Gunter snapped his fingers.
The henchman flung her into the center of the room. She fell hard, a crumpled ragdoll in a heap.
His body jerked to life. He stopped himself from surging against the chains, sagging back against the wall, appearing unmoved, unaffected. His gaze narrowed on the woman. Her head was bowed, dark hair a mess obscuring her face. Her back lifted, shoulders rising and falling with ragged breaths. Her khaki slacks and red tank top screamed tourist. Easy bait for these fiends.
“A gift for you,” Gregory announced.
Sebastian understood at once.
He forced ice into his veins, blankness into his stare. Gunter had made his intentions clear days ago. Sebastian, starving away in this cell, had not forgotten. He had wondered when his victim would arrive, and if he would be too far gone to stop from killing her.
“Never say I didn’t give you anything. Yusuf here wanted her for himself.”
He shifted, his chains clanking. “Then let him keep her. Just get her the fuck out of here,” Sebastian growled, rising up, crouching on the bare pads of his feet, iron manacles cutting into the raw, exposed flesh of his wrists. But he didn’t feel the pain. Not anymore. Only hunger. A deep, gnawing hunger. His mouth watered, nostrils quivering, catching her sweet scent.
“She’s a waste on this mongrel,” Yusuf spat out.
“Silence,” Gunter declared in a biting voice, glittering eyes communicating the reminder that he was the alpha of the pack. What Yusuf thought failed to signify.
Turning back to Sebastian, he smiled again. “I could have tossed you some wretched piece of mankind.” He stepped further into the room, one hand reaching down to stroke the liquid-dark hair of the woman who had yet to lift her head and reveal her face. Was she demented? Or had they broken her already so that she couldn’t think? Didn’t care? “Instead, I give you this. Tempting, isn’t she? Appetizing.” Laughter laced his voice. “However will you resist?” He addressed Annika, nodding once. “Now.”
Annika unlocked his manacles. They fell from the blood-slicked bones of his wrists and ankles. Only he didn’t feel the relief he should. He snatched at the irons, as if he could put them back on. Annika hastily stepped clear of him.
“No!” he shouted, surging to his feet. He couldn’t be free to move in this cell with a human. Not in his condition.
Gunter laughed. He lifted his hand. The girl’s dark hair fell like water through his fingers. “Enjoy.” He moved to the door, Yusuf and Annika preceding him. His chuckle grated on Sebastian’s tightly strung nerves.
“Take her with you,” Sebastian shouted.
Gunter’s gaze clung to his for a moment before the door banged shut, leaving Sebastian alone with the female.
Free of his chains, he staggered to the door, pounding it with his fists until they felt like two boneless hunks of flesh.
His stomach tightened and twisted, its clawing pain refusing to let him forget his hunger. He had not eaten in days. His strength was low… along with his will. And now he had this to contend with. Her. Weeks had passed since Gunter announced his intention to starve him and force him into feeding. How much longer could he last?
Turning, he did not move from the door. With his back pressed to the hard length, he watched as she rose to her knees, his gut tightening with her every motion. She lifted her head, staring at him from tangled strands of hair. She shoved the hair from her face and sent it rippling down her back. She watched him carefully, her pretty face guarded, bright splotches burning her cheeks at the sight of his nudity.
“You’re not one of them,” she declared, looking away.
He drilled her with his gaze, finding her eyes through the murk… a deep brown, not quite as dark as her hair. Flecks of gold surrounded her irises. Shards of amber buried in dark earth. It’d be a shame to watch the life fade there. An even greater shame to be the one responsible for that loss of life.
He registered her fear, felt it on the stagnant air, tasted it with a salivating mouth. Not so different from a wolf in the wild. Sniffing out their prey.
Blood smeared her face, a dark brown stain beneath her nose, nudging her pretty lips. She pushed to her feet, wincing. Her hand brushed a bruised cheek as though movement gave her pain.
“Stay where you are,” he growled, his voice thick and garbled, warning him just how close he was to losing control. She smelled so sweet. Creamy vanilla. And looked even better. A feast for his eyes.
