Gifted - The 5 Book Paranormal Romance Box Set

by Amira Rain

  With that, Cole swiftly exited the room and shut the door behind him.

  Immediately, I flew over to it and tried to open it. "Wait! Why do you keep saying that?" I found the door already locked from the outside, and I pounded on it several times, suddenly desperate to get an answer. "Why do you keep saying that I'm having your child?" Receiving no answer, I rattled the doorknob. "Please open up and answer me!"

  When I again received no response and the door remained locked, I turned and leaned my back against it with a horrifying thought growing in my mind. Maybe I'd guessed wrong about Cole not having violated me while I'd been passed out, or sleeping, or whatever had happened to me after the battle. Maybe he had, and for whatever reason, he was certain that he'd already gotten me pregnant. When I'd woken up, though, I hadn't seen or felt any evidence he had raped me. I hadn't seen any evidence of bodily fluids, hadn't felt any pain, and hadn't felt any vague, slight feeling of having been a bit stretched like I sometimes did after intercourse. Though maybe that, I reasoned, could be explained if Cole's male member was small. Which would also partially explain why I hadn't woken during some kind of an assault. Maybe I'd just hardly felt anything. Though still, despite the fact that I'd been out cold, it just seemed like I would have at least stirred upon feeling anything of any size touching me in an intimate area. Not to mention that it seemed like I should have at least come around when Cole undressed and then re-dressed me, which he would have had to have done in order to assault me.

  Obviously, I had to get some clarification and I was intent on getting that clarification over dinner. He couldn't shut a door on me then.

  After finding a hair dryer and a brush in the bathroom, I dried and brushed my dark auburn hair, which took a bit of time, since my hair was just a few inches from waist-length, and fairly thick, too. Then, looking for some face lotion for my typically dry skin, I rummaged through the bag of toiletries, finding several makeup items, which disgusted me for some reason, I supposed just because the idea that I might want to make myself as attractive as possible for my possible rapist struck me as an offensive, sickening one. After pushing the makeup items to the side, I found some face lotion, took it out, and applied some to my skin while muttering something about Cole being a complete sicko.

  Next, I left the bathroom and rummaged through the walk-in closet in the bedroom, finding an entire wardrobe of clothes in my size, and then some. There was probably enough clothing that I could wear a new outfit every day for several months, which made me think Cole planned to keep me as a prisoner indefinitely, which I supposed I'd already known anyway.

  After perusing the racks and shelves of clothes, seeing that some of them were maternity clothes, I decided to just wear jeans, a long-sleeved, coal-gray t-shirt, and tennis shoes to dinner. I didn't want to look like I was aiming to please Cole in any way, like I might if I wore any of the dressy tops or dresses in the closet. Not to mention that he himself had only been dressed in battered jeans and a t-shirt when he'd been in my room, and something about how he'd told me I could even wear pajamas to dinner if I wanted to told me that he wasn't going to change into anything dressier, so I didn't think I should have to, either. So, jeans and a drab, long-sleeved t-shirt it was. The t-shirt was even fairly baggy, which made me happy. I was decidedly on the busty side, with a smallish waist and well-rounded hips, and I didn't want Cole to be able to clearly see the outline of my figure over dinner and take any pleasure from it.

  I'd just finished dressing when I heard a knock on the bedroom door. Having a sudden thought, I flew into the bathroom, grabbed a ponytail holder, and twisted my hair up into a very hastily-done, not-very-pretty messy bun. I didn't want Cole to experience any pleasure from looking at my hair, either. When I emerged from the bathroom and went over to the bedroom door, I found it unlocked; so I opened it, thinking Cole had at least had the courtesy to allow me to answer my own bedroom door, instead of just barging right on in, like he'd done while I'd been in the shower. Even though it apparently was his own house and I supposed he could do whatever he wanted in it, something about that had rankled me.

