Finding Wisp (Finding Us, #2)

by Noelle Marie

  “Proper bathrooms are for good girls,” he pointed out simply.

  My face burned. On one hand, I wanted to argue. On the other hand… well, I really had to go.

  Felix didn’t turn away, exactly, when we reached the toilet, but he released my arm and averted his eyes, at least, so after only a few seconds of internal debate, I jacked down my pants and underwear in one quick motion and forced myself to go.

  I had my pants back on before I’d even fully stood from the toilet, and to my relief, the porcelain bowl flushed when I pulled its lever. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a basement that reeked of human excrement for “the next month” if what Felix had said was to be believed. (And at this point, I had no reason to not believe it.)

  Before I could ask how I was supposed to wash my hands, Felix once again had me by the arm and he started dragging me back to what I had begun to think of as “my” corner of the basement. To my surprise, however, instead of wrestling me back down onto the mattress, he lifted the plate of food off the chair he’d brought down with him and gestured for me to sit.

  I hesitated, glancing distrustfully between Felix and the foldable chair. I had assumed the seat was for him.

  Felix raised an unimpressed eyebrow at my deer-in-the-headlights impression. “Aren’t you hungry?” he demanded, gesturing towards the platter in his hand.

  My stomach answered for me, releasing an embarrassingly loud grumble at the question. Fighting back a blush, I nodded.

  “Then sit,” he insisted.

  I wanted to demand to know what the catch was, but I was desperate enough for some food that I reluctantly sank into the chair.

  A moment later, I wished I hadn’t.

  Instead of handing me the plate, as I’d assumed he would do, I watched as Felix plucked a cheese cube from the array of food before attempting to bring it to my mouth.

  He wanted me to eat from his hands.

  Before the piece of cheese could come into contact with my lips, I jerked away from the offering, simultaneously slapping his hand away and bolting upright from the chair. “You’re not hand-feeding me!”

  I didn’t care if it felt like my stomach might eat itself.

  Felix raised an unimpressed eyebrow at what he undoubtedly considered a childish tantrum. “Shifters enjoy providing for their mates,” he explained slowly, like he was talking to an irrational toddler. “It brings us great satisfaction to be able to directly feed them the fruits of our labor. The least you can do is accept it graciously.”

  Derek had never made me eat from his hands, I wanted to argue.

  But you’re not Derek’s mate, are you? a voice pointed out, and my spine lost just a little of its steel.

  “Now sit and open your mouth.”

  Really?

  Stubbornly clenching my jaw, I shook my head.

  Patience withering away, Felix grabbed me by the elbow and jerked me back down into the chair. “Open your mouth,” he demanded tersely, repeating his earlier order, “or starve.”

  Felix picked up a green grape from the platter and held it to my lips. For a long moment, I remained frozen in indecision. It went without saying that I didn’t want the man’s fingers anywhere near my mouth (nor did I want to give him the pleasure of obeying his orders), but… was I really going to let my pride get in the way of procuring food?

  My stomach twisted.

  Taking a deep breath in through my nose, I sternly told myself that there were worse things Felix could be forcing me to do and reluctantly opened my mouth.

  After all, I could live with a bit of self-loathing, but not without food.

  “Good girl,” Felix praised, placing the grape on my tongue.

  The compliment churned my stomach, ruining the tart flavor of the grape completely. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” he added.

  And just like that, I couldn’t do it.

  If Felix had been silent while he fed me, I might have been able to bring myself to swallow the grape and keep eating, but his ongoing commentary was even harder to endure than the feeling of his fingers on my lips.

  Refusing to second guess the urge, I braced myself for his reaction before spitting the half-eaten grape into Felix’s face.

  Felix froze.

  For a long, tense moment, the man was utterly still. Then he calmly wiped the spittle from his forehead. His gray eyes were like steel when they met mine. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”

  Before I could decipher what he meant by that, Felix flung the platter of food against the wall behind my head so hard that it shattered with a crash. Glass and fruit went flying everywhere.