Her mouth was almost too full, plump and moist, bringing on a surge of carnal images. Those luscious pink lips surrounding him, drawing him in deep. The image sent a bolt of need straight to his cock, waking that part of him that had betrayed him so many times over the last months. After the savage treatment Gunter’s bitches had dealt him, he wondered how he could even hunger for a woman again.
A cruel smile twisted his lips. The first tasty bit of mortal to cross his path and his blood pumped hard. Just spoke to the resilience of his species. No one was forcing him to crave her now. Not the impending moonrise. Not even the hunger clawing his insides. It was simply his body’s natural response.
She sucked in a sharp breath. The color in her cheeks deepened… almost as though she read his mind. Impossible. She was not him, or a lycan, capable of sensing things outside a human’s natural range of ability. More than likely it had to do with his raging erection.
He inhaled her from across the room. If her clothes hadn’t already told him, her scent did. She was foreign to these parts. Hadn’t even been here long enough to soak up any of the odors. She came from somewhere else. She smelled of ripe woman and earth and something else, something he had never come across before in all his years… clean and woodsy, warm wind-blown hills, whisky-sweet.
He felt her stare land on his wrists and ankles. Even in the deepening dusk, she couldn’t make out the full extent of the damage… couldn’t see the exposed bone and shredded flesh. “Are you all right?”
When she made a move toward him, his pulse spiked against his throat and he knew he was not all right. And she wasn’t either. Not if she kept coming toward him.
“Stop right there,” he barked.
She froze. Her gaze traveled his shoulders and torso, skimming over the dried blood stark against his skin. “You’re hurt.” She made a move toward him again.
He threw a hand up in the air. “No.” The word fell like a loud clap of thunder.
She stilled, shaking her head.
He closed his hand into a tight fist. “Keep away from me. Don’t come near.” His nails dug into his palms until he felt his blood flow against his fingers.
Long moments passed before she spoke again. “But you’re hurt. I can feel—” she stopped abruptly. “I can tell. I can tell that you’re injured. Did one of them attack you?” She strode forward and splayed a hand over his chest, where one of the bitches had scratched and bit him days ago. He’d already healed, only blood remained.
His breath escaped in a hiss at the delicious sting of her warm palm over him. “Don’t touch me.”
She felt good. Warm. Alive. Female. Not like the females who ravaged him body and soul these many weeks, but soft, tender. Woman. Mortal. Closing his eyes, he inhaled the clean scent of her hair, vanilla-scented shampoo… it echoed on her skin and his mouth watered.
He closed a hand around her wrist, squeezing. “I’m not hurt.”
She placed her other hand on his chest, probing gently, trailing it over him as though searching for injuries. “But there’s blood. Everywhere.”
“It’s old,” he gritted. “It’s dried.”
She shook her head.
“Look,” he growled, turning so that he slammed her against the wall. He shoved his face close to hers. “You haven’t a clue what you’ve gotten yourself into here.”
Her wide gaze scanned him, staring intently at him beneath ink dark brows. Anger glowed in her eyes. “I’ve got a pretty good idea. I lost my friends. I watched them get eaten by a bunch of monsters—”
<
br /> “Lycans.”
“What?”
“Lycans,” he said, with more patience than he felt. “Werewolves.”
“Werewolves,” she echoed, glancing to the highset window. Faint moonglow spilled inside their prison.
“That’s right. Last night was a full moon. And tonight.”
Her gaze returned to him then, as piercing as before. Looking so deeply, so probing, intent in a way no mortal had ever looked upon him before. A flicker of unease tripped through him. Something was different about her…
“Will they come for us tonight?”
He shook his head. “They have other plans for us.”
Between the press of their bodies, her hand brushed his chest, directly over his heart. “You’re not one of them. How did you escape them? How come we’re down here?”
All good questions, but he was certain she wasn’t ready for the answers.
Her words gained speed, rushing forward in her fear. “Are they saving us for later or something?”