  Somewhat to my surprise, I saw that he'd changed clothes and was now wearing dark jeans and a navy blue Oxford shirt open at the collar. This struck me as maybe strange that he'd decided to dress up just a bit for dinner, like maybe he wanted to impress me by making himself as attractive as possible. I wouldn't have thought that a possible rapist would care exactly what I thought about him.

  However, this thought was fleeting, immediately becoming replaced by another thought. Cole was a devastatingly attractive man; I couldn't deny that he was, even though I felt like I wanted to. His looks had registered when I'd seen him in the chair bedside, dressed in battered jeans and a t-shirt, but now, seeing him more dressed up, with the cut of his tailored shirt accentuating his broad shoulders, his looks were registering on an even deeper level, despite the fact that I didn't want them to.

  I wanted to find Cole ugly. I wanted to find him hideous. It made me vaguely unsettled that I didn't, because I didn't want his good looks to somehow cause me to feel any sympathy or warmth toward him, because clearly he didn't deserve either. Even if he hadn't assaulted me while I'd been passed out, even if his saying that I was pregnant with his child was just some sort of a bizarre joke, he had abducted me from the battlefield, which in itself was more than enough cause to treat him with absolute coldness and hostility.

  He asked me if I was ready to head down to the dining room, and I said yes, curtly, while trying to pull my gaze from his dark hair. Thick, longish, and wavy to the point of being borderline curly, it was the kind of hair that almost begged to have fingers wound in it. They sure as hell wouldn't ever be mine, though. I couldn't imagine what woman would want to tangle her fingers in his hair, unless it was a profoundly disturbed woman who liked men who kidnapped women, possibly assaulted women, and kept saying something about a pregnancy that had zero basis in reality. I was pretty sure about that zero basis in reality, anyway. Even if Cole had violated me while I was sleeping, which made me shudder just to think about, he couldn't possibly have knowledge of an instant pregnancy. Especially since it was my understanding that it sometimes took days after intercourse for fertilization and pregnancy to actually happen.

  While he led me down a long, dimly lit hallway, Cole said he may as well give me a brief tour of the house along the way, and since my extreme hunger had abated somewhat, I didn't protest. I was really curious to see exactly what kind of a house I was in. I was also curious to see who else might be in it, like if there were other women being held prisoner in the house or something.

  Gesturing back down the hallway, Cole said that there were two master bedrooms in this wing of the house. "Right now, one is yours, and one is mine. They're right next to each other, with other bedrooms on either side, though those are empty."

  "So, no one else lives in this house right now?"

  "No one except us and Mary-Alice, and her living quarters are up on the second floor."

  So, I thought, at least he wasn't keeping a large number of innocent women as sex slaves, although it seemed that I would soon be one. It hadn't been lost on me that Cole had said right now one of the master bedrooms was mine and one was his. Which I took to mean that eventually, maybe even very soon, one wouldn't be mine and one wouldn't be his because we'd be sharing a room; presumably, so he could do whatever he wanted to me sexually without even having to take a few steps down the hallway.

  Unless, I thought, it was possible I was reading the whole situation of my captivity completely wrong. Maybe because of all the upset and upheaval I'd endured that day, or for the past few weeks since becoming a Gifted, maybe I was just being paranoid. Maybe Cole just had a really twisted sense of humor, and that accounted for his pregnancy comments. Maybe he hadn't violated me and didn't intend to, and instead just wanted to use me for my Gifted skills. And perhaps I'd taken his right now before saying what he had about the bedrooms the wrong way. Perhaps he'd only said w
hat he had thinking that eventually, I might want to select a bedroom on the second floor of the house or something.

  I had to know right then.

  When we neared the end of the long, tile-floored hallway, I surprised myself with my boldness by grabbing one of Cole's hard, muscular arms to stop him. "Wait a second. Just tell me...did you kidnap me because you're going to try to make me fight for you and your Angels?"

  Several electric hurricane lamps with double glass domes in various shades of amber, red, and gold illuminated the wide hallway, sitting atop small tables of polished dark wood, and the glow from these lamps allowed me to see Cole's expression clearly.

