Hill, Meagan - Master Me [Masterson] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Meagan Hill

  “Well, well, Mandy, you’ve been gone five days and have already forgotten your training,” a husky voice muttered. Fear blew through Miranda as she immediately recognized that voice. It was Cabela himself. “In a way, I should reward you for bringing me so many powerful people, but I just don’t have the time to take all of their souls, my dear. You betrayed me.”

  “No, no, Master, I have not betrayed you. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about all these people, Mandy, that you just let into my spider’s lair.” At his signal, people began pouring into the room from every possible direction as Miranda looked on, horrified by what she was seeing. Everyone, including the healers, was being pushed and prodded into the room by armed men. There were twenty-six members of the Masterson group being held at gunpoint by thirteen of the fifteen coven members and seven men that Miranda recognized but could not place. “Welcome to my humble abode, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed your life because it ends tonight, for all of you. You will make the perfect sacrifice for what I am doing tonight, for tonight I bring to life five demons with which I can rule the world!” Cabela cackled madly as the rest either looked on in fervent adoration or horrified fear.

  Miranda’s mind was screaming in panic, her eyes locked with Mitch’s. His own eyes were filled with fear as he watched the crazed warlock hold a wickedly sharp knife to his mate’s throat. He tried to mentally tell her to calm down and give her reassurance, but her own inner panic was making it impossible for her to hear him. Finally, Mitch mouthed the words “Calm down. Listen.” to her several times before he could see her reining in her terror and something more than the screaming panic began to come to him. Unfortunately, Cabela caught the exchange and motioned to the nearest thug.

  “Bring that one here. He’s talking to Mandy.” The guy prodded Mitch’s shoulder painfully with the butt of his gun, forcing Mitch to move toward Cabela and Miranda. He kept his eyes on Cabela, watching his every move, though he could feel Miranda watching him as closely.

  “Be patient, baby. We’ll find a way out. Just keep calm, and keep thinking.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone blast him or something?!?”

  “There is some sort of spell on the compound. As soon as we entered the walls, all of our powers were gone. That’s why you felt like everything was muted. It literally is.”

  “Oh, my god, Mitch, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, baby, but we’ll figure something out. Remember what Mom said. You can finish this all on your own, doing something you already know you can do. We just have to figure out what that is.”

  “What the fuck am I gonna do that any one of you can’t?” Miranda shrilled, panic closing in on her again.

  “Miranda! Stay calm! We have no chance if we can’t think, and we can’t think if we’re panicking. We’ll figure it out.”

  Their conversation was cut short as Cabela jerked Miranda to her feet, mumbling, “I don’t know what you two are up to, but quit. It’s time to get everyone ready for their sacrifice.” Cabela, keeping his hold on Miranda’s hair and the knife at her throat, forced her to walk through the door and down to the ceremony room. The rest of the people followed at the prodding of the armed men.

  Once in the room, the hostages were crowded into a small side room and told to strip. Cabela, needing to go prepare himself for the ritual, passed Miranda off to Carl, who was smiling widely. “Well, well, Mandy. You thought you were so smart, didn’t you, you little bitch? I bet you still have no idea how we figured out what you were doing.” He laughed again as she shook her head. “Strip, and I’ll tell you how.”

  Miranda heard Mitch growl in response to Carl’s command but knew she needed to keep Carl talking. He might give them some clue of how to fight back. Mitch picked up her thoughts immediately and calmed himself, knowing she was right, no matter how difficult it was going to be to have to watch her strip in front of all these people.