In the distance, it began. Screams flowed down, breathing through the bones of the building, looking for escape. Buried beneath the warehouse, the tortured sounds echoed only faintly in his ears. To a mortal’s ear—her ears—they would be undetectable.
“No,” he spat, imagining the humans being ripped apart, devoured upstairs. “They’re not saving us for later. They’re seeing to their needs tonight.”
A wild look swept over her. Unnatural. Her brown eyes gleamed, the dark centers dilating with an emotion he could not name. She shrugged out between him and the wall. Trembling, she edged away, reminding him of some woodland creature, eyes darting, her head cocked to the side as though she sensed . . . something.
He frowned. “What? What is it?” She couldn’t possibly hear the distant screams.
Chafing her arms, her shaking worsened. Jamming her eyes shut, she ground out, “N-nothing.”
He smelled it first. Then saw. Rich, wine-red blood escaped her nose in a seductive trickle.
His throat tightened, a wave of hunger washing over him. “You’re bleeding.”
She wiped at the sweet-smelling blood with the back of her hand. “It’s nothing.”
He licked dry lips. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she snapped, pressing her fingers to her nose. “Sometimes my nose bleeds. It’ll stop soon.” Opening her eyes, she looked up. Again, as if she knew more than she possibly could. As if she heard the sounds of death. Killing. Inhaling a steady breath, she fixed molten brown eyes on him. “How long have you been down here?” Her gaze scanned the scruffy growth of beard on his face.
“Long enough.” He drew away along the wall, eyes devouring her, the fruit of temptation that he must resist. He would resist.
Her eyes followed him.
“Why do you… fear me?” she whispered.
Her words—the truth—sliced through him. There was no denying he feared her. He feared her before he ever knew her, when Gunter told him she would be coming. He feared what she would do to him. Drive him over the brink, steal his soul…
But how did she know that?
Then he understood.
Incredible as it seemed, she could read his mind. Somehow. Some way. Maybe she was a witch. He knew they existed, one had started the lycan curse.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he lied.
He tried to clear his mind, to not think about the fear she roused. To not think about himself. About the beast that prowled inside him whose instinct refused to let him starve.
“Whatever.” Sighing, she chafed her hands harder along her arms, clearly attempting to warm herself against the room’s chill. She turned in a small circle, stopping to consider the window set high in the wall. Again. The window was narrow, not large enough for anybody to squeeze through.
“You won’t fit.”
She looked at him again. “I see that. What are we going to do, then?”
He dragged a ragged breath into his constricted lungs, battling her presence, battling the inner demon she awakened. “Do?”
“Yes, what’s the plan?” She took a step in his direction, bringing her sweet scent closer.
“The plan,” he gritted, sidling further away. A humorless smile twisted his mouth. Strange for him to fear her so much. He was stronger. More powerful. Experienced in ways this mortal—or witch—never could be. And still, she struck fear in the shadows of his heart. He would not become all that his mother feared and reviled.
“The plan is for you to keep your mouth shut. For you to stay on that side of the room and keep the hell away from me. Become invisible,” he demanded. “And just maybe you’ll live.”
And maybe he wouldn’t become the very thing he loathed and hunted.
6
Ruby watched the dark shape of the man over the tops of her bent knees. She flexed her fingers around her calves, locking her arms tighter, as if they were the only thing holding her together, keeping her from splintering apart.
Dark anguish rolled across the room like billowing smoke, stoking the core of her with a feeling she could not quite absorb… could not understand. Her stomach ached as it did whenever bombarded by too much emotion. Only it usually took a large group or crowd of people to affect her. Over the years, she had learned to block out individuals and small groups. But the feelings he emitted were too… much. Too intense. Too overwhelming.
She dropped her head against the cold stone wall at her back. Stay away from him? Right. Fat lot of good that did. She felt him. Every strange, twisted emotion roiling inside him. Feelings that reminded her of the beasts upstairs—lycans, he claimed. And yet not. Different. Less frightening but—crazy as it sounded—equally dangerous.