  I bolted for the stairs, but Felix’s arms were wrapped around my middle before I could make it even two steps in their direction.

  “Let go!” I shrieked.

  As usual, Felix ignored my struggles.

  Throwing me down onto the mattress, he wasted no time twisting my arms behind my back. Then, taking special care to dig his fingers into the bruised skin of my wrists, he strapped me back into the manacles.

  Much like he’d done that morning, Felix grabbed me by the roots of my hair and jerked my head around as he pleased, forcing me to look at the mess of food on the floor. “You see that?” he hissed into my ear. “You can stay down here tonight and look at what you could have had if you. had. only. listened.”

  He released me none-too-gently before standing. Then he turned on his heel and left without another word.

  I listened as he stomped up the stairs, not quite sure if I felt victorious or – I glanced at the wasted food – very, very foolish.

  I’d had my answer by the next morning.

  I had been so hungry that I was sick. My stomach had felt like a massive cramp, and the only thing stopping me from throwing up had been the knowledge that I would be stuck, covered in my own vomit, for hours on end as a result.

  Well, that, and because there was nothing to throw up.

  When Felix had returned that evening with a glass of water and plate of roast beef, I’d forced myself to behave, and firmly stamping down my pride, I’d allowed him to feed me.

  Unfortunately, only a small percentage of our time together was spent by Felix hand-feeding me a variety of foods. He forced other disparaging tasks onto me as well.

  He spent one evening working on my “deplorable” manners, insisting I say “thank you” after every little thing, including when he allowed me to use the toilet and after every bite of food he gave me. I’d “accidentally” slipped in a “screw you” at the end of the lesson and had gotten a box on the ear for my efforts.

  While not particularly painful, the smack had startled me. For all his transgressions, Felix hadn’t hit me before then, and while I didn’t think he would ever damage me beyond repair – I was pretty sure the Vanderbilts wanted me in relatively good condition, after all – that didn’t stop me from treading a little more lightly around the man from then on.

  I forced myself to go through the motions and perform the majority of the demeaning activities he bestowed upon me, like kneeling on the cold, hard floor for over an hour just because he’d asked me to do it.

  After all – as Felix so often reminded me – my future husband expected obedience whether I understood the intent of the task he requested I perform or not.

  Creak.

  I was pulled from my thoughts by the familiar sound of Felix’s footsteps on the basement stairs.

  I waited anxiously for him to appear at the bottom of the steps, hating myself a little for the way my stomach plummeted when I saw that he hadn’t brought any food with him that night.

  Instead of approaching me like he usually did, Felix stopped at the bottom of the steps and stared. He tilted his head, sharp eyes examining me from head to toe. “You are positively filthy,” he declared after a while, his disgusted tone implying that I should be ashamed.

  Like I had a choice in the matter.

  “Tell you what,” he continued a moment later, taking
one step towards me and then another, “you promise to be a good girl and I’ll let you clean up in the upstairs bathroom.” He kneeled in front of me. “How does that sound?” he asked.

  I eyed him suspiciously, sure this was a trick somehow and refusing to allow hope to blossom in my chest at the prospect of getting out of the basement for the first time in a week.

  Felix raised his eyes at my lack of response. “Well?”

  Despite my reservations, I would have been a fool to say “no” and so grudgingly nodded.

  Felix grinned. “Wonderful.”

  Riiip.

  I flinched at the sensation of the duct tape being removed from my mouth, still unused to the sudden jolt of pain that accompanied the action. Felix unlocked the cuffs before escorting me up the stairs. I’d graduated from being dragged around by my arm to having his hand pressed firmly to the small of my back.

  I honestly think I preferred the dragging.

  Regardless, I wasn’t foolish enough to try to run. A woman my size had a small enough chance against a regular man of Felix’s height and girth, but absolutely no shot at all against a shifter.

