Far from it.
She was on concrete ground. Either she’d had one hell of a night of partying or something was amiss. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening. The last thing she remembered was leaving the fraternity house and then something had stung her neck.
“No,” she said softly, her voice a hoarse whisper, adding to the feeling of having been out partying too much the night prior. She moved to her hands and knees, worried she’d be sick at any moment if she didn’t. Breathing slowly through her nose didn’t help. The smell of the area she was in was heavy with mold and a scent she couldn’t identify. It took a bit to calm her stomach. The wave of nausea subsided enough to try to focus more. As she did the reality of her situation hit her hard.
“I didn’t get stung,” the words came out harsh and scratchy, as if she’d spent the night before screaming.
It had been a dart she’d pulled from her neck. Everything had gone blank after that. She concentrated more and an image of the man who’d set her on edge from the fraternity party came to mind. The one with the empty eyes and the thoughts she’d found difficult to block.
A sick feeling settled in her stomach as she lifted her head slowly, taking in her surroundings. Bare cement block walls, crowding her in a space that couldn’t have been more than eight by eight. There was a thick, rusty metal door before her. Long gashes were gouged in it, just under a window section that had bars in place of glass.
Alice pushed to her feet, this time slowly. It took her a moment to understand the gashes were claw marks. Someone had tried to escape the room before. She wasn’t the first person to be held in the cell. Somehow that did little to set her mind at ease. She reached for her phone in her back pocket only to realize it was gone. Of course it was.
What self-respecting criminal would leave her with a way to call for help?
She grunted and then patted herself down quickly, assessing if she was injured. There were long, dark bruises on her arms and her torso. It looked as if she’d been lashed or bound.
Absolute clarity came over her as she realized what the marks were from—a chain. Suddenly, a pang of sadness hit her hard, the feeling not for herself, but for someone else, though she wasn’t sure who. All she did know was someone had been beaten severely and it was someone close to her.
From the looks of it, she’d been struck as well.
The clothing she’d been wearing at the party was missing, replaced by a dark gray tank top and a pair of teal-colored bottoms that reminded her of something a doctor or nurse would wear. Her sandals were gone as well. She was left standing in her stocking feet on the hard concrete floor. Her mind ran every scenario it could think of as to why her clothing was missing; none were good.
There was no way to tell how long she’d been unconscious, or what had happened to her during it all, but the rising need to feed her succubus side soon indicated a good deal of time had passed or her body had suffered trauma. Both would require her to nourish her succubus side and soon. The sick feeling in her stomach returned at the idea of being left no choice but to feed from the asshole from the party, who she strongly suspected was behind her being in the cell.
She’d rather go hungry.
And she might if no one came.
The only positive to it all was that if that part of her needed to feed it meant no one had touched her sexually without her permission. So far that was the only light in her otherwise dark situation.
There was a small drain in the center of the floor and the surrounding floor level sloped towards it. She’d seen enough horror movies to know how drains in the floors of screwed up cells ended. As her mind raced with all the reasons there might be a drain there—none of them good—she bit back the urge to panic, to allow all sense of reason and rational thinking to abandon her.
Losing her mind wouldn’t help matters. She had to keep her wits about her, figure out where she was, why she was there and better yet, how to escape. She made her way to the door and did her best to see if there was any weak spot. Even a hinge that she could possibly pry loose. There was nothing. When that failed, Alice searched all the corners of the cell, hoping to find a way to break out or something she could use as a weapon should the person holding her return.
She stilled as she thought about both scenarios. The person returning and what would happen if they never did. Neither outlook was one she wanted to face. Every ounce of her wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but she was stronger than that. Her father liked to say her hair color matched her temper—fiery.
Returning to the door, she pushed and pulled to no avail, but that didn’t stop her. She put her fingers to the gash marks and had to calm herself when she realized the person held before her who had left them had her sized hands.
A woman’s hands.
She gulped.
What kind of sick rabbit hole had she fallen down? And worse yet, what was yet to come?
The door to the cell opened and the jerk who had been at the fraternity party entered, looking altogether too pleased with himself. “Getting comfy, lil’ succubus?”
She tensed.
He made a move to come at her and she scrambled backwards, wanting to avoid being any closer to him than she already was. His laughter echoed around the cell, grating on her nerves.
Another man entered the cell behind him, this one even taller than the other, but pale. Very pale.
Her succubus did its version of a hiss, warning her not to try to feed from the newcomer. There was something very wrong with him. His skin had a grayish hue to it and looked clammy. He eyed her for a second and then looked to the man from the party. “Bart, Felix wants the samples the lab took of this one hand-delivered to him at his place. He has plans for her.”
Bart? The jerk who took her was named Bart? Figures. And what samples?
Bart’s lip curled. “He’s had a hard-on for getting a succubus back through the doors for years now, Nile.”
Nile shrugged. “I stopped trying to figure out why. Do you want to run the samples over or should I?”
