He gave a soft smile. “Until ordered otherwise,” he admitted.
Everything about him radiated kindness. But I knew better than to judge things by how they seemed on the surface. He wouldn’t hesitate to tear me apart and wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over it. Unlike me, Max could successfully compartmentalize.
“I’m about to take the rope from your collar and use it to bind your feet. Okay?”
I remained silent because it wasn’t as though I actually got a say in any of this. His gentle methods were meant to elicit my compliance. I was supposed to be so grateful that he wasn’t hurting me that I’d happily accept being bound, but I knew better. I wasn’t the kind of person that would be so easily manipulated.
He unleashed me and used the rope to bind my feet. Then he headed over to the hot spring.
He faced me, shamelessly, as he sank down in the pool of steaming water. People should have been able to tell Max was something more than human just by looking at him. He was too tall, too toned, his shaggy hair shone to much, his eyes were too intense. There was just too much of him, anyone looking hard enough would have seen it.
The room filled with lavender as Max washed my friend’s blood off his body. "His name was John in case you're curious."
“I wasn’t,” he said, sinking more of his body into the steaming water.
"He had a son, David. He turns ten in March."
He stared at me. His narrowed eyes seemed unnatural. He had a face made for smiling. "And were you concerned about David when you talked John into flying you out here? A trip I'm sure you didn't get permission for. For you to even find this place you must have had some idea of what we were. Did you warn John? Or did you just use him to save your precious Abby? I might have delivered the killing blow, but you're the one who was willing to sacrifice him, little David be damned."
For a person who promised not to hurt me, he didn’t keep his word for very long. His words were like a blow to the chest, because they were true. I knew there was something abnormal about this place, about Abby’s captor, and yet I came anyway and I didn’t give John a bit of warning. How could I? He would have thought I was insane.
I laid down on the furs turning my back to Max. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of my tears which ran freely down my face.
I could hear him stepping out of the hot spring and padding across the floor towards me. He grabbed me by the arm and I froze in panic.
"Not interested," he said, dismissing my worst fears.
The ropes around my wrist fell off. Then he cut my ankles free too. I glimpsed just enough to see his claw turn back into a human finger. This was just too much.
I tried to get away, but he wrapped an arm around me and tucked me against his chest as he laid down. I fought to free myself of his grasp, but he was impossibly strong. No matter how hard I fought, the arm that held me was unyielding. Eventually, I tired myself out. "I'm trained in multiple types of combat. This ass, it's from kickboxing classes three times a week. How the hell can I not break free of you?"
"Don't be so hard on yourself. You're doing particularly well for a human female."
I might not have had enough space to get a good kick in, but I did have just enough room for an elbow to the stomach. I smiled with satisfaction when he grunted. So he did have a sense of pain, I’d just have to hit him with enough force to really make him feel it.
We laid there in silence and I couldn't stand it, so I had to ask, "What's the plan here?"
He sighed. "You were there for the plan. Or more accurately the lack of one. All we have is Abby's wish for you to remain alive."
"I'll escape, you know." I hoped my words sounded more convincing to him than they did to me.
"Doubtful. There is no way off the island, so even if you escaped from me, you'd have nowhere to go."
"I could go kill your boss. Now that sounds like a plan to me. Hypothetically speaking, if a hunk of wood were to find it way into Julian's chest would I be able to Hoover him out of the carpet or am I going to need a broom and dustpan first?"
"You'd never be fast enough to stake Julian, he'd see you coming before you even reached the building."
I tapped my chin. "You're right. If I want to get the drop on someone who is stronger and faster than me, it's better to do it when his guard is down. How about come morning, I slip in and open the curtains for him?"
Judging from the slightly increased grip around my waist, my idea was viable. "Don't like thinking about your boss frying, huh?"
"You can dream all you want. The reality of it is that sooner or later even Abby is going to come to realize that you're a liability. When that day comes they'll agree to throw you in a cage somewhere. At first Abby will come to visit you, but as time passes you'll become a dark spot in her otherwise joyous life. So the visits will come further and further apart. Eventually, the two of you will fight over some irrelevant little thing and she'll use that as an excuse not to come back. You'll be fed and tended to, but in the end, you'll die a lonely old woman, in a cage, with no one able to recall why you're even there. That’s your fate. And to me it seems more merciful had they just let me kill you."
I shivered against him as I listened to his cold nihilistic tone. I didn't like the threat game anymore. He was winning.
"So are you just planning on holding me here like this?" I tried once again to wiggle myself out of his grasp, to little effect.
"Well, I'm sleepy and if I just left you tied up you up you'd inchworm your way across half the island by morning. But if this doesn't suit you, I can install some shackles for you tomorrow."
He couldn't see my icy glare, but I was sure it carried in my voice. "Good. I'd rather be chained to a wall, than force cuddled by a killer."
"Killer? Says the woman who carries a gun." I could hear the sleepiness in his voice, soon he'd drift off and I'd be able to attempt an escape.
I should have been quiet and let him fall asleep, but I couldn't keep myself from responding to him. "I use my weapon to protect those I care about."
"Same as me," he replied yawning.