  In response to my question, he just looked at me for a moment as if I was a bit crazy. "No." With a deepening frown, he continued looking directly into my eyes. "I'd never put you in harm's way."

  So, that was it, then. He hadn't abducted me for my Gifted skills, he'd abducted me just to be some kind of a personal sex slave for him. I suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. Shaky and rubber-legged, the only thing I wanted was to run.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I knew I couldn't run from Cole. Rather, I knew that I could, but I wouldn't get very far, probably not even three feet. As he'd suspected earlier, the idea of trying to harm him with my Gifted powers in order to flee had crossed my mind, but I'd decided against it. Having only practiced my powers a couple of times, and having only participated in one battle, I was still too new of a Gifted, and I wasn't dumb enough to think otherwise. I knew that me trying to use my powers against Cole would probably only result in me receiving a painful return zap before being placed in "solitary confinement" for however long, a thought that chilled me to my core. Then, not only would I probably never be able to escape, I'd also probably never see another person besides Cole, which I was pretty sure would drive me insane in short order.

  With his bizarre, twisted sense of humor, along with what he clearly planned to do to me, if he hadn't already, I was sure he was the kind of person who could quickly make a person doubt themselves and their own sanity. So, instead of zapping and running, even though I desperately wanted to, I just removed my hand from his forearm and quietly said I was ready to continue with the rest of the house tour.

  After studying my face briefly, Cole continued down the hallway, staring straight ahead. "I meant what I said, Lauren...I'd never put you in harm's way."

  I said nothing, didn't even glance at him, thinking that maybe that was true in a sense, that maybe he'd never put me in a position to where I could be harmed by another person. I guessed he probably wanted me "unspoiled." But whether he could stop from harming me himself, that was another matter, I figured.

  The hallway opened up into a vast, marble-floored foyer, and it was here that he paused, gesturing to a beautiful staircase with a bannister made of ornately-carved polished dark wood. "These stairs lead up to the second floor, of course, though I think we can skip that part of the tour for now. I know you're hungry, and there's not really much to see up there...just a lot of spare bedrooms. They were all filled until five months or so ago, when I became leader of New Bad Axe, but I decided there was really no need for me to have a staff of seven full-time servants. Now some of them just come in weekly to help Mary-Alice with the cleaning and give her some time off on the weekends. Really, I'd like her to take off more time than that, but she refuses. I think she likes staying busy."

  "And why didn't you feel that you wanted all the servants?" I really hadn't even consciously thought about asking the question, it had just kind of tumbled right out of my mouth. But now I couldn't deny I was curious to hear Cole's answer. It just seemed to me that any Angel leader would want all the servants he could possibly have, maybe as a way to bolster a sense of self-importance.

  For the second time in as many minutes, Cole just looked at me as if I were a bit crazy. "Well, frankly, the idea of one person requiring seven, full-time, live-in servants just struck me as a little ridiculous. I can only eat so many meals a day, and I can only produce so much laundry. I guess the cleaning of the house is a different story, though...in fact, the house itself has always struck me as a little ridiculous."

  "Don't you like it?"

  Surveying the vast foyer, with its black-and-white marble flooring, ornate dark woodwork, and red-domed electric hurricane lamps much larger than those in the hallway, Cole just shrugged. "Although it's a beautiful house in its own way, there's always been something that just doesn't sit right with me about it...something that just doesn't fit. Maybe it's just not my style. I didn't build it, you know. It was built by Eric Winthrop, who was the second, or maybe third, leader here after Dylan's Darringer's death. He sunk four large motorboats in the process of hauling several tons of marble across Saginaw Bay. Kind of absurd." Pausing, Cole returned his gaze to my face. "I realize that there was a need for new homes here in the beginning, since Bad Axe was essentially razed to the ground during the first year of the Takeover, but I guess I would have designed something different."

  "What kind of a house would you have designed?" I couldn't believe I'd asked the question, as if I actually cared about what kind of a house my abductor and possible rapist would have designed. But again, the question had just seemed to burst from my mouth.

