“Why did you bring me here?” Moving across the empty space, she stopped at the back of the table that was angled so high she could rest her chin on the crest. “It’s wonderful, it’s amazing. And I’m honored, but why?”
Picking up a pencil from a lip on the lower edge, he added something to the paper that she couldn’t see properly because the lamp was so close that the glare of the light blanked the image. With a crease between his brows, he drew a couple of lines, then brushed a hand over the paper before he put the pencil back down.
Then he looked at her. “You’re right that if you join the Kindred, we need trust. All of us need that.”
“So this is your way of showing that you trust me?” she asked. But he hadn’t done it for Zara, hadn’t even done it for Thad or Brodie.
“This is my way of showing you that I don’t consider you beneath me. But there can never be anything between us.” She didn’t understand that, and he must have read her confusion. “Could you be with a man who spends all his days here?”
Devon could see there were narrow, horizontal windows on the farthest back wall, past the equipment room she couldn’t make out well. The rest of the light came from florescent overheads. If this was where he spent all his time, he’d barely see the sun or smell the sea.
“Maybe.”
He didn’t believe her. “You would be with a man who would rather spend his time surrounded by electronic components, circuit boards, and wiring than be anywhere near you?”
“I don’t believe that’s true,” she said. “I think you’re trying to push me away. Just like you do with everybody else.” And like he’d already tried to do with her. “Who says we have to have anything more than friendship?”
“Didn’t you hear me downstairs? Have you forgotten what almost happened on that table? How many friends do you do that with?”
None. In fact, it had been a long time since she’d been with a man. After her last disastrous break-up, she’d begged off relationships and it had probably been more than a year before her abduction since she’d been intimate with anyone.
Men had just never made sense to her. Except the most complex of all, this man in front of her, somehow seemed straightforward. Yes, his motivations, his personality were complex, but he wasn’t deceptive. His revelations downstairs, his outburst, they had opened her eyes. He wanted her. He was just afraid to let her in. Either because he thought he didn’t deserve the love or because he thought he would let her down.
“So it’s six weeks of sex, isn’t that how long you said it would last?” she asked.
He had an answer for everything. “Kindred don’t screw other Kindred.”
That wasn’t true. “What about Raven and Zara? They screw, anyone who sees them together would know that.”
“That’s complicated,” he said. Something on his drawing caught his eye, and he picked up his pencil to make another adjustment. “They’re married.”
She loved that little crease between his brows, the sign of his concentration. His intent focus moved with the swipe of his pencil. What he didn’t understand was that although his drawings were technical, the sound of the graphite scraping across the textured surface of the pulp was arousing to her artist’s ear.
The artist in her was mesmerized by the sound. Her eyes drifted shut, imagining every time she’d held that kind of pencil in her hand and the pleasure she got from creating, watching an image come to life with every new stroke of her hand.
He’d put pencil to paper, paused to make a measurement, and brushed a fingertip down a line. Every sound was one she recognized as something that fired her soul. Her nipples were strained to such tight peaks that they began to throb. He’d stirred her up downstairs, let her in to his private domain, and now he was teasing her with his scent and the sound of her greatest passion.
“You said I could have anything I wanted,” she murmured.
Still in the haze of her high, Devon slunk around the table and although he was still working, Devon rubbed a hand over his leg to his inner thigh. That was when the sound of pencil on paper stopped. But she was already breathing his earlobe in between her lips.
“Anything but that,” he said, picking her hand off his thigh to put it on the drafting table.
Devon kissed behind his ear and the side of his neck. She laid one arm across the back of his chair and rubbed her breasts against him. Not to stimulate him, but because it was her impulse to imprint herself on him, to try to mark him with her scent. Despite knowing it was pure fantasy, the notion he might belong to her was invigorating.
“You said anything.” Maybe it was because her eyes were closed and she was still ensconced in her own illusion, but she told the absolute truth. “I want you to make me come.”
The back of the stool twisted away from her reach, and she opened her eyes to find he’d discarded his pencil and turned the stool to face her so she was almost between his knees.
Devon expected rejection, she expected him to argue. Instead, he picked her hand off the drafting table, brought her knuckles to his lips, and kissed them once.
“I can work with that request, shy.”
Now it was her turn to crease her brows.
As if he anticipated the torrent of questions he’d just provoked, he stood up and led her from the room, cutting off any chance she had to bombard him. He took her all the way back downstairs to her own bedroom and she was lost by the time they got there, partly because she was distracted by what his end game might be. Could he be taking her to her bedroom to make love to her?
No. When they got there, he stopped at her door, opened it, and urged her inside. “Go to sleep, shy,” he said. “You’ve had enough excitement for one night.”
Not giving her a chance to ask questions or make another statement, he closed the door, leaving her alone in her bedroom. He was right about one thing, she’d had plenty of excitement. Her day had started with the gift of a milkshake that made her cry and ended with a peek into his inner sanctum.
He wasn’t going to make this easy. Zave had accused her of making him lose control, but he restrained himself more than he took credit for. Devon couldn’t chase after him; even if she tried, she’d get lost. If by some miracle, she got to his lab, she wouldn’t get through the door and pounding on it wouldn’t help when she now knew there was a double entry system.
