The Found: A Crow City Novel

by Cole McCade

  Her cheeks flamed, burning as if scorching through her skin. She curled forward, trying to use her body to shield, to hide, anything when she didn’t have her arms free to cover herself. Sick mortification fluttered in the pit of her stomach. “What are you doing?” she bit off, and ordered her voice not to shake, to tremble—but it wouldn’t listen. “Don’t—you c-can’t—”

  “This is the other half of the deal.”

  Firmly, methodically, he hooked a finger underneath the strap of her tank top, his skin so very rough against hers—then pulled up and snapped. The strap parted and fell against her skin like limp strands of hair. He reached for the other, and she tried to jerk away.

  “You’re—don’t. Stop it. Stop!”

  “No,” he said, and proceeded to snap the other strap.

  His fingertip traced over her skin, following the curve of her shoulder. His touch made sugar of her skin, spread under his caress, horrible and sickly-sweet as he teased a path of nerve endings to life and turned her breaths so very hot.

  “Stop it,” she whispered. “S-stop.”

  But he only continued—down, over the slope of her arm. Down past her naked breasts, and when his knuckles grazed the curve of one she flinched, jerking as the pressure of hard ridges indenting soft flesh did something to her, something raw and throbbing and terrible. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made it worse; worse when it heightened every sensation until there was only his touch, the darkness, and the fire of her own skin.

  Dirty thing, dirty thing.

  His fingers grazed the curve of her waist. With a gasp, she snapped her eyes open. He met her gaze, fox-gold turned hot as melting amber, fierce and animal and stripping her more bare than that exposed, naked flesh. His gaze trapped her like a butterfly pinned to a board, her limbs going slack and her struggles stopping against her will. She hardly felt it, when he hooked a fingertip under the bunched edge of her tank top—then ripped with such effortless strength, the threads of the side seam snapping apart one after the other, until nothing remained of her tank top but rags of cloth. But she felt when he teased those rags from underneath the ropes, as every scrap of cloth stroked and washed against her skin until she was nothing but a trembling tangle of sensitivity and stoppered breaths building tighter and tighter in her chest.

  And she felt when that taunting, teasing fingertip hooked in her panties, slipping into the opening just above her thigh, and she realized what he intended to do.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Suddenly she could move again—and she writhed against the ropes, fighting to squirm away. But she had barely an inch of slack, nowhere to go but into the nylon cords, hanging in midair and so fucking helpless she would scream with sheer rage if she didn’t want to cry with sheer hopelessness. Was he enjoying this? Enjoying watching her struggle? Enjoying how her skin tightened and pulled and her nipples swelled and her breaths came shallow with every touch, her fucking disobedient body whispering dirty thing, dirty thing, give me more of that dirty thing while her mind and heart screamed no, no, not like that, never like that?

  Was he enjoying having her at his mercy, unable to escape his every touch?

  His fingers dug into the fabric of her panties. Clenched it against his fist. Pulled. Cloth creased, bit, burrowed into her dirty, dirty thing, her wet dirty thing, her pulsing dirty thing, and she was a fucking dirty thing when she arched off the seat and cried out and whimpered and mewled, as he dragged the cloth against her and her entire world centered on sweet-rough friction and that slickness, sickness, wet and running like a licking tongue.

  “D-don’t,” she cried again, and yet he only pulled harder, the panties so much worse than the rope when every fold and crease molded to her flesh like liquid fire and left nothing untouched. “Don’t!”

  He paused, held that steady pressure, keeping her on the end of a taut-stretched wire. “Are you a virgin, firefly?” he growled.

  She spat in his face.

  Panting, body heaving, she drew back and spat in his face, and watched with a sort of foggy, dazed satisfaction as it landed in a wet streak on his cheek, dripping down his bronzed skin like a tear. He remained unmoved, watching her steadily, waiting, holding her dangling from the one hand as if she weighed nothing while those damnable fingers pulled her panties against her flesh.

  “My body is not your business,” she hissed.

  “Right now, your body is my property.” He slid a fingertip down into the crease between her hip and thigh, the place where the seam of her panties normally cut in whenever she sat, moved, shifted; that touch was too personal, so close and yet so far, a threat that made her shrink back even as she nearly exploded inside with that hollowness like a rapacious beast, a dragon with an open maw and empty gullet that was hungry, so hungry to be full. “I want an answer.”

  He bunched her panties into his hand again, curling the fabric in stretched wrinkles against his palm—and this time when he pulled he gave no quarter, a single sharp rip and a sound of cloth tearing like tape pulling off the spool, high and shrill. There was a moment’s painful bite, a muted cry welling in her throat, and then the pressure eased as the tatters of her panties fell, forgotten, to the floor.

  Still he watched her. And she, naked with nowhere to hide, curled into herself; her nudity was a presence, a thing touching her and twisting over her flesh to force her to live every moment of her exposure in agonizing detail, every moment of her vulnerability and helplessness. Priest said nothing. He didn’t need to. He never needed to. When he wanted an answer, he got one, and would wait her out as he had before, implacable and unmoving and relentless. She had always imagined men like him to be all force, all bluster, all violence and snarling and threats.