  Miranda began to remove her clothes, taking her time, hoping to draw it out long enough for one of them to figure out a way out of their situation. Seeing that Miranda was going to obey his directive, Carl began talking. “You are stupid, bitch. You and your new coven. We tracked you with the GPS on the cell phone. At first, when you flew to Charleston, we were really confused, but when you said you were broken down in east Texas, we figured out you had somehow managed to jump ship and joined up with another coven. A little research and we figured out exactly who your new coven was. We weren’t expecting quite this many people, but hey, the more the merrier when it comes to sacrificial rites. It was quite humorous to watch your group realize their magic was impotent here. White magic always is, but you probably didn’t feel that until you came back, all shiny and clean.” Carl broke off his gloating as he noticed Miranda’s back. “How the hell did you get the branding off your back? And where are all your pretty scars? You know, most of those are mine, other than Cabela’s. They marked you for the whore you are. Too bad you’re not going to be around long enough to earn some new ones. Is the tattoo around your neck their mark of obedience?”

  Miranda froze in shock a moment, realizing that Carl had no idea that the crest she now wore meant she was mated. She felt the same shock ripple through the rest of the group who were quietly listening as they moved to obey their latest order. Finally, all of them were completely nude, including Mitch and Miranda. It was a strange time to feel it, but Miranda could feel a definite tightening in her body in response to seeing Mitch naked again. Apparently, Mitch was similarly affected as his flaccid cock twitched in response, and he smirked at her before shrugging.

  Carl ran a hand down her back and cupped her ass as Miranda struggled not to react. Mitch couldn’t help his responding growl as Malcolm and John put a restraining arm on his shoulders, whispering to him to keep calm. “Hmm, your new master is rather possessive, isn’t he? How come not everyone in the group has the tat?”

  Miranda knew she couldn’t tell him the truth without giving away weaknesses within the group, so she quickly answered, “Sister covens. They don’t require the mark.”

  “Interesting. That must have taken quite a while to put on and hurt like hell.”

  “It went faster than anyone imagined. I’m used to pain.”

  Carl nodded in agreement. “Yes, you sure are. You’ve filled out some, too. You’re not as skinny as you were,” he murmured as his hand continued to explore her skin. Mitch could only look on in fury as he watched Miranda being molested by another man, but she held his eyes, telling him she was okay and that they had to figure a way out. Carl had just cruelly pinched and twisted one of Miranda’s nipples when Cabela entered the room.

  “It’s time. Please escort our guests to the altar,” he instructed, completely ignoring the tension in the room. Malcolm and John continued to hold on to Mitch as he quivered in rage at the abuse Miranda was receiving. Miranda, on the other hand, kept her face impassive and her eyes on Mitch, even as she screamed in pain in his mind.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay, Mitch, calm down! Don’t pull their attention to you, please! Keep calm, and keep thinking!” Miranda begged him with her mind as Carl jerked her away from the group and up to the altar.

  “We’ll be beginning with you tonight, Mandy, since you thought you could outsmart all of us. Stupid bitch. I’m going to murder every one of your new friends and then chop them up into so many pieces no one will ever be able to put them back together.” Cabela motioned for Carl to move her to the altar, which he immediately did, forcing Miranda to lay flat on the altar as he chained her to it. Miranda’s new position didn’t allow her to see much, but she could just make out Mitch, whose face was twisted with anguish, and Malcolm standing next to him, holding him in place. Nina stood just behind Malcolm, looking at Miranda intently, like she was trying to convey a message. Miranda returned her stare for several moments as Cabela moved around the altar preparing for the ceremony he was about to conduct.

  Nina’s word
s circled around her head as she tried to reason out what Nina had meant. “You already know how to do it. You decide the fight.” What was she able to do that she already knew she could do that would be useful now?

  Cabela began his rite, chanting in the strange language she’d never been able to figure out, though Mitch, Malcolm, and the other leaders obviously knew what it was, considering their reaction to it. Miranda continued to concentrate on Nina, willing herself to figure out what she had to do to end this tragedy in the making.

  When Cabela began to draw his blade across her body, carving symbols into her skin, Miranda fought to maintain her mental calm, though she was no longer able to keep from writhing on the altar and screaming out loud. Cabela had been right about one thing, being away from the pain for the few days had made her much more susceptible to it.