  When we reached the top of the stairs, Felix led me to the living room bathroom, opening the door and ushering me inside.

  I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above the sink when I entered and winced. My skin was even paler than normal, making the spattering of freckles across my nose (along with the dried blood clinging to my chin) stand out starkly. The blue bruises underneath my eyes from lack of sleep didn’t help the look. Nor did the heap of tangled, greasy hair atop my head.

  I looked frail – worse, defeated – and angry tears sprang into my eyes at the sight. I quickly blinked them away, not about to let Felix see.

  Speaking of Felix… the man was distracted, running water into the tub like I was some helpless, little girl who couldn’t do it herself. Instead of pointing that out, however, I took the opportunity to scope out the room, glancing around surreptitiously to see if anything had been left out that I could smuggle downstairs and use in an escape.

  Because that’s what I was going to do.

  I didn’t know how, exactly, but I did know that I couldn’t live like this for much longer – not as Felix’s basement-dwelling prisoner and definitely not as Graham Vanderbilt’s docile, new bearer-bride.

  I would figure something out. I’d done it once before, after all. It was how I’d ended up unconscious in the river that ran through Der-… through his land.

  To my surprise (and delight), as I looked around, the glint of a razor blade on the edge of the sink’s vanity caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what sort of damage I could inflict with it in a sneak attack, but it was better than nothing.

  I was more eager than ever to get Felix out of the room so I could grab it.

  “I thought you were going to let me clean up,” I pointed out, trying to hurry him along.

  Felix glanced up from where he was kneeling over the tub, testing the temperature of the bath water. “Is that what I said?” he asked. “Silly me. What I meant was that I would be cleaning you.”

  I tensed, equal parts disbelief and disgust filling me. My mouth was moving before I could even think to stop it. “I’m not getting naked in front of you,” I stated bluntly.

  Felix had the nerve to frown, like I was somehow being unreasonable. “Well, you’re certainly going to be expected to get naked in front of your husband,” he pointed out. A sly smile spread over his face. “Consider this practice.”

  I scoffed.

  Felix’s eyes hardened. “I’m not going to ask you again, Sloane. Now strip.”

  You didn’t ask at all, actually, I wanted to point out, but I had (just) enough sense not to. Instead, I lowered my hands to the waistband of my pajama pants, fiddling with the elastic, hoping he would interpret the action as a sign of my compliance.

  Somehow, the man bought it, and he returned his attention back to the bath.

  Knowing I only had a few moments to act, I tore my hands away from my pants and snatched the razor off the sink. I lifted it over my head, intent on bringing it down and trying to slice him – hopefully somewhere deadly like the neck or the wrist.

  Before the blade could connect with his skin, however, Felix turned, catching me by the forearm at the last possible second. His eyes flashed yellow, and my breath hitched. (Definitely not in the good way.) I tried to jerk my arm out of his hold, but Felix’s grip was firm – unyielding.

  We scuffled in the cramped space for about half a minute before Felix used his superior strength to throw me up against the wall. He pinned me in place, the front of his body pressed against mine as he banged my arm, still held above my head, against the wall until I was forced to release the razor.

  It hit the ground with a harmless clink.

  “You actually thought you could get the jump on me?” Felix purred, his face so close to mine that I could taste his breath. To my horror, I could feel the proof of his arousal in his pants. “You love doing everything the hard way, don’t you?” he added before abruptly hurling me into the bath.

  My head smacked against the porcelain tub so hard that for a moment, I saw stars. Before I could recover enough to even think about pulling myself out of the water, Felix was there, hovering over me. He grabbed me by the hair before dunking my head into the lukewarm bathwater.

  I wasn’t ready for it, and it rushed into my mouth and nose.

  When he pulled me back up a few seconds later, I coughed the water back up, choking on it. “Learn your lesson yet, sweetheart?” Felix asked.

  “N-no!” I sputtered.