  She was quickly learning that silence—silence and careful, metered application of just enough strength to drive his point home—was as effective as force.

  And even more frightening.

  Dangling from his grip like a puppy, she hung her head. Anything not to meet those piercing eyes; anything to suppress the shame of giving in to the quiet demand in his gaze; anything to make this end, so he would stop tormenting her and leave her alone.

  “…yes,” she mumbled. Still he didn’t speak, or put her down. Defeat sparked into frustration, and she glared at him from under the fall of her hair. “Yes, all right? Are you happy? Is that what you fucking wanted to know?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, and lowered her to the floor.

  Just like that, he set her on the floor, balancing the chair gently to rights. She closed her eyes against the vertigo, the lurch of the ground coming up at her, and kept them closed while she listened to the sound of the chain rattling into place, the ring bolting to the floor. She was exactly back where she’d started. Only now?

  Now she was naked as the day was long, and wishing more than anything for Wally. She clung to the memory of his voice, to the promise and his certainty when he’d made that promise. He’d promised he would find her, and then when he did he’d wrap her up in one of his shirts that smelled like the memory of cotton candy and circus hay, and she would be safe in the arms of one of the few men who would never want to touch her that way, never make her think about her dirty thing.

  Priest’s silence was an oppressive thing, his touch even more so as he brushed her hair back and settled the ropes into place once more, pulling them up until they framed her breasts above and below like a bra without fabric between the straps. She sucked in a hiss through her teeth with every pull of nylon, every brush of his fingers, and thought it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that her body wasn’t her own; that it seemed a thing she’d borrowed from her mother, with the fire between her legs and that yearning that made her run like honey, a legacy she’d never asked for and never wanted.

  She bit her lip to hold back a whimper, as his fingertips flicked over her nipple in passing. The way he touched her was entirely clinical—as if he didn’t care one way or the other that he was lighting her up like sparks struck
from flint to tinder, and humiliating her in the same breath.

  Yet something in his eyes, when she lifted her head…something in his eyes said it wasn’t clinical at all, and he was far from indifferent.

  She tried to speak, her mouth dry and her throat tight. “Why…why are you doing this?”

  “This was the deal.” He settled into a crouch before her, resting his elbows on his spread thighs. “One phone call. No clothing.”

  She scowled. “I never agreed to that!”

  “But you did agree to a deal without knowing the parameters.”

  “I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to talk to my uncle!”

  “You always have a choice.” He rose, powerful thighs flexing to push him up until he blocked out the light. “You pay for what you get. One way or another, and you won’t always have an option that makes you feel safe. That lets you walk away without giving up something of value. And you don’t have much else to bargain with, right now.”

  She peered up against the glare. With the light making halos against his back she couldn’t see his face, couldn’t make out his expression, but something in his voice was…strange. Off. Something distant and retreating, and it frightened her more than that cold, graven-stone calm. She swallowed. “My body isn’t for sale. Nor is it currency.”

  “Who said your body was what I gained from this situation?”

  And once again, he walked away.

  He always seemed to be walking away from her—as if she was the focal point of his existence, right now, and he was either with her or he wasn’t but within each brief, transient moment was the potential for it to end. She wanted him gone. Wanted him where he couldn’t touch her naked body with those rough hands and terrible eyes; wanted him where she couldn’t see the calculation behind his gaze, the timer ticking down each second of her life and when and how it might end. And so she damned herself for her curiosity, damned herself for her impulsiveness, damned herself for her fucking brain not checking her mouth before she spoke—but damning herself didn’t stop her lips from parting, from spilling out:

  “Where are you going?”

  He stopped. Just…stopped, like the batteries had run out right then and there without even winding down. “Work.”

  Work.

  Oh, God.

  Hadn’t he had enough blood for one night?

  Heartsick and heartsore and hating herself for every moment of this, for her softness, for her weakness, for caring about the life or lives of someone out there who wouldn’t give two shits for hers and who was probably doing something awful right now, she leaned forward, straining toward him.

  “Don’t,” she whispered, and it was the hardest word she’d ever said. He was right; sometimes the choice between one option and another was the choice between cutting off an arm or cutting off a leg, but either way she’d lose something. “Please don’t go.”

  Silence without answer; only his back, and the spill of pale, angelic white-gold running down the channel of his spine. Then, gritty, low, oddly broken: “Why do you wish me to stay?”

  “If you leave you’re going to kill someone else,” she whispered. “Aren’t you?”

  He inclined his head. “Si.”

  “Then please. Please stay.”

  He considered for so long she hoped she might have swayed him, hoped she’d diverted him. Hoped whatever force inside him that drove him to kill had been distracted, confused, curious and wondering and wanting to stay, even if only to torment her more, offering herself in sacrifice for a person she would never know.

  Say yes, she begged, and remembered the flash of silver, that ghastly smile opening in the green-eyed man’s throat. Say yes.