  Mitch couldn’t take watching as the woman he loved was carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Her screaming echoed throughout the chamber and blasted through his mind, driving him to his knees. Unable to imagine her taking more pain than she already had, and knowing that she didn’t have to, he bellowed out to her, “Miranda! Go to Utopia!”

  Miranda’s screaming stuttered when he called her name, indicating she heard his voice. Mitch was unsure if she understood his instruction until she became very still and quiet. Mitch was relieved she would be protected from the rest of the pain and could only hope he would be allowed to join her there when his own heart stopped beating.

  * * * *

  Miranda’s mind sharpened in focus when Mitch called her name, bringing her attention away from the pain. She understood immediately Mitch’s order and knew his meaning behind it. They weren’t going to find a way out, at least not in time for her. Miranda centered her focus and pushed out a message to Mitch. “I love you, Mitch. I’m so sorry it’s ending like this. I wish I hadn’t met you, but only because it led to losing all of you. I will always love you!” she exclaimed as she wept in her mind.

  “I love you, Miranda. I always will. And I can’t bring myself to regret meeting you, if even it was for just a few wonderful days. Don’t forget that, wherever you go, okay? Now go, before he gets any further. Create a place for us to meet again in the next life.” Mitch’s mental voice was weepy as well as he tried to tell the love of his life good-bye.

  “I wish I could take everyone with me so y’all don’t have to suffer, too!” Miranda wailed as the pain of leaving Mitch behind came on fully. It took Miranda a moment to realize Mitch had gone completely still, mentally and physically.

  “That’s it, Miranda! That’s it! Can you pull Cabela and his guys into a plane and then leave them there?”

  Miranda considered the idea for a moment. “It can’t hurt to try. There are so many of them, though. How am I going to know who to pull? I don’t know all of them.”

  “Try not going completely under before you start. Create the plane, and then come back enough to see them.”

  Miranda mentally nodded before narrowing her focus further. Fortunately, Cabela was doing a bunch of chanting and had quit cutting while Miranda and Mitch had been talking, allowing Miranda to focus more easily. Miranda began to breathe deeply, moving further into her trance. She did as Mitch had suggested, creating a plane as she always did, but not bothering to decorate it. She pulled slightly away from the plane, testing to see if the plane would continue to exist as she pulled back. She was very relieved to see that, yes, it did hold. Miranda then pulled back closer to the physical plane, spreading her awareness of the spirits around her.

  Miranda almost completely lost her focus when she realized she could easily see the spirits of the people surrounding her, both good and evil. Miranda fought to refocus herself, knowing their survival was hinging completely on her ability to do this. Mentally, she reached out and grasped the tail of Cabela’s spirit, holding it tightly as she mentally moved about the room, gathering the tails of the rest of the evil people. There were two left when Mitch screamed in her head, “MIRANDA! NOW!”

  Miranda didn’t bother to try to determine what the problem was. Whatever it was had Mitch panicking. She pulled the spirits swiftly into the barren plane, essentially yanking their consciousness right out of their bodies. She heard pandemonium break out all around her, including the sound of gunfire. Miranda moved as fast as possible, gathering the remaining evil spirits and thrusting them into the plane. Miranda immediately returned to the temporal plane, opening her eyes to see that she had been successful. Each of Cabela’s minions, and Cabela himself, had collapsed where they stood. Unfortunately, the two she’d had to leave behind on the first round had managed to fire their guns several times before she could pull them from the plane. Two of the people from her group had been shot, though Miranda couldn’t see who or how badly they were hurt.

  Mitch hurried over to the altar, releasing Miranda from her chains before gently lifting her off of the altar and carrying her back to his mother. Nina was busy working on one of James’s coven members. It appeared he had just been grazed by a bullet but was wailing in pain. Nina rolled her eyes up to Miranda’s, smirking at the way the guy was carrying on.