So, in a stupor, she went through the motions of getting ready for bed and climbed beneath the covers. At first, sleep seemed elusive and then she realized, the sooner she gave into slumber, the sooner she’d be able to wake and discover what progress tomorrow would bring.
FOURTEEN
A couple of days passed, and she didn’t see Zave at all. Bess fed her and let Devon help with the household chores in short bursts, giving the women time to bond. After lunch on that day, Thad had come to see her. He’d popped in and out over the last two days, but his visits had been social not medical.
On this occasion, he performed a full check-up. He took all her vitals, asked all his standard doctor questions, quizzed her about her diet, weighed her, calculated her body fat and noted everything down on a clipboard.
Every time he examined her, he wrote things down. Given what Bess had said about his aversion to updating patient notes, Devon doubted he kept a file on her. It was just habit that made him write these things down, and it would make them easier to remember while he went through the motions. That piece of paper was probably tossed in the trash as soon as he walked out.
Afterwards, Devon had moved into the dining room to sketch through the window using the easel Bess had brought her on the previous morning. Zave might not be physically present, but he was still showering her with gifts at every opportunity.
Instead of focusing on the vast view of the ocean, she explored the rocks, the grass, and the path with the tip of her pencil on the paper. The scene she created was the same as the one she’d seen him in for the first time. Devon couldn’t fool herself. That was exactly why she was here doing
this now, in hope that maybe he would run by.
Somehow, he’d known she was there the first time, so she figured he would know the second time too. Curiosity played in her thoughts. Would he acknowledge her if he sensed her here? Would he turn and wave? Didn’t seem like his style. It was more likely that he’d turn and glare, then he would wait until the next time they saw each other and he would chastise her for stalking him.
Bess was sitting at the dining table folding linen napkins and had been there for some time, though the women hadn’t spoken for a while. “You can go outside, you know,” she said.
“I’ve thought about it,” Devon said, although she’d never gotten as far as trying the front door to see if it was unlocked. “I wouldn’t want to get lost out there.”
Bess put a folded napkin in her neat stack and reached for another. “You can’t get lost,” she said. “Zave monitors everything from his lab. He’d be able to track your movement on the island. He monitors the weather from up there, too, taking readings from all the gadgets he has scattered around the place. He’d send a search party for you as soon as the temperature dropped a degree.”
Bess’ amusement was a consistent attribute of her gregarious personality. Devon wouldn’t think to mock such careful behavior on Zave’s part. Some might see it as overbearing if he did such a thing; she’d just be awed that he was paying such close attention. Adding some details to her sketch, she put some lines on the rocks and enhanced the shade. It began to lift off the page with life.
When the door clicked, she expected Thad to be coming in. Except movement in her peripheral vision betrayed that it was Zave’s door that had opened, not the one from the hallway.
“It’s time,” he said.
While Devon wasn’t sure what he meant, Bess did because she gathered up her linens and scurried from the room without saying anything else.
“Time for what?” Devon asked, putting her pencil in the tray at the bottom of her easel.
He stayed by the door. “We were waiting until your strength was back,” Zave said. “We didn’t want to rush you. But Thad has given me the go-ahead.”
“Go-ahead for what?”
While watching him move across the room in a few long strides, a whisper of hopeful excitement simmered. Maybe he was talking about crossing that boundary he’d said he wasn’t capable of broaching. Maybe he would come to her, sweep her off her feet, and return them to the tower he’d spoken of before.
Except it wasn’t her direction he came in; he went to the side of the table and sat down. “You said you’d only deal with me,” he said.
Anxiety overtook her excitement, hope became dread. “You want to talk about them,” she said.
Living in this beautiful house was like living in an opulent bubble. All of her needs were catered to and there was nothing to fear here. Their literal island protected them from the dangers and evils of the world. That they’d ask her to confront those evils was inevitable, and she couldn’t argue for more time or say she wasn’t ready because they’d been patient. More patient than other groups would be in their position.
Using the time it took her to close the window, she gave herself an internal pep talk, repeating that she’d be able to say the words without letting emotion incapacitate her. Zave was a professional and she was a source. Whatever was going on between them personally had no place here in this conversation, it had to be sidelined.
“We’ve already established that you were unaware of being taken and of the journey,” he said as she took a seat opposite him.
The width of the table may as well have been the width of an Olympic pool. In the gulf between them, she felt no warmth, but that may have been caused by her own discomfort rather than his attitude.
She sensed patience from him and he paced his words. For a man who’d shunned society for so long, it couldn’t be easy to cast off his brusque exterior, but she could tell that he was trying. So, while he wasn’t completely successful in putting her at ease, she appreciated that he made the effort.
“I don’t remember any of that,” she said, recalling how dark it had been when she’d come out of the gallery, and how she’d mishandled the keys, almost dropping them when she locked the back door in the service alley.