“Have Ezra do it,” said Bart, his disturbing gaze never leaving Alice.
She swallowed hard, already knowing she didn’t want to be left alone with him. And who was Ezra?
Nile paled more, if that was even possible. “You tell Ezra.”
Bart squared his shoulders. “Dragon shifters don’t scare me.”
“Well, they do me,” added Nile, wiping sweat from his brow.
Bart looked him over as if he was smelling something that had gone bad. “I told you not to let those scientists do any tests on you.”
Nile took a shallow breath. “They said they’d make me stronger and faster.”
Sniffing, Bart curled his lip more. “They put some vampire in your makeup. Now you smell like you're rotting from the inside out. I think you’re rejecting what they did. I warned you.”
Nile’s gaze lowered. “They said they can fix it.”
Snorting, Bart faced the other man. “And you believe them? Fuck, look at the concoctions they spit out of this place. I wouldn’t let them treat a common cold let alone test on me.”
Nile glanced at Alice again, but didn’t look away, his gaze settling on her in a way that left her feeling even more uneasy than she already did. His tongue darted out and over his lower lip in a suggestive manner, and her succubus hissed again.
Bart laughed. “You need to go feed. There are extra humans in the end cell. They’re all lumped together. I grabbed some for Felix in case he comes by. Just pick from the girls. You know how he prefers to feed from men.”
Nile nodded, but didn’t look away from her. The more he fixated on her, the more her succubus reacted violently within her. “I could just take a small sample from this one.”
Bart put a hand on Nile’s chest. “No can do. Felix wants her for some reason. Mark her up and he’ll end you and me both. Trust me, I want her too, but not to eat. Well, not to feed from, that is.”
Even Alice’s suc
cubus wanted to be sick. The inner harlot didn’t want anything to do with Bart or Nile, and Alice was on board with that. Suddenly, the college guys seemed very appealing in comparison.
Nile pointed to her arms. “She’s already all marked up. Did you hear about what happened?”
Bart eyed her slowly. “Bitch started sprouting bruises and whip marks on her while she was sedated in the infirmary room. Thank the gods the cameras in there were on and recording or Felix would have killed me. He’d have thought I did it. But I didn’t touch her. No one did.”
“I heard she was crying out for some guy,” said Nile. “That true?”
“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. I was more worried about Felix than what she was mumbling. Something about unchaining some guy and leaving him be. I don’t know. Bitch is crazy.”
She soaked in all of what they were saying. She’d really just had bruises appear on her at random while she was out cold? Who would she have been crying out for? She didn’t know anyone who was chained up. Did she?
Chapter Five
“Yeah, eat me, jerk!”
Ezra sighed as he heard one of the newer arrivals antagonizing one of the other guards again. The spitfire redhead who had been brought in nearly two weeks back was proving to be more trouble than not for those trying to hold her. Ezra liked that about the young woman, liked that she gave as good as she got, but it would undoubtedly be what would get her killed. If she continued to cause such a fuss and stir, she’d suffer an “accident” at the hands of the guards. Oh, the guards would make it look like it was unavoidable and had nothing to do with them, but everyone knew the truth. They might be reprimanded by the vampire in charge, or they might not. It would depend on the man’s mood.
Ezra had seen the men who worked with him pull the stunt on more than one occasion. Normally, it was with male prisoners. Since he’d gone deep undercover with the organization, this was a first time Ezra could recall a woman being such a problem for the men. At least that he’d been made aware of.
He’d have laughed if he wasn’t so concerned for her well-being. He’d overheard two of the guards talking about what they planned to do to her as soon as they got some alone time with her. The men were perverted and the stronger of the two, Bart, was obsessed with the redhead. Nile, the sickly vampire who palled around with Bart, pretty much just wanted to use the woman as a blood bank.
While Ezra’s mission was to gather information on the underground supernatural trafficking rings and do nothing to stop the activity, he couldn’t let the woman—Alice—be subjected to the whims of Bart and Nile. They were two of the more vile creatures he’d met since being pulled into this current bad-guy fold.
Ezra couldn’t risk his cover or the mission by reaching out to his contacts for help. Too much was at stake. The information he was collecting would help to bring down some of the major rings, but not if the ring leaders packed up camp and ran, or if they killed him first. Either was possible if he risked his cover.
Alice was unique. Ezra’s first encounter with her had been several days after she’d been brought in. Felix, the vampire who ran this particular trafficking ring, had been on the hunt for a young succubus. Ezra had first assumed the man wanted to sell her, as he did nearly every supernatural brought in. He’d hold secret auctions, and sometimes all of the bidding was done via the internet, the buyers viewing what they were bidding on by web camera only. Other times Felix would host a large-scale auction event where all the attendees were dressed in their best, fancy foods were served, and it felt like a wonderful night out. All except for the fact that men and women were brought in, often in cages on wheels, to be sold to the highest bidder.
The entire thing sickened Ezra.