  No sooner had the word left my mouth than my head was submerged back under the water. He held me there longer this time, until my lungs burned and I was half-convinced he meant to drown me.

  When he finally pulled me back up, I hastily sucked in oxygen, black dancing along the edges of my vision.

  “What’s it going to take to get you to heel, huh?” Felix demanded, shaking me. “Do I need to go ask Derek for advice, is that it?”

  I froze, my struggling coming to an abrupt halt in my shock. I had made sure to never, ever mention Derek’s name to Felix.

  “What’s wrong, hmm?” he asked, voice practically dripping with mock concern. “Didn’t think I knew the name of your little boyfriend from the woods?”

  I swallowed hard before forcing myself to speak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Felix smirked. “Pine Ridge. I recognized the name as soon as Cornelius told me that’s where they’d found you.” He paused, tilting his head to the side. “You want to know what from?”

  “I take it you’re going to tell me either way,” I pointed out tersely.

  Felix’s grin didn’t lose a hint of its merriment. “I remembered it from the last time I was there – from when I paid a visit to Boone and Rose Blackwood – from when I burned their house to the ground.”

  I had taken such special care to separate thoughts of Felix and Derek in my mind that my brain struggled to comprehend his words.

  “You see,” Felix continued, “Derek’s parents had the unfortunate habit of messing with things they shouldn’t. Mr. Vanderbilt asked that I make an example of them.” Felix sneered. “And what an example it was. I still remember the way Boone howled when I put the gun to his little mate’s forehead and pulled the trigger.” Using the grip he still had on my hair, Felix jerked me forward so close to him that his nose brushed my cheek. He dragged it to my ear. “It would be a shame if little Derek followed in their footsteps, wouldn’t it? I watched his parents burn for their convictions. I’d so hate to have to watch him burn for yours.”

  It was a blatant threat, and Felix was obviously striving for a reaction. But I couldn’t move, let alone speak.

  He shook me. “That would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?”

  I forced myself to nod.

  “The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Derek doesn’t need to pay for your
mistakes. Not if you. just. listen.” Felix finally released the hold he had on my hair, reaching past me to calmly grab a bar of soap.

  I flinched when his arm brushed against my chest in the process. My soaked camisole was sticking to my skin and left absolutely nothing to the imagination, but I was so numb that it was all I could do to feebly cross my arms over my breasts.

  “Now, be a dear and hold still for me, hmm?” Felix asked, rubbing the soap down my arm in a manner so tender that I wanted to scream.

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  For Derek’s sake, I forced myself to obey.

  Felix’s responding grin was animal. “That’s a good girl.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I had never felt more like an animal stuck in human skin than I did waiting for Monday to arrive.

  In fact, in an effort to gratify him, I spent the night before the meeting Abram had scheduled with Wisp’s father pacing back and forth in the woods as a bear, sharpening my nails against the rough bark of evergreen trees and hunting stray game.

  But I could still feel him lurking there, beneath the surface, waiting to act. He was there when we left Abram’s cottage early Thursday morning. He was there when we hiked the woods to my cabin and climbed into my truck. He was there when we drove to Newcastle – he hated the city, the traffic, the noise – and rented a motel room to get dressed in our suits.

  Even more than the never-ending clamor of Seattle’s suburbs, he despised the suit Abram had bought for me to wear, abso-fucking-lutely loathed the way the collar was so tight around my neck that the top button was practically digging into my Adam’s apple. He felt suffocated. I felt suffocated.

  There was nothing more either of us wanted to do than tear the suit off, bypass all the idiosyncrasies of Abram’s plan, break into Cornelius Radcliff’s house, and find Wisp – to wrap her in our arms and never even fucking think about letting her go again.

  The fact that our meeting with Cornelius was a mere hour away was the only thing keeping me from losing the shaky hold I had on my control and doing just that.

  The sound of a key being inserted into the lock of the motel room’s door, followed by the jiggling of the doorknob, alerted me to Abram’s return.