running through the doors that the bouncers flanked. But they simply stepped toward each other, blocking my escape.
"You really ought to just drop the theatrics and come with me," the man said. "My guest is one of my most demanding VIPs, and he doesn't appreciate being kept waiting."
Then, he reached down and grabbed onto my wrist holding me tight. I took one last look around me, hoping that Carter would pop out from behind some group of shifters and come to my rescue. But he was gone.
"Let's go."
I was screwed and I knew it. I didn't need to be a detective to figure out just who this man wanted t
o take me to. He led me through the doors that the bouncers had been guarding and up the flight of stairs on the other side. The bass thudded through the walls and with each passing moment my head felt lighter and lighter.
Soon, we reached a narrow, elegant hallway lined with doors on both sides. At the far end was a large set of double doors.
"You don't have to do this, you know," I said. "You know what kind of person he is, what he's going to do to me. You can let me go right now."
It was a long-shot, sure, but it was the only card I had left to play.
"You know," the man said. "If you're going to try to appeal to someone's sense of humanity, you might want to make sure first that they're, well, human."
He then cast a glance toward me over shoulder, his eye shifting into the narrow orange and black of a tiger. At that moment, the hope slipped out of me. There was nothing I can do.
We soon arrived at the doors and the man slowly pulled them open. The room was a small, luxurious space with a large window that looked out over the streets beyond the windows. And seated on a large, plush couch, dressed in his usual finery, flanked by those same women he'd been sitting with before, was Castille.
"There's the girl I've been waiting to see," he said, rising from his seat, and spreading his hands. "Thank you, Mr. Sinclair, for bringing her to me without any fuss."
The man bowed his head slightly.
"Anything for my guests," he said before turning and leaving.
"Girls, go with the nice man," Castille said, waving his hands dismissively toward the door.
A girlish little pout formed on both of their pretty faces, but they obeyed. They hurried out of the room behind Mr. Sinclair. They shut the door, a heavy "thock" sounding from the lock as it clicked shut. I was trapped.
"Well!" Castille said. "What a frightening little day I've had! All day, I've been trying to figure out just how I was going to recoup the loss of what was easily my single largest purchase. Five million—do you have any conception of how much money that is? And for what, not even an evening of the pleasure of your company? What a waste."
"Let me go," I said. "I'm with the Sapiens now. If you pull anything with me they'll be all over your sorry ass."
Castille raised his eyebrows. "You've got some…faith in the abilities of that little organization. Unfortunately, just as with any human organization, their reach is lessened somewhat when it comes to those of us with money. You see, cold, hard cash doesn't simply buy luxury apartments and, well, lovely young ladies like yourself, but it allows for a certain…fluidity with matters like legality." He patted the couch to his right. "Come. Have a seat."
"Not a fucking chance," I said.
Castille's expression formed a pout, not unlike the ones on the faces of the girls he'd just sent away. "Oh, don't be like that. Come, have a seat and let's make this right between the two of us."
I looked around the room, as though I might spot an open window that I could dive out of. With a sigh, fear still hot in my gut, I marched over to the couch and took a seat.
"See? That's not so bad, is it?" He sat back into the soft fabric of the couch. "Have a drink." He pushed the bottle of champagne toward me.
At that moment, a thought formed. I reached forward and wrapped my fingers around the cool glass of the bottle. Then, with a motion that was a fast as I was capable of, I swung the bottle toward Castille's head.
But he was too quick. With an effortless gesture, he stopped the bottle mid-arc. His grip was so tight and firm that it felt like I'd been frozen. His expression was just as calm as it'd been—maybe even a little bored.
"Come now," he said as I struggled to push the bottle down. "You really think something like that is going to work? It's almost cute, how bad of an idea it was."
He yanked the bottle from my hands and poured some of the liquid inside into one of the flutes on the table. "You're going to be here for a while, so you might as well get comfortable," he said, sitting back again, but not before pushing by the base the champagne flute.
I swiped it off of the table and held it close to my chest.
"I think you and I need to come to a little bit of an understanding," he said, running his hand through his hair. "The first thing you need to know is that your escape was a fluke. I admit that I've gotten a bit lax with my security measures over the years, and I suppose I've paid the price. Those girls you stole from me weren't worth nearly as much as you, and I have to admit that I'd gotten a little bit bored with them. So, no big loss—I suppose it was time my little harem got some new blood.
"But you," he said, narrowing his eyes, "you're really something special, you know that? There's a reason I paid so much money for you, and it's not just because of your striking looks. You see, I really believe that you have what it takes to be more than just a harem girl — a real human companion who I could treat as something like an equal. Well, as much as a human could be considered anything like an equal to a shifter, that is.