After learning Alice was far more than just another succubus, Ezra found out Felix had bigger plans for her. The vampire intended to try to breed her, hoping to gain multiple subjects to auction off, rather than just one. He fucking hated Felix and every bastard who worked for him. Well, everyone except Caesar who was also an undercover agent with PSI. Caesar was currently pulling shifts at one of the sister sites about an hour’s drive from Ezra’s facility. Both places held supernaturals against their will, but the other place wasn’t filled to the brim with sicko scientists who got a thrill out of doing tests on the people brought in.
This one was.
In his capacity as a doctor, Ezra had been to medical school and had obtained some type of medical instruction, depending on the century, more times than he could actually recall in his immortally long life. But then losing count of the finer details on his life was par for the course with living as long as he had. It was necessary to reinvent himself every so many decades to throw off human suspicions. It didn’t matter what invented persona he took, he always ended up back in the field of medicine in some form or fashion. He liked helping people and he hated what the sick bastards working for Felix did. Some of the scientists and doctors had been fired from an even worse place called the Corporation. That organization, independent from the one he was currently undercover with, was huge, their reach extending to all the corners of the globe. Their pockets were deep and their depravity was even deeper.
The very fact that the doctors working with Ezra now had been let go for being too harsh, or too cruel for the Corporation spoke volumes to just how twisted the men were. Ezra hadn’t let on he had medical training or was more qualified than any person in the entire ring. That wasn’t his cover, nor the mission. His cover was a simple guard. One who happened to advance quickly, but a guard nonetheless. This left him, for the most part, powerless to stop the atrocities that happened in the labs.
Alice was up next. She was scheduled for insemination soon—that was if and only if she survived what Bart and Nile had planned for her. Unable to stomach the idea of losing anyone else to the bastards, Ezra pivoted and marched into a director’s office. This one was in charge of who went where and who had what done to them.
He looked around, assuring he was alone, before he pulled up Alice’s information on the computer. He removed the scheduled insemination information and changed it out with a transfer request to the sister facility Caesar was at. It wasn’t freedom for the young redhead, but it would buy Ezra some time to formulate a way to get her out fully without putting his cover at risk.
He closed out everything on the computer and left the office, hoping no one had seen him. Walking with purpose, he headed in the direction of Alice’s cell. He found a guard stumbling out of the room, cupping himself as he bent forward, tears in his eyes.
“What happened?” demanded Ezra.
The guard twisted and then expelled the contents of his stomach in the hallway. After several deep breaths, he looked up, his eyes rimmed with tears. “The bitch kicked me in the balls.”
“And she’ll do it again!” shouted Alice from her cell. “No means no, jerk.”
Pleased Alice had defended herself, Ezra hid his smile and touched the guard’s shoulder. “Head to the infirmary. I’ll handle her. She’s being transferred anyways.”
The man nodded. “Good. She’s fucking crazy.”
Ezra bit back a laugh as the guard limped away. When he was sure the man was gone for good, he entered Alice’s cell and found her with her arms crossed in front of her, her hip cocked to one side and an expression that said she was incredibly proud of herself.
Total trouble, he thought.
She winked. “Thanks.”
He clucked his tongue on his cheek. “I assumed I’d managed to block your ability to read my thoughts.”
She shrugged. “I hear it quieter in my head now, but it’s not fully gone yet.”
He’d been surprised the first time she’d let on about her ability to connect with others mentally. She’d read that he was working undercover and that he was unhappy with what he was witnessing. And she trusted him because of it.
She also possessed a good deal of Fae in her genetic makeup, as he discovered by reading her chart. The little troublemaker didn�
��t realize it yet, but she was able to wield magik with the levels of Fae in her. Ezra wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her. She was hard enough to handle as it was. They didn’t need magik coming into play as well.
“Come on,” he said, putting his hand out to her. “You’re being moved.”
She eyed him and then glanced around the room. “Something bad is going to happen and you want to try to move me to safety, right?”
“Alice?”
She stiffened. “If you’re wondering if I got that from you mentally, no. I didn’t. I put it together on my own. Bart and Nile don’t know to block their thoughts from me, and trust me when I say they’re planning to do something really bad.”
His chest tightened. “I know. Come on. We need to get you transported.”
“I’ll be there alone?”
The fear in her voice moved him. “No, kiddo, I’ll find a way to stay close. Then we’ll get you to freedom. Sound like a plan?”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Six
Brad paced the cell that had become the newest in a long string of them, his body on edge. He was no stranger to being held prisoner. He wasn’t sure of the exact timeframe that he’d been held in total, as he rarely saw glimpses of sunlight, or was able to track days, but it was probably a year—or close to it, since he’d been captured while on the trip in South America.
He’d played that fateful day over and over in his head during his time in captivity, always coming back to the same certainty. He’d been betrayed by Professor Krauss and he was pretty sure Vepkhia had been involved. Brad had to wonder if anything he and Vic had been told about PSI was real, or if the organization was simply made up to lure them into a false sense of security before grabbing them and testing on them.
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