The strongest emotion he emitted was fear. Acerbic and nonstop, the bitter tang of it coated her mouth. Instead of making him weak, it only made him more dangerous. Unpredictable.
Before she could reconsider, she whispered into the still of the room, “Why can’t we talk?” Because she needed to talk, needed to connect with someone amid this nightmare.
His bowed head snapped up. His eyes glittered at her from across the shadowed distance. Even in the darkness, she was careful to train her gaze on his bearded face. A handsome face, she thought. It was hard to tell. She knew he was naked, but in the darkness she could at least pretend not to know.
“What do you want to talk about? What can you possibly say that I want to hear? Want to share your sad story with me? Well, forget it. Everyone’s got a sad story, and I don’t need to hear yours.”
She bit the inside of her cheek at his scathing tone and glanced away. His accent was faint, the intonation indecipherable but nothing she had heard in these parts. He wasn’t Turkish, though. She felt sure of that. The harsh rasp of his breath filled the stretch of silence.
Inhaling, she faced him again. “You’ve clearly been down here awhile.” She swallowed. “Like it or not, we’re all we have right now.”
He laughed, the sound terrible… the humor within him foul and awful. “I don’t like it. Before, I just had my neck to look out for. Now I have yours, too.”
Indignation swept through. “By all means, let me relieve you of your obligation to look out for me.”
His lips curled back from his teeth to reveal a flash of straight white teeth. “I’m just that kind of guy. Call me old-fashioned.”
She snorted. “I’m used to looking out for myself. I have no expectations that you’re going to rescue me.”
“As you said, we’re stuck here. Together.” A deep sigh rattled loose from him. “Hell.” His arm lifted and she squinted into the gloom as he dragged a hand through his short-cropped hair, scratching fiercely at his head. “Very well. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
Wariness rippled through her. Even as he asked the question, she sensed he didn’t want to know anything about her. He didn’t want to know her. Caginess and dislike seeped from him. “Suddenly you’re interested?”
He sighed again, and she felt a ne
w emotion rise. Something resembling desperation. “To pass the time, sure. Go ahead. Talk. Tell me how you came to be here.” He hesitated. “Tell me who you are.” His desperation reached across to her, a toxic fume. Urgent and grim. So much that she felt inclined to appease him.
“My name is Ruby Deveraux.”
“You’re American. What are you doing in Turkey?”
She rubbed her aching temples. “It’s complicated.”
“We’ve got time.”
“I volunteered to act as a chaperone for a group of foster kids. They got a grant for this trip but needed chaperones that could pay their own way…” her voice faded. Those details weren’t important.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he muttered. “You’re some sort of damn Mary Poppins?”
“I’m not—”
“Right.”
“Hardly. I just…” she paused for breath. “I was a foster kid. After my mother died. This is something I wanted to do. It’s not my job or anything.”
“Oh, not a job. You’re a true altruist, then. Yeah. Not Poppins at all.” He made a low, animal-like sound in his throat. “So what do you do when you’re not escorting lost little souls through Europe?”
“I own a catering business.” Work she loved, a vocation she could do in the safety of her home, private, alone, hidden from the world except during the brief time she emerged to deliver her food. And cooking made her feel better, connected to the mother who loved her as no one else had. The best moments of her life were of them in the kitchen. Baking cookies, fresh fruit cobblers. Crawdaddies in the sink. A big pot of gumbo on the stove.
“What kind of food?”
“Down-home. Southern. Barbecue. Some fusion. I’m not classically trained, but cooking is something I picked up from my mother and kept at after she died. After high school, culinary school just made sense.”
“And how old were you when your mother died?”
“Fourteen.”
“And you were in foster care after that?”
The skin of her face tightened at the memory of those years. “Yeah. Only four years. Not like some kids stuck in child services all of their youth.” She swallowed down the tightness in her throat as she recalled Amy and Emily. Amy. She jammed her eyes closed against the pain. Amy wasn’t stuck in foster care anymore.
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