"So, here's what I'm offering: if you come home with me—this part isn't up for debate, by the by—I'll allow you certain freedoms. You won't have to spend your days in my little basement of pleasure with the other girls. And if you prove to be someone who knows how to behave herself, perhaps I might take you out every now and then. Think of the life of luxury you'd be given. And all you'd have to do is, well, whatever I wanted."
With that, he reached forward and placed his hand on my bare thigh. My skin crawled, and it took every bit of restraint I had not to pull it off of me right away. "So," he said, his voice turning low and honeyed. "What do you say? You ready to be a good little girl?"
I pulled my lips in, preparing to form the first letter of the first word I wanted to say. But before I could get out even a single breath, a heavy knock sounded from the door.
"Who is it?" Castille. demanded
"It's, ah, Mr. Sinclair."
"What do you want? I told you very specifically that I wasn't to have any disturbances!"
"This is a very important matter," came the voice on the other side. "Please open the door so that we might discuss it."
Castille's eyes narrowed. He cast a glance toward me that made it clear that he didn't want me to move a muscle. Once at the door, he pulled it open, revealing Mr. Sinclair, a worried look on the man's face.
"Well?" Castille asked. "What is it?"
"Someone else wanted to speak with you," Sinclair said.
Then, before anyone could say or do anything else, a fist flew into Sinclair's side, knocking the wind out of him. Before I could process just what the hell had happened, Carter stepped into the room.
"Hope I wasn't interrupting anything," he said, raising a gun and pointing it directly at Castille's head. "Now, sit your ass down."
A beaming smile formed on my face as I realized what was happening, that Carter hadn't abandoned me.
"Where the hell were you?" I shot out. "I thought you'd left!" He shook his head, a smirk on his lips. "Didn't I tell you not a minute before that to trust me?"
I guess he was right.
"What the hell is this?" Castille demanded. "Carter Black! I demand to know just what you think you're doing!"
Without saying a word, however, Carter swiped the gun through the air, connecting with the back of Sinclair's head. The man's eyes went wide for a brief moment before he dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks.
"I'm here to finish what we started last night," Carter said, stepping into the room and over Sinclair. "See, you've got a little bit of a human trafficking thing going on, and if you thought I was just gonna stop at rescuing a few girls, then you're dumber than I thought."
Castille whipped around and looked out of the window, as though sizing it up for an escape.
"I wouldn't get any big ideas about that," Carter said. "I've got more than enough agents down there who'd love to throw you into the back of a van. And probably do a little more than that on the ride down to Sapien HQ."
"You have no idea just what the
hell you're doing," Castille said, shaking his head. "One incident of this sort I'm willing to look past—not all that interested in getting the goddamn Sapiens on my case—but coming into my private room at the club I all but own? That's more than I can bear."
"And just what the hell are you going to do about it?" Carter asked. "I've got you right where I want you, you rich prick."
"Are you so sure about that?" Castille asked.
Then, without another word, he reached for a small button near the door. He gave it a quick press, and seconds later, I could hear the heavy thudding of footsteps coming down the hallway.
"Ah, shit," Carter said, looking over his shoulder.
I didn't need him to explain a thing—I knew right then and there it was gorillas.
The massive forms of the beasts rushed into the room, slamming into Carter and knocking him to the other side of the room, his body slamming into the wall. I let out a scream as he landed on the ground.
"Big fucking mistake," Carter said, getting up to his feet.
Castille stood at the door, the hulking apes at his sides.
"Backup, now!" Carter shouted into a small device on the inside of his suit jacket pocket. Then, he shifted into his bear form and joined the fight. I watched in horror as Carter struggled against the apes, their bodies slamming into one another's, roars sounding as they struggled to gain the upper hand. One of the beasts struck Carter in the face, and Carter managed to recover enough to sink his teeth into the arm of one of the gorillas. I sat helplessly, my heart pounding as I scurried to the other side of the room.
Carter was holding his own, but just barely. Then, to my horror, I watched as Castille began to shift into his tiger form. I could hardly keep a thought straight in my head, but I knew that if he managed to join the fight, it'd be all over for Carter.
And that's when I remembered the gun.
Fumbling in my clutch, I pulled out the small pistol. Raising it and taking aim, I let the air out of my lungs just as Carter told me to, the barrel pointing right at Castille. He hadn't yet fully shifted into his tiger form, and I knew that if I was going to shoot, now was the time.
Shifter Wars Complete Series Page 56