  Nina was able to get the guy’s wound to stop bleeding and turned to begin working on Miranda. Luckily, Miranda’s cuts were fairly shallow, though they were quite painful, not that she was going to let that show, especially with Mr. Whineypants still whimpering next to her.

  “Who else got hurt?” Miranda asked, directing the question at Mitch. She could see another group huddled over a prostrate body, though she couldn’t tell who was on the ground.

  Mitch hesitated before answering her. “It’s John. The bastard was aiming for me, and John stepped in front of me. The guy must have been a lousy shot though because he hit John in the leg. He’ll be fine. They already have the bleeding under control, and we’re hoping we won’t have to take either of them to the hospital.”

  Miranda nodded, relieved no one had been seriously hurt. “What are we doing with them?” She pointed at the unconscious bodies lying around the room.

  Mitch’s face hardened as he considered them. “The Merlin mandated that those who could not be saved were to be destroyed. Each of the healers examined their auras closely while we were waiting for Cabela to start. All five agreed none of them could be rehabilitated. We will take care of the bodies once we get everyone else out of here, and then you can release the plane. That should either trap them in the plane or send them on to hell. Either way, they get what they deserve.”

  Miranda merely nodded, glad the crisis was over. Once the three injured people were attended to and everyone was once again clothed, the majority of the group moved back into the main room while James, Malcolm, Mitch, and Miranda stayed in the ceremony room. All three men had objected to her presence at first but had soon enough agreed that, of anyone, she had the right to see her own justice. “I can feel them trying to push out of the plane. They have to be completely destroyed if the world is going to be safe from them.”

  Understanding her meaning, the men moved through the bodies still littering the floor. They first put a bullet into each of their brains and then finished the gruesome responsibility with cutting off each of their heads. When the last one was done, Miranda, who hadn’t participated but watched over them closely, visibly relaxed. “They’re gone. The plane is clean.” They could all feel the removal of the dark magic spell as their powers returned to them. Miranda then left the room, knowing that the three men still had to do a clarifying rite and whatever else was needed.

  When Miranda reached the main room, she was pleasantly surprised to see someone had brought the cars around, and the two injured men had already been taken back to the hotel with two of the healers. The remaining three healers were busy working over the two latents who had been found. They were all saddened to discover that the latent who Miranda had indicated had been completely broken had chosen to end her life while Miranda had been gone rather than continue to be abused.

  “Miranda!” The call came f
rom the back of the building. Miranda followed the direction of the voice, eventually finding Nina in the doorway to Cabela’s favorite initiation room, the room in which Miranda had first been raped. It took Miranda only a moment to take in the scene. A young girl, obviously the girl Carl had boasted of kidnapping, was chained to the bed, naked. She was completely catatonic, just staring off into space and blinking occasionally. Miranda could see immediately the girl had not yet been violated internally, but there was no telling what Carl had forced her to do before returning to the compound.

  “Can you try to pull her into a plane and talk to her? With the white magic blocker gone, I can’t get near her. She has a very potent physical shield.”

  Miranda nodded her head, lowering herself to the floor just outside the door and resting her head against it. It took only a moment to create and enter a plane, going back to the meadow in the woods where she always felt so safe. Once ready, Miranda pulled out enough to find the girl’s spirit tail and pulled her in. The little girl, now clad in a pair of Hannah Montana pajamas, appeared next to her on the floor of the meadow, resting in the wildflowers. Eventually, the girl became aware of her new surroundings.

  “Where am I?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

  “You are in a safe place. Actually, you’re in my safe place. This is where I would go when bad things were happening to my body.” The girl studied Miranda for several minutes before deciding she was being truthful and could be trusted.

  “What happened to you?”

  “The same thing that would have happened to you if we hadn’t gotten back in time. I was kidnapped when I was fourteen, almost fifteen. I’ve lived in this compound for the last five and a half years, until last week. They sent me out to find another little girl, just like you. Instead, I found the man who would rescue me and, eventually, everyone that was trapped here.”

  “You didn’t search for another little girl?”