Considering how she’d still been stuffing one of her sketchbooks into her painter’s satchel as she receded from the structure, she didn’t remember hearing anyone, didn’t remember feeling a needle or having anything planted on her face. Maybe she’d been aware of it at the time and had blocked out the trauma. Or it could be that whatever they did to her played havoc with her memory.
“We don’t know how they select their women,” he said. “What is the first thing you were aware of?”
The smell. Her eyes closed as her hands opened on the smooth wood beneath them. It was putrid, like nothing she’d ever inhaled before. Dirty. Unhealthy. Rank. Devon knew now it was the smell of bodies, encased in iron, existing in their own filth. Unwashed. Unkempt. Baking in the heat of a sun they couldn’t see.
Learning to be quiet had saved her from the beatings. But she wondered how many of those imprisoned were lost to the scorching heat of the day or the frigid cold of the night.
“It was dark,” she said, still with her eyes closed. “The whole time. It was dark. And I… my mouth was dry, they had… Something made my jaw hurt. There was grubby cloth wedged between my molars, pressed against my tongue. It kept my mouth open all the time, and it took a while to learn how to breathe like that. Sometimes I woke up choking.”
“Did you see anyone else?” he asked.
Shaking her head, she couldn’t believe she’d thought she could separate emotion while recounting the experience. Tears were already seeping from her ducts. “Other prisoners? No. I heard them, all the time.” Covering her ears, she pressed her palms into them until they formed a seal. “The screaming. The crying. Some sounded so young. All they wanted was to be set free. Like me, they just wanted to go home.”
“Did you beg?” he asked when her hands slid away from her ears.
“At first. At first, I did. I didn’t call out because in those first few hours, maybe it was a few days, there was nothing but shouting. A dozen women cried out for liberation.”
This was significant enough to intrigue him. “They must have brought you in in a batch,” he said. “Some of the gangs bring in one or two women at a time, it makes it easier to deal with integrating them. Others, like the ones who took you, ship women like animals. They pack their vans and trucks full before they slip across the border.”
He could explain some of the things she hadn’t known. “How do they do that?” she asked, opening her eyes to see he was unaffected. “How do they take women from one country to another without—”
“It’s easier than you’d think. Some of the cartels do it by plane. Airspace is impossible to monitor at all times, especially when they fly beneath radar. Those who go by road, or rather off-road, have their own private points to cross. They travel specific routes a dozen times before switching to another, then another, making it difficult for authorities to track where they are or where they’ll be. So you didn’t call out?”
“No. I might have if I hadn’t heard so many others, but I knew I’d be drowned out and all of the pleas were ignored. My hands were locked together at my lower spine,” she said, and of their own accord, her arms moved behind her into the position she’d existed in for months. “Then they were locked by a fixed bolt or something, attached to a single point on the wall. There was no light. There was never any light.”
“You’re doing good,” he murmured, soothing her bubbling emotions.
His confidence prompted her. “Later on, I figured out how small the box was. I stretched as far as I could and could touch the three walls surrounding me with my foot. There was no space to lie down, not that I’d have been able to because of the way my hands were bound.”
“But they came to you?” he asked, getting her back on track with the narrati
ve.
“Yes. The men, they came to me not long after I woke up. They threw water on me, maybe to wash me or wake me up, I don’t know, but the door opened and I was hit with a wall of water. One of them pulled the gag down to stuff some food in my mouth, I don’t know what it was. I wasn’t paying attention, but I’d said it wasn’t a taste I recognized. That was the first time I asked what was going on. I asked for help, for mercy, to be released. He demanded that I eat. Demanded that I stopped talking. But I wasn’t thinking straight and I kept babbling until he hit me.”
Zave’s shoulder moved, but she didn’t read too much into the reflex because she was thinking about that first hit and how quickly it was followed by a second and a third.
“He hit you?”
“He just kept saying that I was theirs now, I belonged to them, that my life was gone, and I’d been erased. He told me to be quiet. Told me to be grateful. He hit me so many times, and I couldn’t do anything to protect myself. I couldn’t lift my hands. I must have passed out because when I woke up again, he was gone. There was less shouting. The place was so quiet, it was eerie. Sometimes I heard crying probably coming from one of the cells flanking mine. But I didn’t open my mouth. For one thing, my face was swollen, and I’m not sure I’d have been able to speak. The gag was gone, but the blindfold hadn’t moved. I was too numb to cry. Shock stopped me from losing it. Maybe. My injuries distracted me. But from then on I gave up on asking too many questions.”
“You survived.”
But at what cost? The lives of others? Her own quick thinking didn’t save her life, the Kindred did. “Coming to terms with where I was, it was difficult. I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to be there. My life became nothing but that cell, those men, and whatever they gave me. They’d take me out of my cell maybe twice a day, long enough to use the toilet. They were tired of cleaning up the mess, that was what they said to each other. They’d learned, they’d obviously been doing this a while, because it hadn’t been policy to let the women use the bathroom when they started their operation. Buckets in the corner of the room would mean they had to give the women freedom to move. It also gave the women a weapon, something they could assault their captors with.”
Falcon (Kindred #5) Page 15