Was he serious? Did he really think we had anything in common? "I uphold the law and defend the Constitution. You kidnap and murder people."
"You don't think I was following the law? Well I was, just because you never heard of them doesn't mean they don't exist."
I scoffed at the suggestion. "Yeah, the laws of monsters."
He sat up on his elbow and forced me to look at him. "In every realm where humans know about supernatural beings, they are subjugated. The Deathless hide from you, they allow you to grow and develop to a point where you may one day be a threat to them. The Veil doesn’t exist to protect the Deathless, it exists to protect humans from the Deathless."
I couldn't meet his gaze. It was too hard, my eyes darted to his chest. "It didn’t protect John," I argued weakly.
"What if Julian and I had let him go? Had let all of you go? What if he told people? His wife? His son? Then they'd have to die too. What if the three of you managed to somehow convince the world supernatural beings existed? You'd be starting a war that humanity would have no hope of winning. And in the end, this place would be no different than a hundred different realms, with humans the playthings of stronger beings."
"You could all leave. Just pack up and go back where you came from."
He chuckled and gently brushed my cheek. "The Deathless have existed in this world longer than all of humanity, what right would you have to kick them out? Just know, your friend's death wasn't in vain. Lives were protected. Human lives. I know it's hard, but we do what me must. I'm sure someone like you understands that."
I stared up at this man with big green eyes that reminded me of the forest and I knew he didn’t view himself as a villain. He viewed his cause to be as just as mine. He'd fight to protect Julian just as fiercely as I'd fight to protect Abby and only one of us could win. A person with that kind of conviction was almost impossible to beat. If I wanted to win thi
s, I had to toss out all the rules and become the bad guy.
I pressed my cheek against his chest and pretended as though I'd fallen asleep. He was so impossibly warm. I waited until his breaths were shallow and even before attempting to slip out of his grasp. It didn't work. Even in sleep, he held onto me firmly. I struggled to the point of exhaustion until I finally drifted off.
CHAPTER 3
T he next morning I awoke to the smell of bacon. Abby knelt in front of the pallet with a tray covered in food. French toast, bacon, half a grapefruit with sugar on top (my usual breakfast) and coffee. Precious, precious coffee. At first I couldn't have been happier to see her and the coffee. But then certain things started to register. The sheer chemise she wouldn't have ever worn under normal circumstances, let alone in front of a man. The arm that still kept me pinned even though at some point during the night he must have allowed me to roll over because I was no longer facing him. And of course, the cave I was being held prisoner in.
I struggled to sit up which must have woken Max because he released me and sleepily rubbed his eyes in a way that was so cute it made me ache to know what he really was. "Morning," he rumbled.
"Morning, Kiera, Max." Abby looked back and forth between me and her peace offering. As if bacon could somehow make up for destroying my life.
I loved her too much to stay mad at her for anything, but she deserved to feel bad for what she'd done. I folded my arms. "I'm not hungry."
"Don't be like that. You need to eat." She offered me the cup of coffee while mumbling, "Considering what I had to do for my first meals around here..." She broke off realizing she said something she shouldn't have.
Rage flooded my system as I tried to imagine what that bastard did to her. I tried to keep calm as I asked. "What did you have to do, so that he would allow you to eat?"
She could no longer meet my gaze. "No. It's nothing important."
As if to emphasize how little he cared about any of this Max reached over me and grabbed a piece of bacon.
"So he used food to control you? Abby you've been trained in brainwashing techniques. You're an FBI agent for christsakes!"
She put down the coffee and pushed herself away from the tray. "I'm not brainwashed. I made a promise to him, I was just keeping my word. And he kept his word too. He kept you alive even though doing so could get him and Max into trouble." She stood and started to pace in front of me. Completely oblivious to the fact that for all intents and purposes she was naked. She wore the thin gold collar around her neck as if it had always been there. This had somehow become her normal.
How could she not see how he was manipulating her? I was torn between anger over her betrayal and concern that the person I knew had been stamped out of existence. My Abby wouldn't even wear a low-cut top. What must he have done to get her to change so much? Threats? Starvation? I couldn't see any bruises, so maybe he hadn't tortured her, but that didn't seem likely. A man like that must have tortured her. "If you're given the choice between slavery and the death of someone you love, that's not a choice at all."
Her eyelids fell as if it was too hard to continue. "It's complicated. I could try to explain, but I don't think I could make you understand. We're just too different. So can you just trust me? We can't go back. We have to start new lives and your stubbornness isn't helping anyone."
"Trust you? You just betrayed me less than twelve hours ago. Why would I trust you? There is nothing you can do or say that will convince me to give up. I'm going to get you out of here and if I have to run a stake through your vampire boyfriend's heart to free you then I'm going to do exactly that. I don't know why you can't see it, but you've fallen for a monster... again." I regretted my words the second the passed my lips.
She stumbled backwards as if I’d just punched her. And in fairness, I had. Then she gave me a look that could have stopped my heart. It was as if a stranger was speaking to me. "You act all concerned about how he's treating me, but don't you treat me the same way? Always trying to control what I wear and what I do and now even how I think? How are you any different from him? Really. I don't think it pisses you off that I obey him. I think what really pisses you off is that I don't obey you."