  I felt like it was already happening, the thing I feared: Cole's devastating good looks causing me to lower my guard around him. I knew I had to bring my guard back up, and fast, before the lowering of it made me feel any kind of a connection with Cole. Having heard some about Paulina's experiences while with Dylan Darringer and the Angels, I knew all about Stockholm Syndrome, knew all about how it could make a person feel some sense of a bond with a captor. Determined to not let this happen to me, I resolved not to ask Cole any more questions. However, being that I couldn't un-ask the one I just had, I had to stand, listening, while he responded.

  "I guess I might have designed a house more in line with the natural, forested surroundings of this community...a multi-story log cabin, maybe...large and very spacious, but not unnecessarily so. I would have designed a structure less like a mansion, and more like a home. One where our child—"

  "Stop it. Just stop. You've really taken your sick little joke far too far."

  "It's not a joke, Lauren. You're having my child. You're already pregnant with him or her."

  Looking into Cole's eyes and seeing how they radiated complete sincerity, I realized he was either completely stark-raving mad and fully believed his own delusions, or he had violated me while I'd been out. Or both.

  "Tell me what you did to me...tell me right this second. What did you do to me while I was sleeping?"

  Drawing his dark brows together, he frowned. "I didn't do anything to you, at least not anything along the lines of what you're implying. I did, however, carry you into the house, remove your shoes, and cover you with a blanket."

  "You're a damned liar."

  "I'm not...and if I were you, I might remember that I'm speaking to the leader of the New Bad Axe Angels...a man who didn't become leader for nothing."

  "And what's that supposed to mean? You're...you're threatening violence against me? You're going to hit me or something?"

  Angry and scared at the same time, I felt like it was a real possibility he might. And considering how muscular, well-built, and tall Cole was, I was pretty sure a single blow from him could send me rocketing across the foyer.

  He just gave his head a quick shake, though, snorting. "No. I'm not threatening violence against you, and I'm not going to hit you. I am, however, demanding you speak to me with respect in my own home, and that includes not calling me a damned liar."

  A bit relieved, I exhaled as discreetly as I could, realizing I'd been holding my breath. "Or else what? Or else you'll do what, then, if I don't speak to you with respect in your own home?"

  Cole's expression didn't mirror any of the anger I was still feeling. In fact, his expression was completely neutral, maddeningly so to me for some reason. "Or else I'll tell Mary-Alice that you'll
be taking your dinner in your room, which is where you'll remain until you're ready to speak to me with respect in my own home."

  Furious, I snorted. "Oh, just like a naughty little girl grounded for disrespect, huh? Is that how it would be?"

  Expression still completely neutral, Cole didn't hesitate in his response. "Yes. Exactly."

  I wanted to zap him. Wanted to zap him until he was smoldering, with smoke curling out from both of his ears. I was determined not to be forced to eat dinner in my room like a grounded little girl, though, which I was pretty sure would be the result of me trying to zap Cole. For some reason, I felt like I'd rather die than have him "ground" me.

  So, mustering every last shred of my self-control, I took a deep breath and responded with my itchy zapping palms at my sides. "Fine, then. I'll try to speak to you with more respect, but respect is a two-way street, you know. You have to speak to me with more respect, too."

  "All right...fair enough. But just so I'm clear about how I might do that, please help me by pointing out examples of exactly how I've spoken to you disrespectfully."

  A bit thrown, I realized that I wasn't quite prepared to point out specific examples, mainly because I wasn't sure if I could think of any. Stalling for time, I slowly folded my arms across my chest, struggling to keep my gaze on Cole's face.

  "Well...well, I guess it's just your tone that's been disrespectful. I don't appreciate the commanding sort of tone you've taken with me a few times."

  "Well...that's unfortunate, because I do tend to take a 'commanding sort of tone' at times, when I feel I need to, and I don't think that's ever going to change. However, I don't think the act of taking a 'commanding sort of tone' is, in and of itself, disrespectful. So, what other specific examples do you have of me speaking to you disrespectfully?"