  “No,” Priest said, and left her there.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “PRIEST!” SHE SCREAMED, BUT THE rolling steel door only ground down, the chain rattled, and he was gone. With a hoarse sob, she curled in on herself, shaking. Fuck. Fuck. He’d said it was almost dawn, hadn’t he? People would be up and about. The sun would be coming up, the morning glow chasing away darklings that hid by the light of day and sending them scurrying like rats to their holes. He wouldn’t kill anyone that way, and risk being caught.

  Would he?

  How crazy was he?

  If she had to ask herself that after he’d ripped her clothing off and left her naked and tied to a chair, she’d have to say pretty fucking crazy. But when she squirmed against the ropes, she understood exactly why he’d done it; she had nowhere to go, not even the slightest fraction of movement, that wouldn’t make the ropes tease and stroke against her entire body, until electric shivers went through her and she had to stop, gasping.

  That was one way to keep her from struggling.

  Fucker.

  She tilted her head back against the chair and watched the squares of the windows, thin slits cut high overhead like peepholes, as they turned from deep, murky blue to a cloudy gray touched with gold. Sunrise. Sunrise and God, she was so fucking tired. This night had stretched the length of a thousand years, and she wondered if that was her fate: to live a lifetime in a single night, to make up for the moment it would be cut short.

  A frustrated cry welled in her throat, and she let it out. Let herself scream, until her throat was raw and her skin burned from struggling, from twisting, from scraping the ropes against her flesh until it stung and her entire body hurt and still that fucking rope wouldn’t stop touching her as if it was a living thing that pinched her nipples between its tight bands and rolled them, rubbed them, twisted them; that probed and pried between wet lips until she whimpered, until she went tight and hot and her body wrapped in coils of something filthy and slick. She couldn’t let herself give in, but maybe if…maybe if she…

  Maybe if she let go, maybe if she let it happen, this strange fire would lose its hold on her, and she wouldn’t even feel a spark.

  She bit her lip, arched, sucked in a breath as she spread her knees. The ropes slipped deeper between her legs, and her next breath strangled on a tiny sound as it pressed and rubbed up against her clit. Oh—oh no no no, she couldn’t do this, it was wrong, but she couldn’t stop when that taut-strung pressure demanded she twist her hips, roll and squirm and grind herself against the rope like she was pushing herself against a lover’s rough fingers. The hungry thing inside her snarled, its binding feelers probing through her, taking control of her one limb at a time until she had no choice: her body took over, and she tossed her head back against the chair and lifted her hips again and again with a deep, keening whimper that resonated all the way down to her trembling thighs. Friction was a living thing, a beast with its hungry, snuffling snout buried between her legs, dragging in wet, warm bursts of sensation against her clit, against folds that drew tight as if they couldn’t stand the bright hot burn.

  Something inside her contracted, hard—a violent inward pulsing as if she’d compacted in on herself. She curled forward, trying to scream, but nothing came out save a raw, tortured breath. A shot of pleasure punched her in the gut, and she jerked hard enough to make the chair beat a sharp tattoo of wooden feet against the floor, the rattle of the chains like the rattle of her twisting insides as that inward pulsing flooded all the way through her until she was filled with everything and nothing at all, and her knees knocked together and shook.

  Gasping, she hung limp, supported by the ropes when she didn’t have the strength to hold herself up. Cold sank into her until the only heat warming her bones was the mortification burning in her cheeks. She opened her eyes and stared muzzily at her kneecaps as the tremors subsided and those pulses inside her subsided to involuntary, strange twitches and an odd ache. Now was the time, she told herself. When she was numb, her sensitivity dulled. But when she tried to move, the ropes sawed against her clit and she screamed as a sharp shock of pure raw pain tore through her, a flinch of too much and too rough and too everything. She’d only made it worse—too hyper-aware of every touch, and she didn’t dare move more than a micron.

  “Fuck
,” she rasped out, squeezing her eyes shut, breathing in heavy, wet rasps. “Fuck!”

  Don’t cry again, she told herself. Tears never saved you before.

  She held her breath until she was nearly dizzy. Held her breath until she was holding herself inside in every way possible, the way she always did. Stuffing everything she had back into that jar, and if that jar was always fucking empty then it meant she didn’t have much at all.

  When I get out of here. When.

  When I get out of here, I’m…I’m going to do something. Something more.

  But I have to get out first.

  She let her body go limp, easing off the tension against the ropes until she could breathe again, and willed herself to sleep. Gather her strength. There was still a chance—even if she had to climb the walls like a spider to those windows, she’d find her chance. She only needed one moment. A knee to the fucking balls. A good enough head start.

  And this time, she wouldn’t be stupid. Wouldn’t let panic and shock make her naïve. She’d go right to the police, and wouldn’t quit until Priest was behind bars.

  She listened to the sounds of rising morning, of wind and birds, and let herself pretend this was normal. Let herself pretend she was drowsing in the chair next to her father’s bed after standing vigil on a particularly bad night; those nights had always hurt her down to her soul, but those nights were home, back when she’d still lived with the innocent illusion that she was safe in this world and something like this could never happen to someone like her. And by the time sleep claimed her, she could almost feel her father’s hand in her own, his fingertips shaking and cold but so familiar she knew every life-line in the palm of his hand.