I stared at her in shock as she stormed from the cave. How could she say that? How could she compare me to him? I was about to go after her when a firm hand grabbed my wrist reminding me I was a prisoner.
"Wow, you two ladies certainly don't pull your punches. If Julian and I spoke to each other like that, one of us would be dead already."
Not willing to admit my mistake, I dug in. "What do you know? I'm only trying to protect her. If she doesn't realize who he really is soon, she'll end up dead like the last girl."
"Ah, so you know about what happened in the club?"
"I pieced things together in my search for Abby. For beings intent on preserving humanity, you sure do leave a lot of corpses lying around."
When it was clear I had no plan to run, Max released me and went back to eating my breakfast, grabbing a couple more pieces of bacon. "When it comes to Julian, it's a bit more complicated than that."
"It's complicated. It's complicated. That's all both of you ever say. Maybe it's not beyond my imagination. Maybe you're just making excuses for bad behavior. Ever consider that?"
Max shrugged as he took the plate of French toast and brought it to his lap. "Maybe. Try to imagine being raised in a world where expressing your feelings is a sign of weakness. Where humans are regarded as little more than pets. Now imagine falling in love with one of those pets. Do you think you'd get everything right from the start or do you think you'd make mistakes?"
"Aren't you from the same place? You seem to be able to refrain from torture even though you’re uncomfortably okay with murder."
"Humans aren't food for me. Not to mention, we might be from the same realm, but we were raised very differently. Werewolves are taught to trust their feelings, not suppress them."
I waved away his argument. "Even if all that's true. She's already proven herself. Why is he still treating her like a slave?"
Max finished off the French toast and put the empty plate back on the tray. "He's relating to her in the way he knows how. What's important is they love each other, they'll figure out what works for them, and they deserve a chance to do that without your interference."
He gave me a pointed look that felt a lot like being scolded. And for a second, I was ready to shrink away just from his look of disappointment. But then I remembered one very important fact: I was in the right.
CHAPTER 4
O ver the next few days I devised one escape plan after another, all of which Max easily thwarted. My life had been reduced to a shitty season of Roadrunner cartoons. Years of overachieving had built a health confidence in me that Max smashed relentlessly as he handled me like a toddler straying too far from her crib.
As I sat on the ground feeling especially sorry for myself, Max knelt down and began to unbutton my shirt. I flailed in shock. He pulled back and explained. “You need to wash.”
I couldn’t stand the idea that the only reason I still had clothes on was because he chose to allow it. If he wanted he could have just ripped my clothes to shreds before I had a chance to react. My powerlessness pissed me off and I yelled. “I’m not your fucking pet. I can bathe myself.”
He just watched me silently, as if I’d made a mistake somewhere and he was waiting for me to notice. Oh yeah, my reason for being there. His human pet was exactly what everyone was hoping I’d become. Grumbling, I walked over to the hotspring. I lifted my arm and sniffed. Sure, I’d been wearing the same panties for four days, but I could still smell the floral scent of my deodorant. “It’s not that bad,” I stated defensively.
He tapped his nose. “Heightened senses.”
Absolutely mortified. “Turn around,” I demanded.
“Don’t worry, nudity is sexually neutral to werewolves.”
That explained why I had to beg him to put some pants on. I gestured f
or him to turn. “Well, I’m not a werewolf and us humans have a thing called modesty, so if you want me to bathe, then you can’t look.”
He rolled his eyes and turned around as if giving me the smallest amount of privacy was too much to ask. I stripped off my clothes and stepped into the water which was on the verge of being too hot to stand. Heat prickled against my skin, but slowly fades as I submerged the rest of my body. After that it became, comfortable.
A indent in the stone held a variety of soaps and shampoos. I picked up a sponge and the lavender soap I’d smelled before. “Why lavender?” I asked as I started to lather up.
“I like the smell of flowers.”
Simple enough answer. Though still, I’d pick something more earthy for him.
“You smell like flowers,” he added. My cheeks reddened. I blamed the heat. “And chemicals, and gun powder and sex when you think I’m not paying attention and you check out my body.”
“Stop talking. Please.” The idea of him smelling my… Oh, God.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s flattering.” He grinned wickedly as he turned to face me. “And if it makes you feel any better, I find your proportions to be ideal.”
I was fortunately neck deep in water. “Are you saying you think I’m hot?”
He stalked towards me. I backed away, which didn’t get me very far considering where I was. All moving back served to do was make sure he got a full view of my ample breasts under the water. And he made no attempt to hide that he was looking. “What I’m saying is that if I was a human, this situation would be far more difficult for me.”
That’s when it hit me. I’d tried every method of pulling away I could think of and they all failed. How about pushing in? Maybe I could find a weakness if I let him think he was getting what he wanted.
I stood up, letting the water cascade down my body. My skin pink from the heat. My nipples hard and jutting in his direction. Was he really unaffected by this? Doubtful. I turned around and grabbed a fistful of hair lifting it up, “Can you wash my back?”
Moonstruck (Warring Hearts Book 2) Page 2
